WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS
So after all the wait and fanboy flame wars, DC comics has taken its first major stride to catch up to Marvel in establishing a cinematic universe. I saw the film on Friday, and to be honest, it's the definition of a mixed bag. The best way I can describe it is, it's exactly the movie I wanted to see, with a whole extra movie added in.
THE GOOD
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. After all the criticism of this casting choice, Gal absolutely stole the show as both Wonder Woman and Diana Prince. Her on-screen debut in costume was the best entrance since Tony Stark showed up in the end credits scene of The Incredible Hulk. I am now looking forward to the standalone Wonder Woman movie more than any film in the Marvel pipeline.
The Batfleck. Speaking of casting controversy, the Internet howled with rage when Ben Affleck got the nod to succeed Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader. I personally always agreed with the casting, and I feel vindicated when I say Affleck is both the best Batman and Bruce Wayne the silver screen has ever known. This is the first Batman that feels like has stepped right off the page, and the scene when Batman assaults a warehouse full of gunmen is by far the best sequence of the movie.
The Setup for Justice League. It's clear that Zack Snyder was trying to cram too much into this movie, and the film suffers for it. But what Snyder did right was pave the way for a cohesive universe that features a Justice League, and cement Batman's place as a leader on a council of vastly more powerful superheroes.
THE BAD
Three Subplots Too Many. Far too much going on. I wound up intentionally trying to tune out the Lois Lane subplot and Holly Hunter's entire character. There was enough to accomplish in this film just by bringing Batman and Wonder Woman into the Man of Steel universe and setting the table for Justice League.
The editing. Holy crap, whoever edited this thing should never work in Hollywood again. The editing was exclusively hard jump cuts with no transition. We're in Metropolis! We're in Gotham! Now D.C.! Now a dream sequence! Metropolis aga... JUST KIDDING, another dream! If you're gonna juggle too many subplots, the editing has to save you. This made it worse.
Lex Zuckerberg. I get the direction Zac Snyder was trying to go, and applaud him for attempting a new take on a classic villain, but Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor doesn't work. Someone in my theater whispered "he'd made an excellent Riddler," and there's no better way to sum up how he failed at being Lex Luthor. Lex is brilliant and diabolical, but not manic. They should have gone with Brian Cranston.
MIXED BAG
Doomsday. No qualms about his presentation or altered origin. I take exception to him being in the movie at all. Doomsday isn't a core villain in terms of repeated use, but he is THE VILLAIN THAT KILLED SUPERMAN IN THE COMICS. That means he deserves his own dedicated film. I applaud Snyder for capturing the essence of Doomsday's invincibility in such limited screen time, while also faulting him for limiting his screen time. Doomsday would have been a perfect villain for the first Justice League film as a threat so great no single hero can defeat him. Instead he's the quick fix that brings Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman together. This was a well done villain and a wasted opportunity.
Oh boy, here I go killing again! I won't bemoan the decision to make this Batman kill. Snyder did a good job of establishing that this Batman is jaded from two decades of fighting crime, and bitter over the death of his sidekick. But this isn't a Batman who is just okay with collateral damage. He straight up murders at least six people. And the movie falls short of juxtaposing Batman's grittiness with Superman's valor, since Superman sends a guy through a concrete wall within 30 seconds of his first appearance. These are deadly heroes, and I think they've gone down that road a little too far.
All in all, I enjoyed BvS while wishing for more of what worked and far less of what didn't. I am not on the Zac Snyder hate train, but I do believe Affleck should be allowed to be a guiding voice in the direction of the Justice League films. Snyder's visuals and Affleck's storytelling could be epic.
Comments
Really like the movie overall, but Zach Snyder's pretentiousness did lessen my enjoyment. During the opening scene, it took all my restraint not to yell "WE FUCKING GET IT." Also, there seemed to be some big gaps with Batman. He's in the news early on as if he were this new vigilante that recently came to be, but his conversation with Alfred makes it clear that he's been doing it for a long time. Also, cops are plainly afraid of Batman, as if they're unsure about whether he's on their side or not, so the Batsignal should not logically exist at this point in this universe.
I got the feeling that was because Batman had just begun branding his victims and had just generally upped the ante in terms of violence and brutality. The cops were now wondering if this quasi-supernatural vigilante that had been helping them for 20 years had finally snapped. I thought that kind of tied into Alfred's "This is how it begins" story/warning.
