Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

We Just Have a Bad History with Freaks Dressed like Clowns.

The only thing I can think of that attracts me to see a movie more than the fact that it’s a comic book movie is when I hear that it’s terrible.  Especially with today’s movie.  I was always a Marvel fan growing up, so when I hear that a DC movie is shitty, I feel the need to go revel in their failure … and act like there hasn’t been a Marvel that was terrible.  Elektra was great, guys!  The reviews for today’s movie, and some fear of spoilers, made me rush out to see it, and then I had me some thoughts.  So I will now write them down as I review Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, written by David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio, directed by Zack Snyder, and starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Holly Hunter, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, and Ray Fisher.

In an attempt to explain why it was totally cool that Superman (Henry Cavill) destroyed the greater Metropolis area in his battle with General Zod (Michael Shannon), Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) is upset that his favorite corporate headquarters was knocked down in the fight … and he’s probably bothered that that people died and some dude lost his legs.  Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) also doesn’t like Superman, and decides to use the corpse of General Zod to take Supes out.  In the meantime, he sets out to pit Batman (also Ben Affleck) and Superman against each other.  It works and they V.  They V it up!

Disappointingly, the critics apparently thought they were going in to see Shakespeare or something.  This movie was not terrible.  It doesn’t blow the mind, but it doesn’t blow anything else either.  It’s what I wanted and expected.  Perhaps one could find it disappointing just knowing that it’s based on the Dark Knight Returns, which is one of the best Batman comics I’ve ever read.  This movie isn’t that good and doesn’t quite live up to the comic, but it’s solid.  It has its problems, but it delivers on what it promises.  One of those problems is that they went back to the stupid green rocks that are the major antagonist in every Superman movie.  I thought it was the big decree in Man of Steel that they wouldn’t be relying on those?  Well, I guess they need to use everything they can to make Superman interesting.  Another problem I had was with the constant dream sequences.  They did like 7 of them!  Just whenever they realized that they hadn’t done any action scenes in a while, they teased us with a fake one.  They even had a dream sequence WITHIN A DREAM SEQUENCE!  Fuck you movie.

Probably the biggest problem with the movie is that it’s fairly predictable.  Sure, I’ve read the comic that it’s based on, but it’s LOOSELY based on it, so you can’t say for sure where it’s going.  Then you could say it’s obvious because … well because it is.  Who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman?  The same person that would win in a fight between Superman and anyone: Superman.  Superman’s powers might as well condense themselves to be “Whatever he needs to do to win eventually.”  And you can throw green rocks at him and slow him down a little, but I’ve seen him lift an island made out of green rocks in Superman Returns, so that doesn’t mean that much.  But Batman is too popular and cool to let lame ass Superman beat him, so who wins?  I was asked this question shortly after this movie was announced and my prediction was, “Stalemate.”  They battle to a stalemate so that no fans have that much ammo to complain with and then they realize there’s a bigger problem and they team up.  The title gives that away!  “Dawn of Justice?”  Meaning it will dawn on them that they should create a League of some sort, with Justice in the name somewhere.  But I didn’t come to this movie to be surprised.  I just wanted to see them fight and for things to explode.

And explode they did!  The action was pretty good, but not without their problems.  For instance, do you all know how the best part of any Batman movie is when he kicks the shit out of a building full of bad guys, but we just hear about it from witness reports later?  Yeah, I don’t either!  The first two or three times Batman does something awesome, we find out about it when the police enter the building and find a bunch of unconscious bad guys and one of them has a bat branded on his chest.  And if we’re lucky, we’ll find out that Batman was goofily hanging out in the upper corner of the room hoping no one would turn their head and see him there.  Then, when we finally see Batman do something, he’s not great at it because he’s wearing a big chunky suit to fight Superman, but I did find that fight pretty similar to Dark Knight Returns and pretty satisfying.  And later, while fighting Doomsday, the writers really couldn’t figure out anything for Batman to do so he spent the battle hiding or running from laser blasts while Wonder Woman and Superman did all the work.  But between that, Batman did a pretty sweet Arkham City impression when he whooped up on a room of baddies in true Bat-fashion.  Does it sound like I’m only talking about Batman fights?  Well that’s true.  Because Superman can suck it and Wonder Woman is underused.

