Zach Snyder is a masterful director. He has been in charge of some visually stunning films, such as 300, The Watchmen and Sucker Punch. He is also the man in the chair for the first two DC Extended Universe (DCEU) films: Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS). The reception, both critically and financially, of these two films has been underwhelming, to put it mildly. But, at least publicly, neither Snyder nor Warner Brothers (the studio producing both films and all future DCEU films) seem panicked. Why?
Perhaps it is because Zach Snyder doesn’t make movies to be liked. In fact what if the entire meta-narrative of BvS is that you don’t need to be liked to be good. What if Snyder intentionally set out to make an unlikable film, with unlikable, even unrecognizable, characters that still was good?
When you begin to tear down the directorial choices made in BvS, it becomes clear that making the primary characters likable was not high on his list of priorities. The somber colors, the dour facial expressions, the twitches, the lack of anything approaching human emotion, these all turn our emotions against the heroes. The villains of the film have almost nothing to do with their comic book counter-parts. Batman is almost likable, bourn mostly on the charisma of Ben Affleck, but the only truly likable character in BvS is Wonder Woman. And she is likable in spite of Snyder, as that smile, yes that one, was an improvisation by Gal Gadot.
Yet, BvS works in spite of being almost completely unlikable. Snyder has created a movie that justifies his premise that you don’t need to be liked to be good.
What are your thoughts?