I have been happy with all of the DC movies so far, but I can’t help and think that the men running this franchise are acting like they have never done a movie in their life and basing their actions on critical demand and being reactionary to each micro complaint.
First of let’s be real here – when “Batman V Superman” came out, all guns were pointed at Zack Snyder’s head since critics saw “Man of Steel” as some sort of Superman dark story, that they rejected. Too much darkness and destruction was their complaint. To me, the scope and tone of “Man of Steel” was 90 % correct. I do not need a Superman who speaks with clichés circa 1978, and I do not need to stay stuck on one version for over 29 years and not progress. The 1978 version of it, did not fit modern post TDK world, it was tried in “Superman Returns” in 2006 and it failed financially and although it was scored higher from critics with 76 %, it made 277 million less than “Man of Steel”. Fans that were paying attention to the interpretations of Superman post 1990 into the 2000s, that were aware of him via comics, games, series, animated movies etc., knew that his boy scout image had failed multiple times over the course of his 78-year-old history. The times have changed and wearing underwear outside of your costume, had to die, thankfully Zack Snyder did it first.
Most of the negative reviews I saw were heavy on
nostalgia, insisting that version A is better than B - because Superman is a fun, smiling boyscout character, but you see not a very profitable one past Superman The movie and Superman 2 dated 25 years back. With Marvel's Disney franchise, they had none of these complaints when it came to new commers to the big commercial screen, with
Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and other Disney properties.
“Man of steel” had one of the best cinematographic looks [
yes it did layer a filter on top of the image to give it a consistent look, due to the usage of FX, something I find very clever] , that was mentioned as a negative by critics as dark and gloom. Some of these , so called critics are even familiar with the George Reeves TV series from the 50s, thats how old they are. The movie showed a grounded approach to a making a
“man fly and have super powers”, something that had not been properly introduced from
Marvel/Disney up until they included
Vision in "Age of Ultron" and poorly to my taste.
Marvel took on their
B characters at the time, having only certain rights for movie adaptations and most popular from them were
The Avengers and
Iron man. To me
they really did not have any choice when it came down to making something different than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avengers could not be a separate movie, a separate list of actors in the time of a solo Iron Man trilogy, Hulk trilogy or Thor truilogy. They really needed that step, so they can make
The Avengers movie work within a 3-4-year span. Something
DC played with pre
Batman Begins with a cancelled "
Justice League", and decided
Nolan works to well to have another
Batman in the same time, which is ok for Batman fans that have their separate franchise that isnt dominated with cameos and aliens to ruin the core idea of
Batman.
Expectations weren’t very high for them since they really had never made any movies based on these characters for mass audiences before [
there was a very old version, that was for TV, but with no popularity in its era]. This helped them very much in terms of critical reception, at least is what I think happened. Every MCU phase 1 movie up until
The Avengers had a nice Rotten Tomatoes score [above 55%] and did fairly well at the box office [260 m to 623 m], the MCU first 5 movies grossed a combined worldwide box office of approximately 2.3 Billion dollars. Many fans of the
franchise attribute that number
[considered low now in 2017 for some reason] to the low fame into mainstream audience’s mind at the time
2008-2012. Thats the go to answer, when they call DCEU a failure at movie number 5 being at 3.5 + Billion and counting for Justice League.
They claim the mediocre numbers are based on the fact superhero movies weren’t popular then. Well, that’s not entirely true, Superman 78 [adjusted for 2017*] is a 1.2 B. movie, Batman 1989* 850 M + movie, Spider-Man* 1.1 B+ franchise and its sequel * made even more [1.2 B +].
* Adjusted for 2017 price tickets
The "
X-Men" movies in the early
2000s are another example of movies, that were doing around the
600-800* Million prior to the MCU, 2005's
Batman Begins relaunched the franchise softly, which did around the 450 -500* M. worldwide in USD. That led to a 2.3 B* worth of sequels by the end of 2012. There was a market of sub performing movies from both
Marvel and
DC in-between these, names like:
Blade, Daredevil, Elektra, Catwoman, Green lantern, Johan Hex, Steel, Superman Returns Hulk and many more.