The loudest cries from the nerd community before this movie were about Ben Affleck.  He already ruined a superhero when he made Daredevil, so how could he do what Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds did already and redeem themselves with their next attempt at a superhero?  Also, we liked the last Batman, and remember how we all liked the last Joker when it was Nicholson so we preemptively hated Ledger?  And then he was terrible and in no way blew the last one out of the water?  That couldn’t happen again!  Well he was good.  He did redeem himself from Daredevil with me and, though I wouldn’t say he blew Bale out of the water, he at least rose to the challenge and did not disappoint.  So I’m absolutely convinced that the next time an actor has to change, the nerd community will be understanding.  But one of the biggest complaints about these recent DC movies is their gross misunderstanding of the characters as we know them.  Man of Steel=Superman kills someone.  Supes don’t kill.  BvS=Batman uses a gun the first time we see him.  Bats don’t shoot.  Granted, it was just a dream sequence, but since I’ve already said those could go fuck off, I will say this particular one also goes to fuck off.  It’s like taking away Deadpool’s mouth when his nickname is The Merc with a Mouth.  And who would be dumb enough to do that?  Supes was fine in the movie though.  He seemed very Superman.  I hated him, but that that means he captured the character correctly.  Although he did feel at times like he wasn’t doing anything for the world unless it involved saving Lois Lane.  And when Superman tells Batman to stop being Batman?  Fuck you, Supes!  How are you gonna tell this man not to be violent?  ‘Cause he don’t need to go the same route that you went?  Forget about that!

A lot of the secondary characters were good as well, except maybe some of them shouldn’t have been so secondary!  Wonder Woman?  WAY underused.  Dub Dubs just spends most of the movie as a hot chick walking around all mysterious-like.  Way to waste a great female character!  Let’s step that up for the next movie, shall we?  She basically only Dub Dubs it for the last battle of the movie.  But her intro was rad.  It was strong, powerful, and COMPLETELY RUINED BY THE TRAILER!  It was awesome, but since it was pretty much the only time you used her in the movie, it was the only scene you could show in the trailer.  But she totally had the lasso, and that was worth it.  They had other superheroes too, but don’t get your hopes up.  They were just shown in surveillance footage.  It was cool to see them, but not significant.  Lois was there too.  I don’t know why she had to be in a tub at one point.  I assume people will complain about that in much the same way as that scene in Star Trek Into Darkness.  It was just unnecessary, but I’m not too bothered by it.  That’s for the rest of the internet to bother complaining about.  I found Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Lex Luthor annoying for the greater majority of the movie, but it was pretty good once he started letting out the evil near the end.  He didn’t seem quite as smart as Lex is usually portrayed though.  Lex is supposed to be a super genius, so how is his big plan to fight Superman to reanimate the guy that Superman just beat?  It would seem that the real smart money would be to bet on literally anyone that Superman hasn’t beaten over the one guy that he has.  And lastly, why are Superman’s parents the worst?  In Man of Steel and in this movie, their big thing is trying to talk Superman out of doing anything good with the special abilities only he has.  Even when the option is either you let Clark be Superman just a little bit so that dad doesn’t get swept away by a tornado!  The Kents used to be so nice!

So that’s what I thought about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Nowhere near as bad as most critics said it was.  It’s exactly what I expected.  Batman v’s Superman, and it’s pretty cool.  What more could you want?  Besides maybe a little more Wonder Woman.  I say go see it.  And if there were any chance of that, you probably already have or have made plans to.  But I’m gonna take credit for it.  Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice gets “That son of a bitch brought the war to us” out of “I thought she was with you.”

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Man of Steel (2013)

KNEEL BEFORE BOB!!

Seeing today’s movie proved to be harder than it should have been.  Shortly after it came out, I made a trek to the theaters with Friendboss Josh to see this movie, only to find it sold out.  That worked out for us both because we went and saw This Is The End instead.  Later, I tried to get to see it with some of my other friends, but going to my sister’s wedding made things difficult because I needed to pack.  And then my dog died.  Jesus didn’t want me to see this movie in a big bad way!  After I got back from my sister’s wedding, my friend Phil had returned to town and he was the only other person in the world besides me that had not already seen the movie, but he didn’t really care to.  I gave him such a purple nurple that his nipple was fully removed.  I promised to give it back to him after we had seen Man of Steel, written by David S. Goyer, directed by Zack Snyder, and starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Anteje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Harry Lennix, Christopher Meloni, Richard Schiff, and Laurence Fishburne.