Commissioner Gordon is confirmed to be in Justice League (played by one of my favorite character actors, J. K. Simmons) so hopefully we'll get a more in depth look at the relationship between this Batman and Gotham's police.
That could be. Was just kind of poorly explained.
Much of your critique is on the mark, but Jesse Eisenberg was one of the film's highlights as a modern-day Lex Luthor. Had he not been in the film, it would have been even more of a hot mess than it already was. Yes, he'd have also made a good riddler, but the film needed some cleverness and he provided it.
As for Ben Affleck, he looks the part but isn't a very sympathetic batman. Christian Bale was much better, IMHO. At least we understood him. The batman in this movie seemed gruff and stupid.
As far as plot, how stupid is batman to think he has to kill superman? What was his rationale, again? Oddly, he seems to buy into the Lex Luthor rationale, but if he has the tools to control superman, can't he just keep them in reserve until there is a clear-cut reason to use them? Oh, and the reason he didn't finish Superman off was because he has a mother of the same name? And that's why we had to watch 15 minutes of the early story of batman yet again?
The movie is worth a watch, but I can also understand why the critics thought it was terrible. It tried to do too much in terms of setting up a franchise, at the expense of the audience. Ultimately, Wonder Woman is indeed the best thing to come out of this movie for the audience, while the promise of Justice League sequels is clearly what the producers were going for.
This part, I thought, was actually pretty well done. "That's how it starts. The fever. The rage. The sense of powerlessness that turns good men cruel." Although Alfred is talking about the anti-Superman rioting, his words apply to Bruce himself. We're shown a Batman who has been alone, trying to save Gotham for 20 years. Until the events of Man of Steel, Batman was the only superhero. (Besides his own sidekick, who was murdered.) He already feels alienated and jaded. ("How many good guys are left? How many stay that way?") And then along comes Superman, who has a level of power he can barely comprehend.
If you've known any cops, one trend among them is the longer they're on the job, the less faith they have in the decency of mankind. We're at a point where Bruce has even lost faith in himself. ("We're criminals, Alfred. We always have been.") Bruce witnesses firsthand the destruction that Superman is capable of. It scares him enough to consider Superman a threat, regardless of what the evidence might show.
Batman is basically on the brink for the entire movie. That's why Bruce's soliloquy at the end, that men are still good, is so important. Superman doesn't just convince him that he is good, but that mankind is still good, despite all its flaws.
This movie had a lot wrong with it, but I thought it got the redemption of a Bruce Wayne who had almost lost all hope exactly right.
I can understand the concept of losing all hope, but of all the things the movie did, it explained that the least. Dark and brooding, I get, mostly because of other movies.
So his solution is killing Superman?
In concept I get that an omnipotent Superman would be a risk. If he were misusing his powers, I could understand the mistrust. But a Superman who has never done anything but good, however, is a less palatable story. And the solution is that rather than discuss it with him, you have to kill him?
And he was convinced of this because one of his employees was disgruntled, and blew up a Congressional hearing, so it became apparent that Superman was the bad guy?
Yeah, I don't get it.
I don't know how you watch the movie and don't recognize Batman's perspective. Superman's battles have killed a lot of people and is therefore a threat.
I saw one Superman battle, the one with General Zod, and in it he saved mankind from General Zod. Yes, there was a lot of collateral damage, but once Zod was killed, that was pretty much the end of that. There were some hard feelings from people who lost in that battle, but Superman was even willing to attend a hearing and explain himself. He never got the chance.
Other than that, he saved individuals in difficult situations. His threat was in the concept that he's all powerful, and some people might see him as a god, but not that he was always going around creating damage.
For me, that was a pretty tenuous justification for killing him, which casts a lot of doubt on Batman's judgment. He was pretty easily manipulated by Lex Luthor, and somehow snapped out of it because Superman's moms name was Martha?
That's the way I saw it, anyway.
I had this conversation with my buddy after the movie. Superman yelling out his mother's name only made Batman pause. Admittedly, if you're about to kill a guy and he calls out your dead mom's name, yelling, "You're letting them kill her!" it's gonna stall you a second. And in that moment of hesitation, Lois Lane rides the Deus Ex Machina Express into the scene, to explain that Lex is gonna kill Superman's mom, and basically set the whole thing in motion.
