I just saw this movie. As a long time comics fan I had to get to the bottom of what all the critical controversy is about. Let me just say I really enjoyed this movie. It was fun, it was entertaining, it was a COMIC BOOK MOVIE!
It really disturbs me that all the news this film is getting is for how Rotten Tomatoes gives it something like a 28%. There is no way, in the known Universe that a movie with Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Killer Croc fighting evil can be as bad as critics say!
IT'S not!!! I loved it!!
No, it didn't change my life. No, it's not the best SuperHero movie. No, it won't win any awards. Yes, there were some flaws. Yes, it had opportunities to be better and didn't seize the chance. But again, was it entertaining? Yes. Do you get to see comic book characters kick butt on the big screen? Yes. Is it as bad as critics claim? Not even close.
I give it a 92 /A-
Seeing Harley and Joker together is worth the price of admission. Deadshot, Diablo, and Katana were stand outs for me. The 2hrs flew by. The movie theater was packed and everyone left smiling and looked pleased. I thought we were supposed to hate this movie?
It makes me wonder if the backlash against RT being rigged may have some validity.
Curious for thoughts and other reviews.

The DCEU is going through a tough time right now and just doesn't seem to be clicking with critics and audiences.

Lets be honest, Batman v Superman should be a film that grosses easily over a billion, but it didn't.

Warner Brothers' style is just not translating well, that's the only thing I can think of to explain what is going on.

Also, RT is just an aggregation of reviews, so I highly doubt there is a vast conspiracy against this movie universe.

I feel as though Warner Brothers is doing a rush job in establishing a Universe without taking to develop characters.

Batman V Superman is a combination of 4 or 5 films in 1 and rushes to introduce heavy hitters in order to get the Justice League going. Death and Return of Superman should have been its own film, but they wasted a comic classic (a cultural phenomenon when it happened) and turned it into a plot device.

RT lost a lot of credibility with me for not skewering that miserable Ghostbusters reboot.

I'd been looking forward to Suicide Squad for a while and expected it to be great and was super disappointed to see it scoring so poorly on rotten tomatoes. I went to see it anyways and expected it to be bad based on the reviews but ended up loving it. it wasn't perfect but I thought it was really good and don't get how it has such a low RT score.

I thought the same thing about B v. S and didn't even see it for a while had a similar opinion as the OP did about suicide squad. I still think Marvel is kicking DC's ace (and WB as mentioned) but have been okay with the direction things are going. Just wish there was more continuity more than anything else.

Save us Geoff Johns

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DC has done such a terrible job on their comic movies that i'll be waiting until this one hits the redbox.

I watched it last night in a packed theater. My wife andbI thought it was great! No, it's not the movie of ten-year, but it's very entertaining and worth the movie ticket. I'd love to see a movie with the Joker and Harley Quinn as the main villains. Jared Leto might be a better joker than Heath Ledger. This is definitely going to be a critics vs movie goers type movie. Movie goers have it at like 4.5 stars right now. The critics can suck it.

(08-05-2016 09:26 AM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  I watched it last night in a packed theater. My wife andbI thought it was great! No, it's not the movie of ten-year, but it's very entertaining and worth the movie ticket. I'd love to see a movie with the Joker and Harley Quinn as the main villains. Jared Leto might be a better joker than Heath Ledger. This is definitely going to be a critics vs movie goers type movie. Movie goers have it at like 4.5 stars right now. The critics can suck it.

Really?

(08-05-2016 12:40 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  I thought the same thing about B v. S and didn't even see it for a while had a similar opinion as the OP did about suicide squad. I still think Marvel is kicking DC's ace (and WB as mentioned) but have been okay with the direction things are going. Just wish there was more continuity more than anything else.

I agree with you about Marvel. They've gotten the Disney formula down now. They can make the same movie with a different hero and people will love it! They've even gotten to the point where they can explore different styles (Deadpool) to see what sticks and what won't, all because they know that a flop can be countered with another traditional setup the next time around. DC sets up an overall darker movie setting and so that formula will be harder to come by for them. That along with them coming into the game kind of late and pushing thru isn't going to help them. But they are slowly pushing in the right direction imo

(08-05-2016 09:38 AM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:26 AM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  I watched it last night in a packed theater. My wife andbI thought it was great! No, it's not the movie of ten-year, but it's very entertaining and worth the movie ticket. I'd love to see a movie with the Joker and Harley Quinn as the main villains. Jared Leto might be a better joker than Heath Ledger. This is definitely going to be a critics vs movie goers type movie. Movie goers have it at like 4.5 stars right now. The critics can suck it.

