Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

While I originally said good things – twice – about the theatrical cut of Justice League, those takes essentially amounted to “some Justice League is better than no Justice League.” As time went by, though, we could see more clearly the seams in that exquisite corpse, to say nothing of the fairly horrifying allegations plaguing an already troubled production. Cut to four years later: the #SnyderCut has been released (on HBO Max, of all places), and it may not surprise you to hear that I loved every minute of its four-hour runtime; I could happily have enjoyed another three hours of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Guilt-ridden over his role in the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) scours the globe for superpowered individuals after learning from Lex Luthor that an evil force is headed for earth. That selfsame evil, the fearsome Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), has come in search of the newly-awakened Mother Boxes, whose primordial slumber was disturbed when Superman died. Before it’s too late, Batman must convince Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) to fight beside him.

 

If Zack Snyder has a tank, I’m solidly in it. Back in 2017, I spent the better part of five months analyzing Batman v Superman, only confirming my suspicions that it’s one of my top three favorite comic book films of all time (the other two being, I think, The Dark Knight and Captain America: The Winter Soldier). So I freely admit that I’ve got a bit of a predisposition bias, but I’ll also admit that it feels good to finally see the movie I was promised four years ago. I vividly recall leaving the theater after seeing Justice League, thinking about all the scenes from the trailers that hadn’t made their way to the theatrical release. Little did I know that only half an hour of Snyder’s footage made its way into the theatrical cut – and with Snyder’s vision finally fulfilled, I don’t think I’ll ever need to go back to the 2017 edit.

 

For one, Zack Snyder’s Justice League feels so much deeper and richer, and not simply because we spend so much more time in it. Someday, perhaps, you’ll see a post (or twenty) about the differences between versions, and so I’ll not spend much time on it here. But here’s a case in point: you may recall the moment in the 2017 League when Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) launches a flaming arrow into an ancient temple in man’s world. In the theatrical cut, it’s presented as just one more thing Amazons know how to do, a way to get Wonder Woman interested in the plot, yet in ZSJL, there’s a whole ceremony to accompany it; the temple has intense significance for the Amazons; and that communication from Themyscira sets Diana Prince on a quest for knowledge. And all along, we feel Diana’s pain at leaving her homeland behind, something of which we saw not even a glimmer in the theatrical cut. Throughout ZSJL, Snyder and fellow writers Chris Terrio and Will Beall take great pains to deepen the world of the Justice League, giving the characters a full-fledged mythology to enter. Everything seems thought out, with a reason for being.

 

The greatest strength in ZSJL is its characters, especially (and perhaps surprisingly) The Flash and Cyborg – the former reduced in 2017 to a Spider-Man caricature, the latter all but erased from the film after Snyder left the project. Without a standalone film of their own just yet, both characters get to take center stage; where they felt compulsory inclusions in 2017, teases for films that never came to pass, here they feel like integral members of the team, with standout sequences that introduce them to audiences. The Flash, Barry Allen, gets a playful moment to demonstrate the full range of his powers during his meet-cute rescuing Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) from a runaway truck. Ray Fisher’s Cyborg, though, emerges as the heart of the film, with a full character arc that reminds one a great deal of Superman’s arc in Man of Steel. Put another way, after watching ZSJL, you can understand why Fisher more than the rest was embittered by the process of reshoots and reedits: this should be a star-making performance, not a footnote in a painfully brief filmography.

 

There are moments in ZSJL that you’ll recognize from the theatrical cut, shots that have space to breathe in this version. But I was truly struck by the moment when Barry Allen tells his father (Billy Crudup) he’s landed a job in a crime lab to help prove his innocence. In the theatrical cut, this felt almost obligatory, a tease for Barry’s future. Here it feels like the culmination of Barry’s arc, bouncing from dead-end gig to gig before he finds his destiny. Far from feeling compulsory, this moment actually got me choked up at Crudup’s evident joy seeing his son succeed, at Barry’s newfound confidence in his future. It’s this sort of character moment that makes ZSJL sing. Things happen in this film because they matter to the characters, and it’s the characters – not studio fiat – who drive the momentum of the plot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the character of Bruce Wayne, whose immense guilt and strategic forethinking refuel his vigilante mission into forming an army to prepare for war. Now that the reshoot footage has been excised, all that’s left of Affleck’s performance is lean, peak Batman, equally driven and haunted but finally, happily, leaning on the stalwart Alfred (Jeremy Irons), who becomes like a den mother to the newly-formed League.

