*Spoilers*

A decade late but whatever. I recently (as in over quarantine so not recently) suffered through Batman vs. Superman and decided to rate it. Also, I’m back on my posting thrice a week nonsense (lol).

All opinions are my own and my opinions are trash. However, my criteria basically is:

1. No Because Plot
2. No Glaring Plot Holes/Continuity Errors
3. No lame, cringe unnatural dialogue (this includes uber woke sjw warrior dialogue and attempts at preaching to the audience via another character)
4. Things must be shown and not told.
5. Protagonists must go through some sort of character development, good or bad
6. Female characters, if they are the protagonist, should not have a plot that revolves around a male character (unless it’s a romance).
7. Characters cannot toss away every traditionally feminine or masculine trait solely for the sake of being woke

Man of Steel

• set the ground work for what could have been a superior Man of Steel 2, or at least lead into a decent Batman solo movie.
• score was fantastic
• seeing super-powered beings beat each other up is fun.
• Henry Cavill is hella f i n e.
• Twas ok until it becomes a horror movie Zod is introduced.
• Clark’s father going back for a dog and Superman not rescuing him made -0 sense. Sorry Sparky but bye. The directors show us multiple times Superman throwing caution to the wind by saving people, yet he’s really not gonna even try with his own dad????
  • This could’ve been easily remedied if they’d either showed young Clark repeatedly letting people die when he could’ve saved them (out of character, but consistent), or pulled something like Clark fails to save Pa because he hesitates for a second too long or whatever and a beam of wood hit his head. Didn’t fit his character that he was just like “oh no, I could save my dad but he said not too, so I’m just gonna stand here and watch him die because people might see me!!!”

The whole fight between Zod.

• Why didn’t Supes try to get him out of Metropolis? I get it’s his third day on the job, but like just one-punch man him into space.
• Why make out with Lois Lane instead of helping folks? There’s so much focus on religious/Christian imagery, but not enough Superman saving those around him, which is the core of Superman’s character. Again, this could’ve been remedied somewhat by showing Superman balancing saving people and fighting Zod, before realizing Zod’s just gonna keep trying to kill people unless he merks him. This could lead nicely into Superman snapping Zod’s neck.
• Supes killing Zod – literally why move his head towards the family? Why was the family just sitting there screaming? Really, the writers couldn’t have at least corralled them into a corner or trapped them under some debris? Again, if the writers had shown Zod repeatedly killing people and Superman savingthem until realizing that he really was gonna have to kill Zod to get him to stop, this could build nicely into Zod’s kamikaze me speech and Supes deciding to kill him, since at that point Zod’s purpose for being alive was over and he probably really would have just kept causing chaos on Earth until he died.

This movie could have been an interesting take on Superman, who’s literally so perfect, good, and indestructible he veers into boring territory. If they’d amped up the idea of him struggling with wanting to help humanity because of his nature vs. wanting to live low-key for the sake of his parents and also feeling like humanity is generally trash for the way they’ve ostracized him, it could’ve been grand.

Also, they should’ve played up the whole Superman finding his people thing as that would have made him having to kill Zod actually sad. Despite it’s flaws, I still found Man of Steel enjoyable; however, I’m certain that’s simply because of Henry Cavill’s physical appearance.

Man of Steel Rating: 6.5/10

Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

A single conversation between Batman and Superman, which would have been about as long as their actual fight was, would have rendered BvS nonexistent.

• Why did everyone blame Superman for what happened in Metropolis? Technically, he activated that ship or whatever that brought Zod here, but like that’s not what people were mad about. It’s clear the terraforming machine did the bulk of the damage to the city.
• Why was Batman specifically so upset with Superman?
• Why did Superman run away to sulk after that EMT said he needed space? I get Snyder was going for a Superman who needed to grow or whatever, but Superman wouldn’t mope on Lois’ window frame because his feelings got hurt. Furthermore, the EMT saying that didn’t even make sense given Superman was clearly helping get people from the building.
• Why wasn’t the first words Superman said to Batman when he went to beat his #+% “Lex Luthor kidnapped my mother,” ????
• Why did Superman say “save Martha” instead of “save my mother” ?????
• Joker-lite Lex Luthor in general? (????)
• How did Lois know to look for the spear?
• Why didn’t Wonder Woman run the spear through Doomsday? She, with her super strength, uses a sword already and wouldn’t have been slowly dying whilst handling it.
• Why was Doomsday even there?