Really?

I mean... It's subject to opinion of course, but if he gets a movie where he is the dedicated antagonist, I wouldn't be shocked at all. He did well in this movie considering his limited agenda.

(08-05-2016 09:04 AM)panama Wrote:  Save us Geoff Johns

Fair warning: Severe geeking out to follow.

I wish I could have faith in him to do that. I hope he's a smart enough guy to realize what hasn't been working and get things on the right course. It looks like he's capable of this based on his input into the DC Rebirth initiiative in the comics, which has really turned the brand around (as much as it bugs me that a foundational concept to the story is: That black Wally West? Yeah, not the real Wally West...).

Based on his storytelling, though...I don't know. In building his following, he's relied so much on just referencing past DC continuity, and I dont know that that will fly in a movie universe. And he's no stranger to ridiculously, unnecessarily dark plot points (e.g. a murderous Superboy-Prime randomly ripping an arm off for good measure).

I'm just not convinced that WB is putting the right people in place to guide their universe. They need folks who are good filmmakers first, and who will also respect the source material. They need a Joss Whedon or a J.J. Abrams to take it on, and then they need to trust them. Marvel allowed Jon Favreau to take a B-list superhero (in the public consciousness) and turn him into one of the top characters in comics. They then let a very proven genre director usher in the Avengers. On the DC end, Zack Snyder made a pretty good comic book movie with zero substance, then a halfway decent one (that wasn't all that well received) in which he was able to follow the comic practically shot by shot, and he's given control of the most iconic characters in America. I don't get it.

I haven't seen Suicide Squad yet, but I'm very glad to see the positives that are coming out from corners of the internet. It's disappointing that the critical reception has already been so cold, though. I hope it just takes one DC hit to turn things around (and maybe get the "formula" right).

/geeking out

Oh, one final thing. Green Lantern really wasn't that bad.

(08-05-2016 09:43 AM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:38 AM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:26 AM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  I watched it last night in a packed theater. My wife andbI thought it was great! No, it's not the movie of ten-year, but it's very entertaining and worth the movie ticket. I'd love to see a movie with the Joker and Harley Quinn as the main villains. Jared Leto might be a better joker than Heath Ledger. This is definitely going to be a critics vs movie goers type movie. Movie goers have it at like 4.5 stars right now. The critics can suck it.

Really?

I mean... It's subject to opinion of course, but if he gets a movie where he is the dedicated antagonist, I wouldn't be shocked at all. He did well in this movie considering his limited agenda.

Jared Leto is not and will not be as good of a Joker as Heath Ledger. Leto is missing a certain... something... that Ledger had.

I trust Geoff Johns and Bruce Timm in the DCEU. As for JJ Abrams...gasp at what he has done to Star Trek. Please do not let him touch anything else.

The problem with BvS is that they tried to do too much too soon. And it was the wrong story to introduce Batman/Superman. Dark Knight Returns is a comic book story for the fan boy who already understands those characters. It's a one off storyline. To make it the crux of an introductory Justice League movie is to make 90% of your audience who are unfamiliar with the comic book(s) ask "Why are they fighting??" and "how can Batman face Superman?". Those are the two questions I got asked most often in the lead up to the movie. An unfamiliar movie audience could not go from zero to battle royale. It made zero sense to them.

And lay off black Wally! LOL

Speaking of which they sure got TV Flash right. What a great show.

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(08-05-2016 10:51 AM)Pounce FTW Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:04 AM)panama Wrote:  Save us Geoff Johns

Fair warning: Severe geeking out to follow.

I wish I could have faith in him to do that. I hope he's a smart enough guy to realize what hasn't been working and get things on the right course. It looks like he's capable of this based on his input into the DC Rebirth initiiative in the comics, which has really turned the brand around (as much as it bugs me that a foundational concept to the story is: That black Wally West? Yeah, not the real Wally West...).

Based on his storytelling, though...I don't know. In building his following, he's relied so much on just referencing past DC continuity, and I dont know that that will fly in a movie universe. And he's no stranger to ridiculously, unnecessarily dark plot points (e.g. a murderous Superboy-Prime randomly ripping an arm off for good measure).

I'm just not convinced that WB is putting the right people in place to guide their universe. They need folks who are good filmmakers first, and who will also respect the source material. They need a Joss Whedon or a J.J. Abrams to take it on, and then they need to trust them. Marvel allowed Jon Favreau to take a B-list superhero (in the public consciousness) and turn him into one of the top characters in comics. They then let a very proven genre director usher in the Avengers. On the DC end, Zack Snyder made a pretty good comic book movie with zero substance, then a halfway decent one (that wasn't all that well received) in which he was able to follow the comic practically shot by shot, and he's given control of the most iconic characters in America. I don't get it.