 

Ultimately what Zack Snyder’s Justice League accomplishes is no less than encapsulating the entire potential of the superhero genre. These stories stick with us because they allow us to imagine ourselves as our best selves; they reassure us that hope is not lost, that we will always have one more chance to save ourselves from our own worst demons. Running underneath the surface of the film is the reminder that this sort of movie isn’t supposed to happen – studios don’t change their minds and admit they were wrong. Directors don’t get second chances when an industry reboots itself away from their vision. Ever since The Magnificent Ambersons, when studio meddling literally burned the footage Orson Welles shot to spite him, filmmakers who lose control of their movies don’t get them back, and audiences seldom get to see an unexpurgated vision, least of all one restored after being looted and reanimated. But Zack Snyder’s Justice League is proof that hope is never in vain; for those of us who beat the drum for four years, hashtagging to keep the fire going, ZSJLis a promise fulfilled, a warming moment of reciprocal gratitude. And it’s a story about second chances; while the heroes all have personal wrongs they need to right, even the villain is looking for redemption from his torturous past. 

 

But above all, it’s a fulfillment of the promise Jor-El made to his son back in Man of Steel, eight long years ago: “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.” By the end, as the heroes watch the sun rise over the battlefield, I couldn’t help muttering, “They will join you in the sun.” Zack Snyder and the fanbase have accomplished wonders. It’s a miracle this movie even exists, and after a year of endless lockdowns and the triumph of pessimism, perhaps we all need a reminder that the dawn is coming – that each one of us has the potential to save the world. The only thing holding us back is ourselves. Our nature, all of us, is to fly. 

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is rated R for “violence and some language.” Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by Zack Snyder, Chris Terrio, and Will Beall. Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams, and Ciarán Hinds.

Fear not, loyal readers – Monster March continues tomorrow.

Take Two Tuesday: Justice League (2017) or... Looking at the League through Snyder-Colored Glasses, Everything is Whedon Now

Last year, I spent more than four months going through Batman v Superman in exhaustive detail, and so it may not come as a surprise to readers of this blog that I do occasionally find it difficult to remain objective about this sort of thing. Though I maintain that there is objective gold in BvS, occluded by its occasional thematic indigestibility, I freely admit that much of what I like about Justice League is born out of my desire to like the movie.

I can see why the average filmgoer would not have liked this film, and I can certainly sympathize with the disciples of Zack Snyder (largely being one myself). As before, I do not want to relitigate the “Snyder v Whedon: Dawn of Reshoots” guessing game; indeed, I’d wager that within five years, if Snyder’s recent social media presence is any barometer, we’ll know more concretely about one or both sides of the question. What I think is key, though, is not to think of this as a Snyder film – it isn’t. It is closer to a Joss Whedon film, particularly his Avengers duology, but like the Justice League comic itself it more closely resembles a “greatest hits” collection of all the things that work so far about the DC universe. We have the strong casting of Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Henry Cavill; we have the striking visual design of Gotham, Metropolis, and Themyscira; and we get new pieces bolted on to those aspects, including – most striking on this rewatch – a terrifically engaging Ezra Miller as The Flash, whose boisterous Spider-Man charm is a brilliant audience substitute for a guy who’s really just excited to be in the company of gods and heroes.

Sitting a few feet from the screen on home video rather than dozens of feet in the theater, the film looks different. Some of the CGI on Henry Cavill’s Gumby mouth looks dodgier, though Steppenwolf acquits himself better, and there are at least two surprising moments when a green screen is solidly visible (once on Aquaman’s cheek, once on Flash’s boot). Where Batman v Superman worked very hard to bring superheroes into our world and give us a stylized vision of the struggles of their souls, Justice League follows instead the giddiness of The Flash and runs with an aesthetic that reminds one of the original X-Men film, in which the prevailing mood was, “Look, the comics are walking around!” While a lot of folks took Whedon to task for apparently altering the color grading of the film, I think it helps distance the film from the “Snyder Cut” we may never see, instead taking the movie into a surrealistic cartoon corner that feels more like a comic book come to life, rather than a comic book coming into my life.

