Why Suicide Squad Might End Up Being Trash....

So, I wanted to talk very briefly about why I'm less and less excited about Suicide Squad.

I'm not even going to touch on the problems with making a movie based on a comic that has probably been rebooted no less than three times and has likely sold about as many copies in six years.

When the trailer first debuted, it looked fantastic even though it's not really fooling anyone into believing that it's anything other than a vehicle to introduce Harley Quinn and Jared Leto's Joker. And it seems to be doing a lot of things right. It's a diverse cast taking the DC universe in a direction Marvel hasn't explored yet (even though I would pay ungodly sums of money to see Marvel do a Thunderbolts movie). But now that Batman v Superman has come and (thankfully) gone, it's brought a bit of context to the kind of world we're being sold. Check it.



"What if Superman had decided to fly down, rip off the roof of the White House and grab the President right out of the Oval Office? Who would have stopped him?"

First of all, depending on how this election shakes out, I doubt anyone would have a problem with that so that's not the scariest imagery one could invoke to establish Superman as a threat (which is the main thing wrong with BvS, but I'm not having that discussion anymore). Second, if Superman did go rogue and attack the White House, what in the WORLD WIDE FUCK are Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Katana going to do about it aside from die screaming? The problem with these "hit squad to stop the most powerful people on Earth" scenarios is that they always involve recruiting people that stand NO CHANCE of stopping the most powerful people on Earth. I mean, sure, it's a good move to feature Batman in the movie to show off how badass the Suicide Squad is up against A-listers, but let's be honest, y'all. The ONLY reason Batman was able to contend with Superman in Yawn of Justice is because the script required Superman be an unfathomably stupid chump to even be goaded into a fight in the first place. So, right there, you're not going to convince me that Killer Croc is the go-to guy if Superman decides to say, "fuck it."

Most importantly, the Suicide Squad's whole thing is that they're badasses willing to do things the good guys either can't fathom doing or don't have the balls to do. But the first two movies have Batman and Superman, DCs two standards for how heroism works in their universe, going about as far as you can go....which is murder.

If Superman isn't above murder and Batman isn't above murder (because OH SWEET JESUS, HE MURDERS SO MANY PEOPLE), why does it matter that the Suicide Squad's bread and butter is murder? I'm not saying this movie doesn't still stand a chance of being fun to look at or that we won't get some epic moments from some key characters. I know I'm pretty excited about the prospect of a Batfleck/Joker car chase. But I'm cautious about a movie that has negated all of its most obvious stakes and reasons to care before the thing even started pre production.

Just something to think about.

The Problem With Fanboys: Batman v Superman Edition

So, the reviews are for Batman v Superman and at this point, I think we're far enough away from the release to say the overall response is somewhat mixed (which is mainly considered bad for a movie that made no bones about putting all of its eggs firmly in one basket. The most entertaining aspect so far has been the backlash to the backlash. As someone that wanted this film to be good enough to rival Marvel or at least show the potential to do so, it is hilarious to watch DC fans who bet the farm on Dawn of Justice do backflips to defend it at its most indefensible moments. 

Serioiusly, guys, it's come down to people claiming that people hating it because of their "Marvel bias" is what has caused the movie to tank. The argument is that fans are being hyper critical of plotholes that they would have let pass in a Marvel movie. Now, that could be so. After all, plenty of good movies have inconsistencies. The problem is that Batman v Superman doesn't do itself any favors. See, plotholes can be overlooked if the movie manages to be entertaining and effective in other aspects. For example, if Robert Downey Jr. is entertaining enough, it's easy to forget about some instances in The Avengers movies when logic falls apart. Now, multiply that factor times Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Joss Whedon's sarcastic self aware script (in the first movie, at least), the occasional Don Cheadle "BOOM, you looking for this?" joke, etc. It's drinking Jack and Coke; you coating something arguably hard to swallow with something that is decidedly less hard to swallow. To call Batman v Superman hard to swallow would be a vast understatement. And it's not just because sad sack ass Movieverse Superman is like the superhero version of Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh or because Batman (despite being awesome) was a walking Call of Duty killstreak or because parts of the movie require the lead characters (one of which is the World's Greatest Detective) to be utterly stupid for the barely discernible plot to make sense. It's the fact that all of these put together amount to Zack Snyder's blatant disdain for his audience. He was so obviously salty about having to tone it down and being unable to do new Superman murder, he devoted the opening to a ground level, 9/11 view of the old Superman murder. This isn't even speculation because Snyder has been trying to justify himself since Man of Steel, saying weird shit like superheroes murdering are okay as long as they don't murder as much as the First Order from The Force Awakens (for those of who didn't see The Force Awakens, Zack Snyder compared the two most popular superheroes in human history to an empire of evil space nazis capable of destroying star systems. That his benchmark for good guy murder, y'all.