First, we needed a Wonder Woman and Batman movie, maybe Man of Steel II.

A Batman movie or MoS II would serve to a.) introduce us to this Batman and give us a reason to care about him zipping under falling buildings stressed out b.) introduce us to Lex Luthor, who we’re just suppose to assume is very smart c.) develop the relationship between Lois and Superman.

Second, a more fitting title would’ve been Batman vs. Superman vs. Lex Luthor vs. The United States Military vs. The Media vs. The United States Government vs. Superman’s Nature vs. Doomsday: Dawn of Justice featuring Wonder Woman, with cameos from the Flash, Aquaman, and Darkseid.

Too much going on, which is precisely what a Batman solo movie/MoS II could have fixed.

In a Batman solo movie, the issue of superheroes having too much power could have been fleshed out with Batman doing his whole judge, jury, executioner deal in Gotham while dealing with the fall-out of the fight between Zod and Superman (the focus could’ve been like Batman vs. the Media/Government). Here, we could see why Batman had such a hate boner against Superman if we see Batman eventually allowing himself to be held accountable, yet feeling as if Supes is doing his own thing because he’s too powerful. Could even have Lex Luthor shoehorned in here as a villain because he acted like the Joker anyway this would allow us to see how exactly Lex is so smart.

Sadly, even rushed and sans other movies it potentially could have been ok if writers focused the first half of the movie on Batman and Superman being generally sus of each other with Lex trying to pit everyone against Superman whilst working on his blood sacrifice Doomsday/Zod reincarnation until Batman realizes he’s being played by Lex like everyone else thanks to Lois, too late as Lex has already used Kryptonite technology to bring Doomsday to life (Doomsday even being in this movie at all makes no sense).

Alas, that’s not what happened.

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice Rating: 3/10.

Justice League

• The CGI was trash
• The score was okay
• The only character with personality was The Flash
• Steppenwolf was lame, generic, and corny and if you don’t know anything about him from the comics, he makes absolutely no sense either
• The humor was clearly an attempt to copy Marvel for money. They should’ve stuck with the darker tone and maybe let The Flash be some occasional comedic relief
• The fight scenes were lame, like how are you going to have a bunch of superpowered beings mostly just punch one another

Again, would have benefitted from several movies involving these characters. And similar to BvS, the plot was totally unfocused and messy; the characters only come together because the plot needs them too, not because it makes any sense. They have almost no chemistry either, not even awkward we’re only here because we have to be chemistry.

The Snyder cut was a slow-motion version of the original movie. Sure, the CGI looked better and there were some nice scenes added, but the framework of the movie is not that good and while Snyder’s version was better, that’s mostly because the original version tried to do in 2 hours what needed to be done over like 5-6 movies, which was develop the characters enough that I cared to watch what they were doing.

That said, I do vaguely recall enjoying Justice League when I watched in it theaters. Probably because Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, and Gal Gadot were in it

Justice League Rating: 4.5/10

Lack of humor isn’t the issue with these movies – they could’ve stuck with the darker, grittier tone because the superhero market is ripe for that, and not like The Boys and trashburn Brightburn edge lord dark (I like the Boys tbh), but something less comedic that explores what it means to be a superhero, how superheroes work with governments, how superheroes are held accountable, etc.

What’s missing here is character development. You have to make viewers care about your characters before throwing them into situations. Any movie can give us fight scenes and good visuals, but when viewers feel emotionally attached they’ll keep coming back. And when viewers simply like the characters themselves, they’re much more likely to overlook plot holes like these.

Anyway, Suicide Squad was also terrible, but I stopped watching that once whoever Cara’s character was became The Enchantress, so it would be disingenuous to rate it. The Joker was lame and over the top. Only good thing to come out of it was Harley Quinn and Will Smith’s character. Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, and Shazam are not included as those were alright.