Remember that at this point, NO ONE knows Lex Luthor is a criminal mastermind. He's only known as an eccentric millennial billionaire. Bruce does business with Lex. He wouldn't suspect him, until Lois Lane, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, is suddenly making herself a human shield for Superman and explaining how Luthor is psychotic.
I get that the running joke will be that Martha is the safe word, but that's just like all the jokes that General Zod can't count because of "There's only one way this ends: either you die or I do." As for actual character motivation, Superman crying out Martha just made Bruce hesitate, and Lois spelling everything out made him spare Superman's life.
The only thing that pisses me off about that scene is that they didn't think to have Batman say, "Consider this mercy," as they help Superman up.
You're post about the safe word made me laugh and I agree about Batman saying "Consider this mercy." But Bruce had long begun to suspect the ulterior motives of Lex before the matchup. He even had an argument/debate with Alfred before going out on his first attempt to procure the kryptonite. Yes his primary focus was neutralizing/killing Kal-El, but after he decrypted Luthor's files you know he had to start suspecting and concluding the obvious because...Batman.
I dunno. Lex was open about his Meta-Human Hypothesis to the extent that he was openly discussing it with the Senator at the start of the movie. I don't think finding Let's dossier on meta-humans would really set anything in motion toward believing Luthor was a criminal mastermind. But Bruce did know Lex had associated with criminal syndicates to obtain Kryptonite. He probably chalked it up to a necessary evil to get what he was after, but as soon as Lois started laying it out, Batman realized Lex wasn't just working with a syndicate, he was running it.
He was moderately open with the Senator, I sincerely doubt he was open about the detailed files and everything (come on, it's Luthor. He had ulterior motives for them as well). I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about Bruce's perception of Luthor and his motives. I don't feel like Lois was all that imperative for Bruce (also a detective) in deducing that Luthor had ulterior motives (hence the debate/argument with Alfred before the big fight). I don't get what you mean by "necessary evil". I understand what it is but it seems too convenient of an explanation and inconsistent with the Dark Knight.
I haven't watched the new movie yet. Really have no desire, it looks like DC is mangling their movies already. But I did mistakenly go to see Man of Steel. From that I never got an impression that Superman was supposed to be a hero. He caused almost as much destruction as the other kryptonians, showed little respect for life by not moving the fight out of metropolis, and demonstrated that he killed something that historically Batman won't do.
"Mangling their movies" is awfully critical coming from someone that hasn't even seen the movie.
I was very disappointed in Man of Steel and I have yet to see a great review for the new movie that spent 400 million to make.
It costs 250 million, it made 400 million world wide the opening weekend. It has a 3/4 by Rolling Stone and a 7.5/10 on IMDb which are good scores. Don't dump on a movie you haven't even bothered to see.
It cost waaaaay more than $250 million when you throw in promotion - break even point is nearly a billion. It has a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDB metascore is 44%. I've seen it, and it's crap - so I can dump on it I guess.
I am 100% sure 1 billion is not the break even point.
Well according to the film studio, the Lord of the Rings movies were a loss so they didn't have to pay out Jackson's % of profits.
I remember reading that the production cost was about 400 million, so reasonably anything beyond that should be a profit.
I can't remember the source, but I read today that $1billion is indeed the breakeven point for the movie all considered, and the production budget was $400million. I have no idea how they got to that number, but it's what's been floating around.
You're right - I'm reading $800 million to break even, $1 billion to be considered a hit.
The new take on Lex Luthor is on of my least favorite re-imaginings of a comic book character. A relatively calm and calculating villain with an inner rage would have fit the tone of the film much better.
I think the editing was fine considering what they had to work with. The writing was what needs the biggest tune up.
I think showing Darkseid as the super villain of the first Justice League movie is a good move. He is the pinnacle of villains in the DC Universe and there is no sense in saving him for later when you are trying to launch a major movie franchise in a saturated comic book movie market.
See, I actually liked the writing. Yes, it was over the top, but in exactly the same way that DC comics dialogue is. And the whole "Is she with you?" thing regarding Wonder Woman made me laugh harder than anything zinger from a Marvel movie.