It seems that in the days of separate movie timelines, that did not co-exist in the same universe, each movie got what it deserved in terms of praise and box-office. Nowadays we live in a world where
MCU has done 17-18 movies in a row that are all well received critically and performed from anything from 260 Million to 1.5 Billion, with an average of 745-750 Million [
this is including The Inhumans which was considered part of the MCU since it had a theatrical release and was later removed from BoxOfficeMojo due to the very low performance both financially and critically ~ 10 % RT score, when removed the average is 790 M with Ragnarok added] or more depending on the inclusion of other
Disney properties going upward to 790 Million.
This means either they have found a
never heard of previously precedent in Hollywood, where one studio and producer make an awesome movie each time they do one, or there is a bubble in which these movies are
examined. And that bubble sounds like a big
Marvel bubble, where a movie can have a mediocre musical score, mediocre
cinematography, mediocre writing, mediocre wardrobe and acting and still be perceived as an achievement in cinematic history.
Each positive review I read for
Marvel/Disney mentions lots of negatives, but does so in a round about possitive way, "
while the plot and the villain aren’t that good, it’s fun time in the cinema" "while the musical score sounds like temp music and the actor is clearly bored with this part, the movie is fun and it is a good time at the cinema"
And this is a real one "The best sequel in years. Though I didn’t understand the plot or the dialogue" - or as i like to say when i am seeling my car "No seats or engine, but a real good looking car"
http://filmsinreview.com/2017/05/04/galaxy-of-the-guardians-vol-2/
It is almost like a
TV series now, we get teased what is going to happen in Episode
14 in the previous episode, and while this wasn’t our favorite episode, we like the series in general, so let’s praise by assumption because , you know we dig the
Marvel Cinematic Universe and covered failures under its name.
Marvel in 2015, post
The Avengers and
Iron Man 3 fame released
Ant-Man, another well received movie part of their universe [
which you can’t forget when there is guest characters and the name Stark is mentioned 3-4 times to keep you aware of that] that made
500 M worldwide, so basically 1/3 of
The Avengers crowd saw it. But why? If the movie is so good [
82 %], why did every 3
rd MCU fan forget to show up? Where were their supporters? I think what happens is, they create a buzz and get those good scores based on the above
reasons, then people go see it and word of mouth takes over past that, the real opinion of audience gets around and it cuts their money for their over praised weaker movies.
If the
Hulk wasn’t in
The Avengers he would not have survived his
HULK and
The Incredible Hulk numbers and reception, there wouldn’t be a 3
rd solo outing for him for sure, maybe 10 years later or more a new re-boot.
Now with the
DCEU, they built their universe on top of “
Man of Steel” and its 2016 follow ups were met with harsh criticism, both ended up scored around the 26-27 % by critics, both movies moved past 740 Million [
to Ant-Man and phase 1 Marvel box office apologist, Suicide Squad didn’t feature a ton of super known Batman rogues and characters with super fame besides the Joker, who was a cameo only] and performed well enough. All
DCEU movies have been scored from 55 % below, currently 5 movies, with “
Wonder Woman” getting a pass due to feminist concerns and woke critical political reception. No one wanted to drag into the mud a female director who was given the first ever major female super hero franchise and the movie was awesome regardless of their games for clicks and popularity. So if “
Wonder Woman” was a movie by any other male director, you can be sure it would have been sitting next to Man of Steel in the lower 50 %, just because it’s not their beloved Marvel/Disney and be dragged for all sorts of nitpicks, a 3
rd act that is darker, CGI-ish villain etc,.
With the release of “
Justice League”, a straight forward team up movie, with light tone, humor, heroic representation of its characters and basically a 1:1 critical reply to each MOS, BVS and SS complaints, they were rewarded with a 41 % score. The basis for it is,
moustache gate, weak villain and that it wasn’t like Thor
Ragnarok [super funny]. Than we started acting like these scores do not affect Opening Weekend. No one expected “
Justice League” to make
1.5 Billion plus, just like no one expects a 3D movie to make 2 Billion post Avatar, or like no one expects a ship disaster movie to make billions post Titanic.
Also, DC doesn’t really need assemble movies, if “
MOS” almost did 700 Million, its follow up can make it to 1 Billion under the right circumstances and a
Batman solo movie with the right director can easily make that 3 times in a row in a trilogy with a unified vision from one director and one actor.