I haven't seen Suicide Squad yet, but I'm very glad to see the positives that are coming out from corners of the internet. It's disappointing that the critical reception has already been so cold, though. I hope it just takes one DC hit to turn things around (and maybe get the "formula" right).

/geeking out

Oh, one final thing. Green Lantern really wasn't that bad.

And GL was baaaad

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The fundamental problem with DC movies of late.

They assume the audience knows the story and the backstory. So they explore the plot and the subplots and anyone not well versed in the comic it is adapted from leaves baffled.

Marvel is not afraid to ditch an important subplot or take time on origin when it matters to tell an understandable story within the time allotted.

Spiderman, Iron-Man and Cap got full back story treatment, it matters to who they are in the films they've shown, other characters we might only see the face and the power and not until it is important to care about them do we learn more.

Same with the X-Men movies, there are mutants galore we know little of nothing about from movies because it isn't important to telling that story even though they are on the screen.

DC movies also waste amazing amounts of time on battles. Man of Steel, first 2/3rds I thought wow this is the greatest Superman movie ever, this a deeper Superman than we've seen before then we consumed the final third with battles that felt they would never end and were boring. CGI throw something massive or hero lands with a thud that destroys stuff loses its impact when it happens again and again and again and again in the same sequence.

(08-05-2016 11:10 AM)panama Wrote:  I trust Geoff Johns and Bruce Timm in the DCEU. As for JJ Abrams...gasp at what he has done to Star Trek. Please do not let him touch anything else.

Bruce Timm, yes! Geoff Johns...I hope you're right! As for Abrams Trek...Into Darkness wasn't great, and I haven't seen Beyond yet, but with the first reboot, he was at least able to take what is probably the geekiest property that I've ever loved (okay, second to D&D) and actually turn it into a well-made movie that earned a couple of sequels. He took TOS's retro aesthetic and made it cool for a general moviegoing audience. I think that takes some skill. And then with Star Wars, he was able to identify why people loved IV-VI and (other than kids) hated the prequels, and then build a good movie on that. At this point, I'd definitely take a rehash of the high points of Burton and Donner for modern moviegoers over what we're getting from DC...

(08-05-2016 11:10 AM)panama Wrote:  The problem with BvS is that they tried to do too much too soon. And it was the wrong story to introduce Batman/Superman. Dark Knight Returns is a comic book story for the fan boy who already understands those characters. It's a one off storyline. To make it the crux of an introductory Justice League movie is to make 90% of your audience who are unfamiliar with the comic book(s) ask "Why are they fighting??" and "how can Batman face Superman?". Those are the two questions I got asked most often in the lead up to the movie. An unfamiliar movie audience could not go from zero to battle royale. It made zero sense to them.

Well said. And it doesn't help that Zack Snyder may not actually be capable of telling a coherent story on film.

(08-05-2016 11:10 AM)panama Wrote:  And lay off black Wally! LOL

Speaking of which they sure got TV Flash right. What a great show.

Oh, I like black Wally. And I liked it that DC managed to take a first-tier DCU character, "change" his race, and not make a huge deal out of it. I just think it's lame that that was cast aside to get the "real" red-haired Wally back. And now we have two Wallys. DC wants diversity in their characters so badly, but then they reject the idea that they had effortlessly turned Wally West black, they ignore the fact that John Stewart is already a successful character on screen, and they think they're going to convince us that Cyborg (and maybe Vixen?) are on the same level as American icons. Again, I don't get the strategy.

You are correct about the TV Flash! I think it succeeds because it's willing to embrace its ridiculous Silver Age concepts instead of being embarrassed by them. Like so many Marvel films. And...like the Green Lantern movie...

(08-05-2016 11:13 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  DC movies also waste amazing amounts of time on battles. Man of Steel, first 2/3rds I thought wow this is the greatest Superman movie ever, this a deeper Superman than we've seen before then we consumed the final third with battles that felt they would never end and were boring. CGI throw something massive or hero lands with a thud that destroys stuff loses its impact when it happens again and again and again and again in the same sequence.

That's a great description of the way I think a lot of people reacted to MoS. "Cool, you're making me care about the character of Superman...oh, my...okay, I don't care anymore..."

I think I like MoS because of Hans Zimmerman's score... much like I like Tron Legacy because of Daft Punk. Yes, the build up for MoS is well done but it lost a lot of folks with the DBZ-esq fight.