See when my wife and I watched it she thought Eisenberg's Luthor was more that of a Joker. But looking back earlier into the comics and his character I realized Luthor was more blatantly psychotic vs composed and psychotic. I loved the movie. I do feel like Affleck redeemed himself from Daredevil and worked VERY hard on both characters (Bruce and Batman). I don't know just wtf the critics were wanting and expecting. I agree there were things Snyder didn't need to do but I just have one message for rotty maters and semantacritic (metacritic):
Dear Jerks,
I hope it breaks box office records and all sorts of shit.
Well, it already has. Biggest domestic Easter weekend, March, and pre-summer opening of all time ($170.1 million). Also, fourth-largest international opening of all time ($424 million), larger than any Marvel film to date.
Well, here is one factoid from BoxOfficeMojo.com that aligns pretty well with your post:
'From an audience perspective, Batman v Superman received a so-so "B" CinemaScore with a "B-" coming from males, which made up 62% of the audience, and "B" from females. Audience members under the age of 18, however, scored it an "A-".'
Just saw the movie, and it was about what I expected. My biggest gripe with the movie was just as you pointed out: Batman killing. I get the "jaded after 20 years" angle. But batman. Doesn't. Kill. That is the one absolute I feel should never be thrown to the wayside, and it bothers me more than a little that it was. Overall I enjoyed the movie and I'm excited for the justice League movies, but marvel definitely still has a leg up
Considering the dark mood they were going for with the movie it fits the style. If you don't like when writers take liberties with established characters then I wouldn't suggest you watch any of the TV shows about comic book characters.
What are you talking about? Batman has killed before. Go back to the first one (89') when he killed the Joker and then proceed to the Forever film when Bruce was lecturing Grayson about killing and revenge. Even in the Dark Knight he killed Dent/Two-Face.
I was just about to say this.
I don't like that movie Batman kills, but every on screen Batman has killed. Burton's Batman directly murdered two people in the '89 film. Nolan's Batman had a dozen or so collateral damage deaths during his escape from the League of Shadows, then got all sorts of ambiguous by "not killing but not rescuing" Ras al Guhl. So Snyder's decision just follows in his predecessors' footsteps. This isn't even particularly over the top for a killing Batman, considering the body count from Batman Returns.
I think the truth is probably more along the lines of Hollywood simply doesn't know how to have an action blockbuster protagonist who has zero kill count. They aren't creative enough to figure out how to make it work.
Batman has ONE RULE, that he doesn't kill. And he spends this entire movie trying to break that rule.
It would have been easy enough to have a way for him to capture and subdue Superman without trying to kill him.
Doesn't kill "humans". He views superman as an alien.
I read something earlier today that might be able to explain this. Just a theory but it helped me be OK with this interpretation of Batman.
Consider the idea that batman killing is a new thing for him -- branding criminals. Feeling powerless in the wake of Superman's arrival turns Bruce cruel (alfred). Post fight with Supes and he says he "failed him in life, but will not fail him in death." He then finds Lex in jail and looks like he is a bout to sentence him to death by branding him, instead just scares the shit out of him like Batman is supposed to do. Not branding Luthor represented giving up on killing.
That's where I'm at. If Batman is as reckless with life in Justice League, then I'll have an issue with it.
However, on a related matter, how the hell did Batman get into Metropolis Supermax? The editing in that scene was very strange. Did the prison guards help him get down there, or did he subdue them as soon as they opened the door?
Uhh, because he's Batman.
LMAO. Yes, obviously this is always the correct answer. I just wasn't clear if the people who opened his cell were colluding to get Batman into Lex's cell, or if Batman infiltrated it completely on his own. There were so damn many dream sequences/vision in the film, I couldn't help but wonder if it was actually real, up until the point that the scene continued after Batman had left. That scene will definitely require a rewatch.
Nerds!
Actually I want to see it but don't want to sit in a theatre that long so I will probably wait for Netflix. Is this too dark for a 5 year old?
I definitely wouldn't let my 5yo see it, though I get parents are different. I have a pretty low threshold for the amount of cinematic violence I let my kids watch.
Well he loves all the Marvel movies but they are usually pretty campy, I know DC tries to make itself all dark and more grown-up which is why I was curious.
Did you let him watch the Nolan trilogy? I'd put this movie on par, maybe a tad more excessive in violence than those.
haven't seen it yet but found this hilarious
The look of a man who knows he could have directed it better.
And speaking of which, please God let Affleck direct a standalone Batman movie in this universe.
If him directing means Snyder not directing and anyone else playing batman, that could actually work.
