The Screen Junkies team has shared its 400th Honest Trailer, and this one takes aim squarely at the entire DC Extended Universe. As you might expect, this shared world comes under fire...a lot.
Warner Bros.' frequent clashes with the filmmakers that work on these DC movies is brought up, as is some questionable dialogue, recurring daddy issues for the heroes, and the general lack of planning surrounding these movies (especially compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
The way Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have been portrayed is also mentioned, with the Dark Night dubbed a murderer and Diana Prince described as an "incel."
This is all meant to be in good fun, of course, but even if you love the likes of Zack Snyder's Justice League and Shazam!, it's hard to find fault with much of what is said in this video. The DCEU has been plagued by problems since day one, and Warner Bros. still hasn't managed to figure out the right way to portray most of these iconic heroes and villains on the big screen.
That's not to say it's all been bad, but some executives at the studio could probably learn a lot from watching this video and being made aware of such huge mistakes!
Watch the DCEU's Honest Trailer below:
Click on the "Next" button below to see 10
costumes that the DCEU failed to do justice!
10. Shazam (Shazam!)
This costume may have paid homage to the comics in some ways, but it dropped the ball in others. The primary issue is that it looks like someone put a suit on Zachary Levi, and then inflated it like a balloon.
In order to make the character look as ripped as possible, Shazam! opted for fake muscles, and that takes a lot from an otherwise decent costume. The same issue was present for the rest of the Shazam Family, and we can only hope some improvements will have been made in the sequel.
How Dwayne Johnson looks suited up as Black Adam should be very interesting, particularly with how his suit compares to what we've seen from Shazam thus far.
This one wasn't a disaster, but it was a disappointment.
9. Enchantress (Suicide Squad)
Enchantress wears a pretty generic costume in the comics, but it's one that could have been adapted for the big screen in a unique and inventive way.
Unfortunately, Suicide Squad director Dave Ayer opted to take things down a very different direction. This weird, grungy take on the villain admittedly fit the tone of the movie, but it would have been so easy to make her final, restored appearance a little more like what we've seen on the page.
Instead, Cara Delevingne hula hooped her way across the screen in the final act and looked terrible doing so.
The costume honestly feels like little more than an excuse to put the actress and model in something revealing, and we despair to think that this might be anyone's favorite costume in the 2016 film.
8. Batman (Justice League)
For the most part, Ben Affleck looks incredible in the DC Extended Universe. His classic Batsuit was damn near perfect, and even though it made sense for him to done some armor for the final stand against Steppenwolf was this really the best Zack Snyder and company could do for Justice League?
Those goofy goggles are painful to look at, and the aesthetics of this Batsuit are just plain ugly.
It didn't look overly exciting in motion, while the comic book Batman has faced much greater threats than this while wearing his traditional costume.
If Snyder was intent on an armored design for the Dark Knight, then a variation of what we saw in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice might have worked better. As it stands, this is easily the DCEU's most forgettable take on the iconic hero.
7. Huntress (Birds Of Prey)
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) failed to do the team justice in more ways than one, but the costumes were particularly problematic for us.
Harley Quinn got to rock some memorable styles, and Black Canary looked...fine. The biggest let-down, however, was Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Huntress. We respect the film attempting to give her the classic mask and costume in those final few minutes, but that didn't really work any better than what we saw in the rest of this messy adventure.
Birds of Prey had a pretty silly tone, but attempting to remain grounded meant that these characters suffered.
Honestly, Huntress showing up in her classic comic book costume would have been no more ridiculous than what we've seen from characters like Batman and Superman in the DCEU.
6. Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad)
Talking of Harley Quinn, we'd be remiss not to mention the anti-hero's Suicide Squad costume.
Margot Robbie looked terrific, but this overly sexualised take on the character wasn't remotely necessary. "Daddy's Little Monster"? Really? Throw in those extremely short shorts and a stylised take on Harley that was a far cry from the comics and we can't appreciate this one beyond how good the actress playing the Joker's beau made it look.
What we've seen from Harley Quinn in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad shows how much better she can look on screen. That's a pitch-perfect take on her, and one David Ayer could have easily pulled from.
This costume fits Suicide Squad's weird tone, but those tattoos? Well, they may not be part of the costume, but it's hard to forgive the filmmaker for making such poor choices with those as well.
5. General Zod (Man Of Steel)
General Zod certainly isn't terrible to look at in Man of Steel, but there are better designs than this clunky CGI costume that could have been used for the reboot.
Considering the fact Zod is every bit as powerful as Superman (perhaps more powerful), there's no reason for him to wear armor, and it would have been more effective to see him wearing a twisted version of Kal-El's own costume as they battled it out in Metropolis.
Snyder has a thing for creating the suits we see on screen in a computer, and in this case, it just didn't work that well. Zod has worn armors in the comics, but those are usually somehow ceremonial, a much cooler concept than what we saw in 2013.
Again, we're not greatly offended by this one or anything, but it does leave us cold.
4. Cheetah (Wonder Woman 1984)
Mistakes were made in Wonder Woman 1984, and most of them were, unfortunately, with Cheetah.
The final CGI design for the villain wasn't technically a costume, but we still hated it. The visual effects were poor (and there was no excuse for that given how many times the sequel was delayed), and the way the character was portrayed in the final battle did little to disguise that fact.
However, in the interest of fairness, we're going to focus on Barbara Minerva's actual costume. It sucked. Ridiculously on the nose to justify her Cheetah transformation, it felt like something we'd have seen from this genre back in 2005.
Kristen Wiig and the villain she played in this divisive sequel deserved better.
3. The Flash (Justice League)
Look, we understand wanting to give Barry Allen a "homemade" costume at this early stage in his superhero career, but that doesn't mean we have to like what he ended up wearing.
Overly busy and complicated, it admittedly looks like something a young man like Barry would piece together to contain his speed, but there's really no reason he couldn't have just started off with a proper costume created by the Speed Force (even if he didn't understand where it had come from).
Thankfully, The Flash film that's currently shooting in England is seemingly embracing that idea or at least giving Barry something to wear that sticks a little closer to the comics.
Perhaps we'd like this more if it had played into the plot of either cut of Justice League, but as it stands, it's a poor take on the Flash that fails to live up to the visuals we're used to seeing from the Scarlet Speedster on the page every month.
2. Cyborg (Justice League)
Cyborg's "costume" may be an entirely VFX creation, but it's still technically a costume, and one we're not even a little bit on board with right now.
Before going any further, it's worth pointing out that Zack Snyder's Justice League seemingly improved on what we saw back in 2017 with some solid finishing touches. Even so, it's still an overly complicated busy take on Cyborg that robs Victor Stone of too much of his humanity.
Some will argue that that's the point of this design, but not enough of Ray Fisher's performance comes through, and Doom Patrol has shown how Cyborg can be created with practical effects and look awesome in the process.
That's not a word we'd use to describe Justice League's Cyborg, unfortunately.
1. The Joker (Suicide Squad)
We could probably just leave a few stills of Jared Leto's Joker in Suicide Squad here and save you some reading time, but we might as well revisit just how bad this 2016 take on the Clown Prince of Crime was.
The tattoos are unfortunate and arguably a little cringe-worthy (okay, a lot cringe-worthy), but nothing that Leto was given to wear here either looked good on him or immediately made us think "Joker." This attempt to bring the Batman villain into the real world as a gangster fell flat, and a movie as wacky as Suicide Squad would have been the perfect place to embrace the comics.
Instead, we got...well, whatever the f*** this was.
We get the whole #ReleaseTheAyerCut thing, but unless that's somehow gonna make The Joker look half decent, then count us out for that, okay?