meh | Charlotte Sometimes

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Charlotte_Sometimes

Meh. Vanilla. It’s okay.

The three statements above are the three different ways I’ve answered the question, ‘What did you think of Batman V Superman?’ in the past 14 hours. Although there are aspects of the film that are good and entertaining that is just what they are, aspects. The film overall is a bloated disaster – 151 minutes of too many ideas fighting for screentime which end up being incoherent and underdeveloped. Instead of a typical review, in which my thoughts on the film would be as nonsensical as the film itself, I’m going to use a list to let my great ideas have an organisation and a flow (lesson to the film-makers there…)

The good

The visuals

Aside from Cineworld at the o2 Arena screwing up the calibration of the sky superscreen (having forced the audience to watch all the ads, trailers and 25 minutes of the film with only one eye open as the projection was out of focus, they then decided to stop the film and spend 15 minutes reformatting before restarting the film. Cineworld have done not anything to compensate for this screw up and literal headache) when watching this film you can see where the money went. In fact, I suspect that is what director Zack Snyder wants us to do. The fights are big and brash, the costumes and special effects are spectacular. The cityscapes are breath-taking (if of debatable geography). In terms of big screen spectacle, it’s all here. Some sequences appear straight out of a comic book in terms of iconography and style, such as when Superman arrives at a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration and he is being aligned as a Messiah-eque figure.

Batman

Whilst I was initially in the ‘Say No To Ben Affleck as Batman’ camp, I did begin to change my mind when the first trailers and posters arrived. As a lover of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns I could see how Affleck’s portrayal would be most similar to Miller’s Batman. A Batman who is aged, haggard and embittered by battle.(The image below shows the film’s main link to the 1986 seminal comic book.) For the most part in this movie it works. Affleck is charismatic enough as Bruce Wayne and imposing enough as Batman. It’s almost a shame that he didn’t get his own standalone movie prior to this one to fully establish his character, though perhaps the decision to open this movie with yet another retelling of the Wayne shooting/origin story indicates to us that a standalone Batman movie may have possessed little originality.

Wonder Woman

I don’t think it is a spoiler to say that Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman/Diana Price. The trailers gave that one away long ago, yet the film treats it as though it is a secretrading by hinting then having a big reveal that is slightly unnecessary. Though she may not look exactly like the Wonder Woman from the comics I used to read (she’s rather slim-line in comparison to the Golden age version) she does possess a lot of power and successfully shares the screen with her male counterparts (as opossed to having them steal the limelight). The moment when the three are first united did induce a real Fangirl moment for me, seeing the Trinity together. In fact I would happily argue that she steals the show from the broody boys…

Easter eggs

There are many moments in this film that are for the fans, moments that casual fans may get but not appreciate or may not even ‘get’ at all. I’m not going to state them fully here, just in case you’re reading this and want to avoid spoilers, so I’ll write them out but fill in the gaps. I liked seeing ………… in the ……….. I also loved the use of …… to show …………. Finally, the appearance of ……….. in the ……….. was an excellent yet subtle touch. These three aspects alone got me more involved in the next film than the film I was currently watching. By the way, there ARE NO AFTER CREDITS SEQUENCES. Don’t sit through all the credits it’s pointless (Hey Sam if you’re reading, yes I am referring to you here!)

Soundtrack

I don’t think you can go wrong with a Hans Zimmer soundtrack.His collaboration here with Junkie XL is immensely successful. The score for this film is beautiful and emotive, something I would actively choose to listen to outside of watching the film which I don’t often think/do. My personal favourite is the rather aptly-named ‘Is she with you?’

The bad/ugly

Superman/ Lois Lane

I know it’s cool to hate on Superman, but I am quite fond of him. To some he may represent archaic ideas of patriotism, but so does Captain America and that guy walks around wearing stars and stripes. Yet Dupes has never had the cinematic renaissance that Batman has had twice (1989 and 2005). The 1970s/80s films are enjoyable yet of their time, Lois and Clark was entertaining yet cheesy, and Smallville was ocassionally good if rather tween-y.In more recent years, Superman Returns was long and dreary whilst Man Of Steel was interesting yet lost its audience in the overlong battle-heavy final sequences. Batman V Superman is not his movie either. Poor Henry Cavill spends most of the movie showing off his range of emo frowns. It’s that or rescuing Lois Lane THREE times. It’s all Amy Adams gets to do in the movie, which is a real shame as she is an incredible actress playing a character with incredible potential.

Dreams

Of all the time-wasting nonsensical moments in the film, it is the dream sequences which really stand out for all the wrong reasons. There’s no entry point into them, you’re suddenly immersed in them with no idea of what is going on in them. Then the character wakes up and the audience is even more confused abiut what is going on. If the plot was more coherent it would be less problematic, but as the plot is so stodgy and indecifrable the moments just confuse as opposed to enhance what is going on in the main event.

The plot

Speaking of the plot, very little of it actually makes sense. Motivations are blurred from the outset with very few that are actually convincing or believable. It feels like this is a Batman movie forced in with a Superman movie, the story jumps between one then the other without any link. Moments drift, storylines are picked up then dropped and things happen without explanation. I’m going to stay intentionally vague on this one to avoid further spoilers. Let’s just leave this with saying that everything is miscalculated and heavy-handed. Ultimately it’s a very hollow 151 minutes of things happening for little reason or care.