Affleck nailed it, sorry. Hands down the best on-screen Batman yet, Snyder's mishandling of the character notwithstanding.
While I do agree that Affleck did honor to the characters, I don't agree that he was the best. IMHO the best is a tie between Keaton and Kilmer. Affleck comes in a 2nd or 3rd scenario with Bale (with the obvious Clooney at the very bottom. I would've taken O'Donnell over Clooney). Like I said, just my opinion.
Glad to know I am not the only person that thought Keaton did a good job. For me thou, Adam West shall always be Batman.
Really? You see for me it's Kevin Conroy.
I guess I'll wait to offer judgement until I see the movie, I just really don't want to see how this is possible. Affleck has been terrible in every role I've ever seen him play, and Snyder is not a very good director.
No argument about Snyder. Way more style than substance.
But I'll have to disagree with you on Affleck. I thought he was outstanding in Hollywoodland, The Town, Argo and Gone Girl. He's a better director than he is an actor, but he also an Oscar-caliber actor.
Chalk it up to different tastes I suppose. I haven't seen Hollywoodland or the Town. Gone Girl I felt he was very one-note. His performance was fine, which is his ceiling in my eyes, but a better actor could have helped that movie immensely. The critical love for Argo really confounds me. The movie is pretty good but, but it should have been great and again I feel like Ben is holding it back. His persona is suffocatingly bland and he brings that to every character he plays. I think a better performance from him along with better directing turns that into a truly great movie instead of what it is, just pretty good. I walked into that movie expecting something special given the accolades, and left firmly convinced that the Oscar wins were from friends doing him a favor.
All that aside, what's really worth ranting about is that Snyder was tabbed to direct this. They just finished a run of incredible films by a great director who got the grittiness they wanted by emphasizing story of style, then turn around and get a director who can do nothing but extended fight scenes.
And on that note
The Town was an awesome movie. I would highly suggest it.
I've heard that before (even from people more turned off by Affleck than I am), I'll have to give it a shot.
I'm not an Affleck fan, but The Town was pretty good.
Two awards he didn't warrant, however, were a Best Picture award for Argo (should have gone to Les Miserables), and the affection of Jennifer Garner.
As for this movie, a cardboard cutout of any prior batman actor could have slept-walked through it. It was an in-shape, middle-aged grumpy guy. Even George Clooney could have pulled this one off...
Going to be hard to beat a patriotic film with a musical.
The musical was also a patriotic film, and was exceptionally well-done.
I thought Argo was a decent movie about an interesting topic, but I didn't see the brilliance in the movie as a work of art.
Blasphemy!
So you get my point.
I get your point, but I flat out disagree with it.
Do you get my point?
My point is that Affleck did a far superior job portraying Batman/Bruce Wayne.
I went into BvS fully hoping that they were saving Superman solely for the fight with Doomsday and the character Cavill was portraying was actually Bizarro. Needless to say I was let down, but that was the only real sense I could make of a true knock down drag out brawl between Batman and Superman. Other than that I thought the movie was ok but like others have said the editing was cheap and made parts of the movie really hard to follow like the dream sequence where Snyder made it stupidly apparent that Darkseid, more on him in a bit, is going to be the villain for the Justice League movie. Affleck crushed Batman because he seemed to be completely comfortable with that distraught and disturbed version of the dark knight. Cavill as Superman is still iffy to me. MoS was crappy and this performance wasn't much better although both of these could just be Snyder not knowing how to properly do a comic book movie. As for all the Darkseid easter eggs we were given and this to me is the most important part if DC wants to compete with Marvel, you CAN NOT fuck that character up he needs to be the complete and total badass he's meant to be not some humdrum 30 minute fight like we got with Doomsday.
Now there's talk that WB might have pulled a Kingdom of Heaven. It was apparently announced before the movie was even released theatrically that the director's cut of the movie will be over 3 hours long. Apparently WB demanded a significantly reduced runtime for fear of losing audiences with a 180+ minute comic book movie. I'm holding out hope that the editing, which was by far the weakest part of this film, will be much more coherent when released as the film Snyder intended.
Not that I think Snyder is Ridley Scott by ANY stretch of the imagination, but the problems with this movie were completely different than the problems with Man of Steel. The issues with that film were mainly contextual, while I'd say my biggest issue with BvS was it was just so damn convoluted it lacked a cohesive narrative. I'm hoping the missing 30+ minutes make the whole thing just make more sense, rather than being more eye candy.