Marvel has demonstrated at least some regard for doing what they believe the fans want. Even when you have to eat your vegetables (Thor 2), you're offered some dessert (Guardians of the Galaxy) when you finish them. Dawn of Justice is an marginally edible block of instant microwaveable meat loaf and Zack Snyder is the barely attentive nanny who just wants you to shut the fuck up and finish your dinner while he eats your dessert right in front of you. There's a scene where Holly Hunter looks terrified at the sight of a jar of human urine, a callback to Lex Luthor's metaphor about pissing on someone and telling them it's Granny's Peach Tea. First off, the idea of a superhero movie that features a giant jar of piss is, in itself, beyond the pale. Second, it's actually a very apt metaphor for the movie and the director's relationship with it and the viewership. Batman v Superman is two hours of piss and Zack Snyder hates you for not having the imagination to pretend it's peach tea as you choke it down. So, there's that.

Don't forget to check out my Black Nerd Problems comic review of Invincible Iron Man. Feel free to like, review, and comment as you see fit.

We Need to Talk About Batman v Superman

***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!! THEY'RE MINOR BUT STILL***

So, I finally got around to heading to the movie theater to check out Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and umm....yeah, we need to talk about that.

The movie wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. It looked fantastic. Zack Snyder knows how to create truly legendary looking moments in a way that pulls directly from comic book aesthetic. The problem is that as much as Snyder looks to the artform visually, he doesn't show that much respect for the stories structurally. Most of the actors were perfectly fine in their roles (except Jesse Eisenberg, who I'm convinced thought he was playing the Riddler), doing their very best with this Bernie Sanders hairdo of a script. Amazingly enough, Ben Affleck, who everyone was so worried about, was an awesome Batman. The issue wasn't really the cast, it was the fact that the creative team doesn't really understand the characters they're working with. In fact, I can see how Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman has been lauded by critics since she was the one character that Snyder fucked up the absolute least.  

A lot of the fanboys are on the whole "Batman doesn't kill" thing which we have to accept is bullshit and has always been bullshit in the context of Batman films. My issue is Batman and guns. To Batman...at least since the silver age, guns have always been a symbol of the crime that plagues his city and the thing that took his parents. In many ways, it's borders on a post traumatic experience for him. Dream or not, the visual of him gunning down flunkies is a little weird. Other than that, Affleck pulls off the duality of Bruce and Batman. Bruce Wayne is a damaged old man whose childhood night terrors conjure the Batman, an vengeful armored man-golem who drops down on superstitious villains like the Righteous Hand of God.

The plotline that worries me the most is this "People are scared of Superman" premise. If you're writing a story about how people are scared of Superman, you don't really understand the point of Superman. We're talking about a character who, despite being an alien, is the absolute pinnacle of human goodness. He's a beacon of hope. Hell, "hope" is literally written in a big red symbol on his chest. Superman inspires people to be their better selves. He loves humanity, sees the best in us even when we don't see it ourselves. The guy they have Henry Cavill playing has sad eyes all the time, is almost resentful of humanity (probably because his mother reinforces the antithesis of his father's idea that he owes his gifts to the world..."You don't owe this world a thing"....what the fuck kind of thing is that to say to a superhero?). The fucked up thing is that even with Snyder's Superman being tattooed with all these blantant misnomers and misunderstandings of the character, he still has to fight Batman for a plotline and some decent character development to call his own. In that regard, this movie is quite true to its title. Having said that, it's pretty obvious that Snyder is setting Batman up to be the leader of the impending Justice League which is also bullshit. Why the FUCK would a guy who commonly hides in the shadows, only comes out at night and employs fear and deception as his weapons want to lead what is almost certain to be the most visible, flashy group of peacekeepers their world will ever know?

I mean...what happened to this guy?

And I haven't even gotten to the ENDLESS plotholes left gaping wide by Snyder's compulsive need to have his characters positioned perfectly to play out the pretty scene he wants to see like a six year old setting up action figures in a playset just to bang them together and scream "BOOM" repeatedly. I think that's what I resent most about this movie: It reinforces the idea that just because they come from comics, all these sort of movies have to be is loud and obnoxious with heroes that aren't particularly heroic like Transformers. But in all likelihood, that's going to be this franchise's bread and butter if Dawn of Justice is the measuring stick.

The Week In Geek- 3/23/16: Well, That Happened....

I know this is usually where I'd offer some comprehensive review on the things I liked and didn't like about Batman vs. Superman, but I haven't seen it. Honestly, I'm not in much of a rush to see a Superman movie where the entire premise is based on "people are scared of Superman." Having said that.... 