“Justice League” isn’t a must for you
DC Films as one might think, it is an “
IF” scenario. For
Marvel “The Avengers” was a
must, because the others didn’t really amount to anything
pre-Avengers that hasn’t been done by others before them in terms of numbers.
All the geek media raged after the “
Justice League” fiasco, that they love it, the tone was fixed, the humor was there. The optimism is there and that they never would have guessed it would open to such low numbers. What a surprise coming from movie talk channels with million in views annually that
ONLY debate super heroes
365 - 24/7 and each DC topic is presented as trouble, negatives, re-shoots, director leaves, actor leaves – where we seen actors and directors leave Disney properties in 2016 like Flash leaves a scene. Ed Norton and Erica Bana made Mark Ruffalo the 3
rd Hulk, not a problem, its Marvel. Edgar Wright left and was replaced by a pretty mediocre director, no problem.
Mickey Rourke and
Terrance Howard criticizing Marvel, never happened in our media world.
Ike Perlmutter racist remarks on more than one occasion and his cheapness, not a problem. Not one of the MCU actors had issues with arm pit hair, moustaches, the movies being called a mess by inside sources like the ones Sasha Perl Raver {
Screen Junkies News – Schmoes Know] has for
“Wonder Woman”.
Now, when
DC altered everything about what made them different and failed with their lowest 93 M opening weekend within the
DCEU, you cheer them! Comic book lovers think they know movies way too much, we have seen
Kevin Smith behind the camera, its no coincidence that all his movies combined can’t equate to the worst
DC movie ever released. It is no coincidence that people like
Screen Junkies, Collider, Schmoes Know, Comicbook.com, and many more are not in movies, but on
YouTube talking for hours the same thing every day. Also the rare occasions they get for a guest, it is usually some nerdy geek writer that has a pretty bad career in Hollywood, or one that is going down soon. When Kevin Smith says this isn’t his “Superman” or “Batman”, I always revert back to a DC comics that he wrote where Green Arrow and Batman were discussing branding of their respective cars, caves, and such nonsense. Arrow-car? Reminds me of the most of Whedon dialogue for Batman in Justice League!
Something is definitely broken, I do not “not” like you! – give this man an Oscar now !
The preexisting line up for
DCEU movies if done right and follows each character’s own tone, feel and does it differently than
Marvel, can make a great universe where all issues are addressed and we do not have to expect one pattern for all movies, all jokes, all the time. At this point, where the first 5 movies from DC [
With Justice League still in week 2] have outperformed Marvel’s first 5 with a Billion + and it’s called a failure and in need of reboot, one thing its clear;
DC’s past in the form of Superman 78, Batman 89 and TDK is expected as the bar for their movies
Marvel pre Iron Man is compared to nothing much in terms of bench mark, Sony is called crappy even though they made 3 very good movies.
[DCEU’s first 5 movies making 3.5 Billion - Marvel’s CU 2.3 Billion at the same stage of their universe ad Justice League having a more weeks life to add another 300 Million] * and yeah, all the apologies for these numbers are well known to me, weren’t famous outside of comics, worldwide, Batman and Superman are the most famous ones, etc.,
If
DC is dark its bad, if DC is light it is bad. So, basically that is the true definition of bias, judging movies in a bubble. I see these scores of
Marvel on
RT and then I look at time-less masterpieces from the 70s to today and they are considered worse by people based on RT alone. So do not expect a good score for a
Aquaman,
Flash,
Shazam,
Superman 2,
Green Lantern Corps.,
Suicide Squad 2,
Batman,
Deathstroke,
Nightwing,
Batgirl,
Joker or other
DC properties, they aren’t part of the MCU. Spider-man over at Sony used to be bashed, it joined MCU and became a critical hit immediately.
Zack Snyder or not, the critics will continue to do the same based on the fact that they can, you go to
Rotten Tomatoes and you see the same scores for both
Thor and
Justice League being marked as fresh for one and rotten for the other and no one cares to fix it, there is no way to check if these people base that on prejudice, on staying part of the crowd, if they really enjoy the increased traffic to their sites etc, or they really are just looking for humor in these movies to justify that they review lately only such movies and feel its below them. They are always safe whatever they say, so how can you make a movie and expect to open it without interference from small minded people, when the numbers between critics and fans are in each spectrum’s bottom or top, the gap is huge.
P.S RIP to Autumn she would have been 21 yesterday!