I've got no skin in the game, but if I was a DC fan, I think I would have wanted them to save Doomsday for the real deal and not waste him on a 'let's try and launch the JLA bigtime' film.
I didn't even realize Doomsday was in this movie until I saw this column. I agree, it feels like a waste to use him in an intro movie. He should have been used after the group had gotten together for the first JLA movie.
Darkseid is a way better villain to use in the first Justice League movie.
Saw it last night...
Wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. I was entertained for the most part throughout. That said, it really did suffer from having way too many plotlines all going at once. The whole part with the senator should have been scrapped, Wonder Woman, while her part was great at the end, really felt forced in, and should have been saved for the JL movies, after her solo act. And the dream sequences just added to the confusion. Rip all those parts out, and you have a good movie. Well, except for the long, drawn out final act, where... I mean Spoiler Alert yeah, they're totally going to kill off the main focal point of the Justice League right before that franchise really gets going... Yeah, sure... ok... Ruined the whole ending that they were trying to make it so incredibly sad that SM died when the movie was called 'Dawn of Justice', there hasn't been a Justice League movie, yet, and SM is arguably the main focal point of it. It just didn't work.
Yeah, I read somewhere that they were considering just shooting him out into space, or having him frozen for several years. The whole point was to have batman take the lead role in assembling the JL and become the leader until SM came back. I for one wish that they had just shot him into space, where maybe he tangled with one of the many future villains. It would make a lot more sense then killing him and bringing him back to life just arbitrarily. And of course there's the chance that they killed him off for good, in which case the whole movie franchise is bullshit.
Which is why they should have saved Doomsday to be the central villain in another film. I get it, DC has to play some serious catching up to establish their own cinematic universe to compete with Marvel, but this film could have been straight Batman vs Superman, with the ending being finding out that Lex is a criminal mastermind. Have him abscond with the Kryptonian ship and Zod's body, with Batman and Superman putting aside their differences and vowing to bring Luthor to justice.
Next movie, Luthor has deduced how to genetically engineer Doomsday and unleashes him on the world. Handle it like a Godzilla movie, where Doomsday surfaces and lays waste to a city, then disappears. Superman and Batman come together to find Lex and defeat Doomsday. You showcase Batman as the World's Greatest Detective, finding clues of Lex's whereabouts and developing methods to weaken Doomsday. It becomes clear that despite all their power and ingenuity, Batman and Superman are outgunned by Doomsday. THEN Wonder Woman makes her intro, Supes dies after three films, Batman and Wonder Woman start to assemble the Justice League.
I get they're playing catch up, but the best part of the Marvel cinematic universe were those first few films where it became obvious they were building toward something huge. By cramming two movies into one, DC has shortchanged its fans of that a little bit. I'm hoping now maybe the pace can slow down a tad.
This quote should be printed in every ad: 'Wasn't as bad as people made it out to be!'
According to rotten tomatoes, it is.
A very excellent assessment.
LOL! I'm glad this is April Fool's Day.
What do you mean, Grace posted this up back on the 28th.
I mean, the idea that the RT critics are conspiring to keep people away from films like BvS, FF, etc. is surely April Fool's Day fodder. Either that, or it's just posting insane shit to stir up page views, comments and shares.
She made some good points though.
She acts as if there's a clear, predictable connection between the quality of a film and the box office. Did she forget crap like the 'Transformers' franchise? Were critics likewise conspiring to keep people from seeing 'Rise of the Fallen?'
She calls herself a film insider, but doesn't understand the basics about the entertainment industry. Good films flop. Bad films flop. Good films make money. Bad films make money. A lot has to do with branding - which is why we get so many sequels, remakes, and adaptations (in this case, a combination of several).
Ok, so let me ask you this: how reliable do you find RTs and Metacritics rating scales and reviews? What is your method of scoring films?
Less stock into what the critics say and more into what the average users say.
Put it this way, on RT critic average is 29%... Average user is 71%
Having seen it, I would say the users are more on point than the critics. The movie has its problems but it wasn't terrible. It wasn't emo Spiderman trying to act suave in the club terrible or Daredevil and the horrendous Elektra levels of terrible, all of which the critics would rate better than BvS, and in the case of Daredevil and Spider Man 3, the critics say those movies are vastly better. The users rate all 3 as worse than BvS. In the case of BvS it definitely seems like there was an agenda at play throughout the critic community to ruin this film.