The people of planet Krypton have mined the core of their planet to the point where the planet is beginning to implode, just as their head scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) had warned them.  Jor and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) decide to send their baby, the first baby born naturally on Krypton in centuries, to the planet Earth in a shuttle to avoid the collapse of Krypton.  The planet’s military commander, General Zod (Michael Shannon), is the only one that agrees with Jor about Krypton’s state, but disagrees that Krypton’s genetic codex should be sent to Earth with Jor’s son.  He disagrees so strongly that he kills Jor while staging a military coup.  Jor still manages to send his son away with the codex, and Zod and his rebels are captured and sentenced to prison in the Phantom Zone, where they are released a short time later when Krypton is destroyed.  On Earth, Kal-El is taken in by Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) and raised in Smallville, Kansas.  As he grows up, life is difficult for him as he develops superhuman abilities.  When Kal – now called Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) – becomes an adult, he leads a nomadic life because he always ends up having to use his abilities to save someone and must then disappear again.  On one job, he meets a reporter named Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and finds a ship from his ancestors that tells him his past.  Shortly after that, Zod shows up in orbit and demands that the people of Earth turn Kal over to him.

I heard such mixed reports about this movie before I saw it that I had no idea what assumption to make going into it.  But that’s typically a good thing because expectations do more harm than good.  Overall I thought this movie was good.  It didn’t blow my mind, but it was an entertaining watch.  I guess part of the problem I had with it is that there’s nothing really surprising about the story.  I’ve seen this story so many times, and they really didn’t change it drastically from what I had seen before.  And I hate Superman, but I still know this story like the back of my hand!  But the minor changes they made were ones I appreciated, like the fact that Kryptonite was nowhere to be seen in this movie.  The greater majority of Superman movies that I’ve seen are all completely based around Kryptonite.  Superman is all awesome, someone busts out a shiny green rock making him less awesome, and he overcomes it by taking it super seriously or flying into space to charge up.  This one came close to that by having him weakened by the Kyptonian atmosphere, but they never had a green rock lying around.  It also made me wonder if people making future Superman movies would be pissed that they took away their typical major plot point.  But the atmosphere thing did make the same stuff happen with Superman.  He was weakened by the atmosphere when he had to take out that terraforming “world engine” but had to sack up and take a cue out of Randy Quaid’s book from Independence Day and fly straight up that alien ship’s butthole.  I did have a problem with Superman’s flying though, just because of the part where they were saying he needs to take a leap of faith before he starts flying.  That’s not a leap of faith.  A leap of faith is like what Indiana Jones did in the Last Crusade, where he stepped off a ledge with the faith that he wouldn’t die because of it.  Superman is invulnerable and can fly.  Not a lot of faith involved in such a leap.

The visual effects of the movie and the action were all very well done, which helped save the movie from the very typical story.  Everything in the movie looked great, though occasionally I found that the shaky cam look they went for got a little tedious.  But the fights were pretty dope, especially the ones involving Faora.  She was dope.  And hot.  I liked the fight with her, that unnamed Kryptonian, and Superman, even though they made a bitch out of Superman.  Superman should probably be able to hold his own a little better than he did in most of that fight.  On the other hand, I hate Superman.  Seeing him made into a bitch doesn’t bother me that much.

I liked the greater majority of the actors in the movie, but I took issue with a lot of the characters.  Superman, for instance.  What kind of protector did you turn out to be when your fights with the Kryptonians leveled a large portion of both Smallville and Metropolis?  The Superman I know is a little more concerned with collateral damage than that.  The Superman I know also doesn’t have a hairy chest, but I guess that’s okay because chicks seem to be into it.  And speaking of being into chicks: was I the only one that was disappointed when baby Superman didn’t come flying out of his mom in the beginning, fist first?  I also had some thoughts about his parents.  First, how well does Krypton train its scientists in combat that they can beat up their top military officials?  And what the hell is the deal with his mom?  I understand the concept of a parent not wanting to give up their child, but she’s fully aware that the planet is dying.  It’s better in her opinion to let the baby die with you than to live without you?  You’re a shitty mom!  Superman’s adopted parents weren’t much better either.  I don’t remember the Kents teaching Superman the valuable lesson that sometimes you should let people die so you can keep yourself a secret.  Jonathan Kent was spectacularly stupid.  He actually dies because he tells his invulnerable superhero son to stay under the safety of the overpass while the aging human Jonathan ran back into the middle of a tornado to save a dog.  Your son … IS SUPERMAN!  He could’ve zipped out and saved that dog so fast that no one would’ve even seen him do it.  He could’ve walked through the middle of a tornado like everyone else walking in front of an oscillating fan.  But you’re right that dying in a tornado is the best way to go.  That’s how I intend to go.