Welp. Batman v Superman is finally here and apparently holding at somewhere around 30% on Rotten Tomatoes which is....well, bad. I'm sure it's more than a minor cause for concern over at Warner Brothers because, correct me if I'm wrong, Justice League Part One is ready to begin filming. With the myriad of criticisms about BvS, the studio has some hard decisions to make about the overall direction Zack Snyder is taking DC's cinematic universe. Then again, Man of Steel has been a target of an equal amount of criticism and it doesn't seem to have slowed Snyder's vision at all, so it's entirely possible that this could end up being one of those franchises like Transformers or even X-Men where the movies are consistently trash but not trash enough for people to stop watching them. But for that to happen, this movie would have to do Transformers numbers at the box office (if you're waiting for me to explain how Transformers keeps doing numbers, nobody's that smart), meaning that people would have to either show up to the theater because all the criticism has them curious or because they're making a conscious decision to ignore the criticism. But at this point, who knows, really?

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and Batman are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And be sure to get a look at the latest page in my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.

The Week In Geek 12/2/15

Last Week In Movie Stuff: The trailer for Captain America: Civil War dropped last week. If a trailer's purpose is to whet your appetite for what's to come, then GODDAMN, this was 2+ minutes that would make any Marvel fan drop to their knees and thank the geek gods. I'm not going to bother doing a whole breakdown of the trailer because a solid week has passed so EVERYONE has likely done a breakdown of the trailer by now and in the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, "if you're not first, you're last." So, I'll just point out a couple of awesome things about what I saw.

First and foremost, the best thing they could do to adapt Civil War from the comics is keep it firmly in Captain America's wheelhouse. They don't have enough established heroes (or villains) to make it a standalone Marvel event and the plot itself is flawed (giving the most irresponsible superhero in comics government oversight), but tying it directly to the existing Cap timeline is smart. "Cap loses Bucky, Cap finds Bucky, Cap fights for Bucky's freedom." That's about as straightforward of a trilogy as you can possibly get while still conveying a basic theme of the bonds of war (which is a big selling point for movies about soldiers from The Greatest Generation). Having said that, the thing that worked the best about Winter Soldier is that it worked independent of the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, free from having to sell other movies. After the middle-of-the-road response to Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel has to prove that they can balance a large cast of characters effectively. Sure, the pulled it off in the first Avengers movie, but now there's twice as many characters to cram into one movie (including Spider-Man's Marvel debut which, I suspect, will be a post credits scene). The only other time we've seen so many superpowers on the screen at the same time is probably Fox's X-Men movies and it's arguable that was way too many.

Also, there's the little matter of the Black Panther. We didn't get much to go on, but judging from what we're given, the Panther seems to be fighting on Iron Man's side against the Winter Soldier. I hypothesized a long time ago that he might appear to bring Bucky to justice for some former Hydra crimes committed against Wakanda. It's entirely possible that they might set Bucky up as being T'Challa's father's killer while he was brainwashed by Hydra, adding to Cap's whole "Bucky's a changed man" thing. Black Panther is such a long hyped character that we've waited for, I'm going to say that, to make the fans happy, T'Challa is going to have to dole out no less than three ass whuppings. The first is to prove that his fighting prowess is comparable to Cap (who has taken on Georges St. Pierre Da Gawd), the second is prove that he can take on Bucky, who has stood toe to toe with Captain America himself. The third is just for awesomeness' sake.

Meanwhile, This Week In Movie Stuff....The new Dawn of Justice trailer debuted and umm...I don't know if they grade trailers on Rotten Tomatoes, but if they did, the general public so far would have rated this one somewhere between Alex Cross and Stealth. Personally, I feel like the trailer is taking it in the teeth a little worse than it deserves. The whole thing was "meh" and for some reason, people in this 0 to 100 culture have decided that "meh" immediately equates to bad and it really doesn't.

I WILL say that the trailer shows way too much of the plotline even though most of us had guessed the plot long before we saw any trailer. "Heroes don't get along, they get manipulated, they fight, they join forces to beat manipulator." That's a long standing trope of superhero lore that has carried this whole Batman/Superman rivalry for ages now. So, I don't understand why fans are pretending like they're disappointed as if they didn't at least entertain the notion that this was where the movie was going. Part of the backlash is very clearly due to the underlying notion among the collective consciousness that Marvel is basically reigning supreme over this film genre and DC is desperate to play catch-up (I mean, they are), so in many ways, it's become cool to piss on DC. At the same time, I guess they're making it easy, so there's that.

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars, Invincible Iron Man and Cyborg are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. And don't forget the latest page of my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.