‘Hello darkness my old friend’

A schism has formed over this movie between critics and fans. As someone who considers themselves to be both, I think the main argument over the ‘darkness’ of this film is flawed. I’ve read a lot of reviews talking about how this film is ‘too dark’ and fans retaliating with ‘the comic books are dark, it’s how it should be’. My answer to this? No. Yes some of the comic books are dark. Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Jim Starlin’s Death in the Family and Jeph Loeb’s Hush (to name but three Batman story arcs) are dark, haunting and Gothic. Christopher Nolan‘s Batman trilogy is dark, haunting and Gothic. Batman V Superman is not dark, haunting and Gothic. It’s murky and shallow. Its darkness is artificial and synthetic. It’s a wannabe-emo in contrast to the aforementioned masterpieces. It pouts, moans and frowns. It tries to make important statements and points but these are empty and ill-informed. It’s like wearing a band t-shirt when you don’t really know the band (one of my biggest pet peeves). Having your actors grimace and setting most of the action at night, fighting for ‘what is right’ does not a maketh a ‘dark’ movie. A coherent plot, one with depth, does.

Lex Luthor

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor appeared like a strange choice since it was first announced. This was embraced by Zack Snyder who promised great things, new take on a classic archvillain. In the comic books Lex Luthor is a charismatic business magnate who is physically powerful and formidable. He is shown to be a true threat to Superman. Charismatic, powerful and formidable are not phrases one would associate with Eisenberg. So perhaps this would be a refreshing new take on the character? Nope. It’s Jesse Eisenberg playing Heath Ledger playing the Joker as Lex Luthor. He is weedy, has daddy issues and rambles. Everything he says is either shouted or mumbled. His hand mannerisms are twitchy and strange, dominating each frame. This man is no threat but a nuisance who gets in the way. To use his performance as an analogy for the entire film – it’s devoid of depth and is ultimately lacking.

Legend

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Charlotte_Sometimes

Two Tom Hardy’s don’t make for a Legend-ary film

On paper, this film seems like a great idea. The Kray twins were London’s most notorious gangsters – two men who both enjoyed being gangsters and what it entailed. Having Tom Hardy, one of cinema’s men of the moment, felt like a logical next step. After Armie Hammer successfully played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, having Hardy playing the central dual role didn’t seem outlandish. In practice, his performances do work. It’s the rest of the film that really doesn’t. With a wealth of material out there on the Krays, with so much of the truth being better than fiction, it’s frustrating how much Legend misses the mark. Although the film is marked as charting ‘the true story of the rise and fall’ it does no such thing. The ‘true’ bit is questionable after some post-screening research, and ‘the rise and fall’ is false-advertising. The film opens when the Krays are comfortably on the rise (so much so they are under constant police surveillance) and ends just before the start of the fall. The decision to pick these two periods as plot-points seems questionable, as a narrative they are not the most engaging, nor do they provide the audience with enough information to get them engaged. Audience members will be left with countless unanswered questions, no information about how the pair actually achieved this ‘rise’ nor the events or the aftermath of the ‘fall’. It seems ridiculous for a film with a 130 minute running time to have such serious gaps, even more so when it is filled with such needless fluff that make the film feel boring and far longer than the actual running time.

Our entry character into the world of the Krays is Frances Shea (Emily Browning). Frances meets Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) as her brother (Colin Morgan) works for Reggie as a driver. It’s heavy-handedly alluded that Frances has a history of mental illness, she’s ‘fragile’ and just returned home after ‘being away’. Little more information or film time is given to this, which is unfortunate as it could have increased the impact of France’s characterisation. It’s also doubly unfortunate as it could have created a nice parallel with the character plotting of Ronnie Kray (also, Tom Hardy). In the film’s single funniest sequence we witness Reggie visiting his twin, whose prison sentence resulted in being institutionalised and being declared certifiably insane. During this sequence we are informed that whenever Ronnie was uncertain or confused by what people said he would respond ‘interesting’. It’s a quirky touch that could have been utilised for greater effect. Their reunion is intercut with a conversation with a Kray heavy negotiating with a physiatrist for an all-clear for Ronnie. Ronnie is released from the mental hospital, leaving Reggie to start balancing loyalties to the two most important people in his life – Frances and his brother. These relationships are the main focus of the film, not the brother underworld careers. If you were looking for a ‘proper gangster’ (a phrase of Ronnie’s) movie, you’ve come to the wrong movie.

Frances and Reggie date for an unspecified amount of time, then become engaged for an unspecified amount of time and then marry for an unspecified amount of time. Not having a timeline for this period is frustrating, and furthers the sense of the film drifting from one sequence to another. This is a fatal flaw for two reasons. Firstly, the film appears to have strived to place character development over story arc yet there is no stand-out antagonist, rarely a clear motivation for character’s actions, and often no clear link between sequential scenes.. The film tries to restrict itself to how these events impacted the relationship between Frances and Reggie. This leads to the film’s second major fault, which makes Legend such a muddled and convoluted mess. If Frances was our entry point, and the focus is on her viewpoint on events, why are we shown events that she was not at and would never have known about? Reggie and Ronnie attend events and confrontations that would have been concealed from France’s knowledge as, in their eyes, she would not have needed to know what was going on. This flawed decision is empathised with the use of voiceover narration, with Frances narrating the majority of events. The use of voiceover narration in Legend is not used to great effect, it’s cloying and sentimental. The fact she narrates over events that would have been unknown to her confuses whether her viewpoint is truly restricted, as it would have been during the time of the actual events, or has been promoted to omniscient which then undercuts the themes and tone of the film.

Watching Legend makes for an exasperating cinematic experience. The cast do a truly fantastic job with the material they have been provided with – Hardy is suitably magnetic as Reggie though a bit of a caricature as Ronnie, Browning gives her best performance to date and Taron Egerton steals every scene as Teddy Smith – but that material is banal and structurally incoherent. Disappointing.