Man of Steel offered nothing new in the story department, but made up for it with some pretty decent action and some fantastic visuals.  If you’ve followed Superman at all, you know pretty much where the story is going, but it will at least be visually entertaining enough to make it worthwhile.  This movie didn’t exactly blow my mind with pure awesomeness, but I was satisfied with the experience.  I’ll recommend you check this movie out in theaters.  Man of Steel gets “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards” out of “That’s why we risked so much to save you.”

WATCH REVIEWS HERE!  YouTube  OTHER JOKES HERE!  Twitter  BE A FAN HERE!  Facebook  If you like these reviews so much, spread the word.  Keep me motivated!  Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!

The Bodyguard (1992)

Lord, Why Couldn’t You Have Taken Bobby?!

Unfortunately, my week-long trip to Arizona was not all smiles and sunshine.  Tragedy struck as the entire world realized that sometimes singers are just singers, and sometimes have drug problems, and also American soldiers die all the time without mention, but let’s talk about Whitney Houston instead.  I’m kidding … kind of.  But the lady singer did pass away while I was on vacation, causing many people to be completely devastated, causing my sister to request that I review today’s movie, and causing me to immediately think “Oh, it was probably drugs” and move on with my breakfast.  But Whitney Houston was still an amazing singer and I feel as though I should pay tribute to her because of her passing, both with the review of a movie she was in and a somewhat spiteful opening paragraph.  With that, I give you my review of The Bodyguard, written by Lawrence Kasdan, directed by Mick Jackson, and starring Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, Tomas Arana, Michele Lamar Richards, Bill Cobbs, Gary Kemp, Mike Starr, DeVaughn Walter Nixon, Christopher Birt, Robert Wuhl, and Debbie Reynolds.

Because no one in movies is ever allowed to be the second or third best of the best, Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner) is a former Secret Service Agent who now works as the best of the best bodyguards for people.  He generally works exclusively for presidents and corporate VIPs, but is painstakingly talked into protecting a celebrity named Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston) by her manager Bill Devaney (Bill Cobbs).  Along with her recent nomination for an Oscar, Marron has acquired a new stalker, but not one of the cool ones that are quirky and funny, but generally harmless … like me …  She instead gets one of those stalkers that somehow justifies his desire to kill her with how much he loves her.  Frank comes in and starts fixing all of the holes in her personal security, much to the chagrin of her current bodyguard Tony (Mike Starr), her sister Nikki (Michele Lamar Richards), and her publicist Sy Spector (Gary Kemp).  Her driver Henry (Christopher Birt) and her son Fletcher (DeVaughn Walter Nixon) seem okay with it.  Frank’s efforts to protect Rachel don’t go well, due to the incompetence of her existing crew, and her own random bitchiness directed at him.  Will Frank have the ability, and the patience, to protect this singer?

My opinion of anything will not be swayed by a person’s death.  I didn’t find Kurt Cobain, Chris Farley, or Michael Jackson any more special after their untimely demises than I did before their death.  I say that so that the proper amount of weight will be applied to the following statement: the only reason anyone remembers this movie at all is because of Whitney Houston.  She single-handedly elevated this movie beyond being entirely forgettable to being slightly above mediocre.  The weirdest part of that statement is that I intended it to be a compliment.  The story of this movie does not really work that well.  It’s got a thriller aspect to it that never really works that well because of how predictable the killer, and motive, is very early in the film.  More memorably, this movie is a love story … that also never really works because it barely makes sense.  Rachel is such a dirty bitch to Frank for the greater majority of the movie that I can’t understand Frank having any desire to be around her beyond the fact that Houston was fucking gorgeous at the time.  So I understand why he smashes that, but then he sticks around afterwards, driving her off with some nonsense about how he can’t protect her if he cares about her, which turns her into an even bigger bitch.  In her defense, she could’ve just had residual anger at him for the part where he shows off how sharp his katana is by cutting her scarf in half.  But the entire premise of that situation doesn’t make any sense at all.  What the fuck do you mean you can’t protect her if you’re falling in love with her and sleeping with her from time to time?  As I understand it, boyfriends and husbands are able to combine those two things with a fair degree of frequency!  This is hardly the only thing in this movie that doesn’t make sense to me.  At one point, everyone looks at Frank like he’s a madman because he suggests that Rachel go to brunch on Tuesday instead of her usual day.  Am I missing something?  Is there a designated day for brunching and Tuesday is just a major faux pas?  Later, Rachel catches Frank watching one of her movies intently, but is pretty much only able to tell what he is watching in the guest house (from the main house) because he is apparently playing it at the maximum volume that a human can listen to without their ears bleeding.  Also, I know that they were trying to show a great many things to illustrate how shitty Rachel’s security would be without Frank, but how would security personnel keep their job when they not only allow Milli Vanilli lookalikes to rush up on stage to dance with Rachel, but also allow it to get out of hand and have her get pulled into the audience that then tries to do everything it can to rob/rape her.  They don’t get to the rape, but it would’ve just been a matter of time.  The final, and greatest, omission of logic must be bracketed by ::SPOILER ALERT::  The sister did it.  Yes, I know, it’s shocking once you randomly hear her tell Frank about how she and Rachel got their start, not even barely concealing her excruciating jealousy for her sister, that she would eventually be the cause of it.  I half expected the end of the movie to be Frank unmasking her as she yelled “I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling Secret Service Agents!”  The predictability of it isn’t the only problem, it’s also fuckin’ insane!  I understand the concept of being jealous of your sibling.  Not through personal experience, because I’m so fucking awesome, but I understand how my sister feels living in my shadow.  But I also feel pretty sure that she wouldn’t try to kill me because of it.  I figured the sister in this movie might pay someone to scare the shit out of Rachel with death threats, but perhaps the person went off the rails and took it too far.  But for the sister to be so jealous (even though she’s living in luxury because of her sister) goes way too far.  ::END SPOILERS::