What do you mean by reliable? Accurate? Reasonable? Good at predicting box office?
Rotten Tomatoes doesn't have an agenda - it simply compiles critical reviews and arrives at an average score, for a big picture view. It's the individual critics who matter in this.
When you look at, say, the B vs S breakdown you'll find critics who liked it and critics who don't. Maybe you agree with the critics who do. Figure out if you agree with why they liked it. Read some of the top critics who DIDN'T like it and see if you understand why.
As for me, I rate a film based on how well its made - script, direction, production values - and whether or not I like it, which is more of a gut thing. I watch a lot of films, both good and mediocre (I tend to stay way from the truly bad ones). I can tell you why Avengers is very good and B vs S is mediocre. I know which directors and screenwriters I trust, and those who haven't earned it yet.
I could tell you why Avengers is mediocre.
Will there you go, you just admitted you go into a movie with a personal bias not even realizing you're subconsciously steering your opinion in one direction before you even step for in the theatre, which is one of the 4 main points in the video linked above.
People hate Zach Snyder and want to see him fail. BvS has its issues, but it's not Jar Jar Binks bad, the awful character in an awful Star Wars movie the critics rated to be twice as good as BvS. I think the video is dead on with her assessment on why the critics bombed this only to see it actually do well in theaters.
I don't think there's a great conspiracy here. Maybe a bit of annoyance over where they went with it, mixed with a bit of schadenfreude for Snyder and Affleck.
The movie just wasn't that good. Sure, it had great special effects, big stars, and good style. The plot was lame, the dialogue was lacking, and it was a bit self-serving in an obvious attempt to jump start the franchise, rather than make a good movie.
It's just not special, and one might have hoped for more given the opportunity and budget. I'd give it more of a C- than an F.
What's your format and criteria for grading films?
That's funny. I enjoyed it. Now what's your criteria and method for rating a film?
Third time you've asked that. What's yours?
I'll admit I don't have one. I go in hoping for a great script with as seamless transitions as possible and believing that the actors and actresses did the best job they could researching and preparing to portray their characters. I'll admit I was worried and disappointed when I first learned Affleck was selected for the role of the Dark Knight. I remembered Daredevil and was thinking to myself "just wtf were they smoking" and "PLEASE don't eff this up". When I realized that I couldn't do anything about it I just accepted it with the hope that he would work hard and do the best job he could. I feel like he pulled it off successfully. Do I feel like Snyder and tied to shove too much into the film? Sure. But that's not enough for me to declare it average or mediocre at best. Again, I don't have a system or format for grading films, but based on the comments from yourself and Vtkey, it sounds as though y'all do. That's fine. I'm just curious what it is (and you've yet to still explain it, I've noticed). I've enjoyed this discussion.
Dude, if you think I believe the film is mediocre because I hate Snyder and want to see him fail, you have issues. The film is mediocre on its own merits.
This movie probably isn't nearly as bad as some critics make it out to be, but it isn't that great, either. This really isn't the greatest movie of all time, or even close. It's not in the same category as The Dark Knight.
I can understand why the critics poo-pooed it. Maybe it should have been rated 60% instead of 30%, but I can't really say it's a good movie. I'm glad I saw it, but I'll probably never watch it again. This movie proves that sometimes "more" isn't "better".
No offense to original OP, but I pretty much disagree with every single point you mentioned vehemently -- except about Wonder Woman's costume -- but quite literally everything else is the polar opposite to me.
EDIT: Ok, and that I think Affleck as Batsy was a good choice; I just disliked how they potrayed Batman and don't think it was the fault of bad casting.
So it seems clearer and clearer to me that the whole dream sequence (apocalyptic one) is really going to be revisited in the later movies. My thought's are its going to be basically going to be the DC equivalent of "Civil War", which is the comic series of "Injustice: Gods Among Us". Flash comes back in time to say how Lois is the key and has always been the key to Superman, and that the only person that can stop Supes from breaking is the Batman.
If anyone else has read the "Injustice" series and can chime in, that'd be swell.
I actually think they might be basing that storyline on the Flashpoint arc, since it was Flash who appeared to Bruce after the Knightmare sequence.