BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE directed by Zack Snyder, written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. A Warner Bros. release. 153 minutes. Opens Friday (March 25). See Listing.
What do you want from Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice? Do you want to see the long-anticipated launch of a new major studio superhero franchise, or do you just want to see Batman fight Superman?
It can be both things, of course. It’s possible that Zack Snyder’s follow-up to his 2013 Superman reboot, Man Of Steel, will be everything to everyone: a sequel to that film, a new vision of Batman that replaces the continuity established in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and the linchpin of a new Justice League cinematic universe featuring Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash and more.
I have no idea what we’re going to get, since Batman V Superman was not screened for critics in time to make NOW’s print deadline. (See my review at nowtoronto.com on Thursday, March 24.)
Zack Snyder is likely to give us a grim, violent epic with action sequences that fetishize powerful people in battle.
But I do know what Zack Snyder is likely to give us – a grim, violent epic with elaborate action sequences that fetishize powerful people in battle. He did that in Man Of Steel and Watchmen and 300 and even in Sucker Punch, admittedly with varying degrees of success. (Don’t worry, this is the only time I will mention Sucker Punch.)
And for those of us who see Superman as an optimistic character – the big, blue Boy Scout who wields the power of a god but chooses to help people rather than rule them – the promise of another gloomy, dark Superman outing is not exactly encouraging.
Batman, sure – he’s a brooder. But that’s why that character works as a foil to Superman in the comics. Bruce Wayne’s urban pessimism provokes Clark Kent’s cornfed altruism. Batman exists to punish evildoers, while Superman is all about giving people the chance to set things right. Batman can be all bleak and stubbly Superman is supposed to be square-jawed and upbeat. (How does he shave, anyway?)
A decade ago, I would not have expected the DC movies to be the serious, tormented property and Marvel Comics, for decades the home of troubled misfits, to own the weirder, wilder cinematic space with everything from Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man to the increasingly varied X-Men movies.
But that’s the legacy of Nolan’s super-serious Batman trilogy, which influenced all of Warner’s efforts to bring DC to the big screen. Green Lantern went full space opera right off the bat and evaporated, but at least that freed up Ryan Reynolds to make his Deadpool movie at Marvel.
When Warner tapped Nolan to produce a Superman movie after The Dark Knight Rises, I had qualms: I think Nolan’s a genius, but he’s a genius with a very narrow range, and feelings aren’t his strong suit. (See the ending of Interstellar, where it turns out that the fifth element is love or something.) And though it has some really good moments, most of them in the first hour, Man Of Steel is what you get when you put the character of Superman in the hands of people who don’t understand him: an adolescent power fantasy where Henry Cavill and Michael Shannon punch each other through buildings while puny humans scatter in terror.
Batman V Superman gives that creative team the responsibility for establishing a new DC cinematic universe. What happens in this movie will echo through this summer’s Suicide Squad and next year’s Wonder Woman and Justice League movies and 2018’s Aquaman and whatever else is coming.
I’m just hoping there’ll be a little room for the characters to breathe – to find their common humanity amidst the carnage. I mean, we all know Batman and Superman are going to be friends in time for the Justice League movie. Why drag it out?
Maybe Cavill’s Clark and Ben Affleck’s Bruce can bond over chips in the Batcave or something. You know the product placement guys pitched it. And everybody wins!
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