I think it is not going too far to assume that the only reason any of us remember this movie is because of the songs.  More specifically, the song.  Whitney Houston has mad pipes, son!  They display a couple of Whitney’s songs in this movie, but one of them specifically takes the cake.  They use “I Have Nothing”, “I’m Every Woman”, and “Run to You”, all of which are pretty damned good songs, but the one song no one should be able to forget is “I Will Always Love You”.  If you don’t get goosebumps listening to this song at the end of this movie – especially knowing now that she’s no longer with us – I believe you are an asshole.  What occurred to me about that song was that I never really knew this song wasn’t always Whitney’s.  It was apparently written by Dolly Parton, but I don’t know that version of the song.  In the movie, they played what sounded like a guy singing it in a country fashion, and this amused me because of how much Whitney blows that version out of the water at the end of the movie.  It’s such a heartfelt and touching song, which makes me think much less of the “Queen of the Night” song that immediately follows it in the credits.

The performances in this movie were mostly forgettable.  Whitney was, by far, the only person in this movie that impressed.  Not only was she an amazing singer, but she was a solid actress too.  She probably wasn’t playing a character that was all that far removed from herself, but she was very believable.  The dialogue she was delivering was a little stilted in parts, and the part where she asks Kevin Costner out on a date was awkwardly delivered and strangely justified, but I don’t blame either of those things on her.  The writing was just a little soft in parts of this movie.  Whitney, you are good enough.  Kevin Costner?  Eh, not so much.  No, he was fine.  He just didn’t impress.  It seemed like there was a very good chance that he actually had no real training with weaponry or Secret Service tactics.  Take, for instance, the time when he was telling Rachel’s sister to stay put downstairs as he investigated the noises upstairs.  I’m pretty sure lesson one of Guns 101 is “Don’t gesture at people’s faces with a loaded gun.”  The second rule is we don’t talk about … that girl we just accidentally shot in the face and dumped in the lake.  One could also make the argument that actual Secret Service agents don’t do action hero moves like diving through a window, somersaulting, and landing on your feet.  I think they just go through the door.  I think they also don’t really recommend being in the middle of a shootout, kneeling down in the snow, and closing your eyes, presumably to better use the Force to defeat his opponent.  Unfortunately, the Force was not strong with this one.  The only person in this movie that gave me anything to think about was the insignificant character that attempts to hit on Costner as Whitney tries to make Costner jealous by taking Tomas Arana into a back room, but that’s only because that girl looks a lot like a post-menopausal Gozer.

I’m pretty sure I’ve just put all the words down that could be written about this movie.  It’s a thoroughly mediocre movie with thoroughly mediocre performances, and would have been forgotten entirely by now if it weren’t for the efforts of the recently deceased.  By being quite possibly the best actor in this movie, and delivering immensely enjoyable songs, she made this a movie that will be (and probably already has been) remembered much longer than the movie would deserve otherwise.  Because it’s regarded as a classic, I imagine it will not be long until I endeavor to add this movie to my collection, assuming I can find it for somewhere within the five to ten dollar range.  It’s definitely something you can watch and not hate that much, but you can skip to the good parts by purchasing the soundtrack instead.  The Bodyguard gets “You people have no clue what real security is or what it takes to achieve it” out of “The atomic number of zinc is thirty.”  We’ll miss you, Whitney.

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