On rewatch, consciously trying to watch Justice League as the next superhero film in a long tradition and looking for points of connection rather than disconnect, it does feel very much like an episode of the 2001-2004 Justice League cartoon as informed by The Avengers. We have the same emphasis on team dynamics, informed by the unhealthy mistrust that, for better or for worse, holds the Avengers together. Whedon (or Snyder – at this point, who cares?) cribs a few notes from his playbook with a scene that echoes the “we’re a timebomb” argument from The Avengers; in the film’s climax, which I previously described as “airlifted from Sokovia,” reprises the family-as-microcosm we saw menaced by Ultron, which in turn syncs up with Batman’s direction to The Flash: “Save one.” Save one, then a truck, then the world. These heroes ought to be about hope, about the belief that one human being can become something greater and can save the world, and in Justice League I believe that Batman learns that lesson enough to teach it to the next generation. I buy that Wonder Woman is the gifted and capable leader of the team. I buy that Flash and Cyborg rise to the challenge. And I completely accept that the very idea of Superman is enough to make them all believe in the promise of tomorrow, not least because I believe that too.

Back in November, I found myself enjoying Justice League. Five months later, I still liked Justice League, but I liked it from a different angle, a sideways enjoyment of the film for what it was and not in spite of what it could have been. I don’t know that I will go to the mat for Justice League in the way that I will, every time, for Batman v Superman, and I will always believe that there is a universe out there somewhere in which Zack Snyder was given the time and the resources to complete the vision he introduced with Man of Steel. I had hoped to change minds about Batman v Superman with my “10 @ a Time” series, but I accept that it’s not worth the effort to try with Justice League. You get out of this movie what you seek to find in it, and as it stands, this Justice League is fun enough to justify each matching set of hours I choose to spend with it.

Justice League (2017)

I haven’t seen Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express yet, but I had a real Hercule Poirot moment as the credits rolled on Justice League, because I was of two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, I’d had a great time with the film and felt a charge of excitement as I tried to calculate when I could see it next. On the other hand, I felt a distinct note of sadness for the Justice League I hadn’t seen, the one Zack Snyder had been unable to finish (Joss Whedon famously stepped in during post-production, and it shows). But as I looked around the theater, I heard people clapping (I can’t remember the last time that happened), saw them turning in their seats to talk to complete strangers about this or that aspect of the film – Justice League had brought us all together just as its protagonists are united. In these times, that alone is a superheroic feat.

The death of Superman (Henry Cavill) has opened the world to new threats, and Batman (Ben Affleck) knows that something wicked this way comes. With the help of his sardonic butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons), Batman brings together Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to honor the legacy of Superman and repel the invading apocalyptic forces of Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), who’s come to earth to finish the job of conquest he began millennia ago.

Having just spent the last eighteen weeks poring over Batman v Superman in exhaustive detail, it was difficult not to hope that Justice League had been a little more like its predecessor. The overall good feeling engendered by the film puts much of that yearning to bed, but a part of me will always wonder (at least, unless we get yet another “extended cut”) what Snyder had up his sleeve. Given the gratifying points of contact between Man of Steel and BvS, how much more might Snyder have pulled his trilogy together? We get glimpses of that Justice League, to be sure – as when Batman clings hopefully to “a fragment of a chance,” having previously feared “even a one-percent chance” – but the sheer volume of unused footage from the trailers makes me hope that one day, somehow, we’ll see an unfettered version of Snyder’s vision (perhaps, dare I say it, as a comic book?).

Indeed, it’s difficult to overstate the influence of Joss Whedon. There are many scenes reminiscent of his Avengers duology, up to and including the presence of two post-credits sequences. (I know, I didn’t think DC was doing those, either.) There are several scenes of the League bickering, recalling the internecine quarrels aboard the helicarrier in Avengers, and there’s a pretty striking reprise from Age of Ultron that seems airlifted from Sokovia. Moreover, Whedon’s penchant for quippy dialogue is abundant in Justice League, and it fits characters like The Flash and Alfred quite perfectly. Batman benefits from this brighter side, something foreshadowed in his evolution in BvS’s third act, though Whedon builds a bridge perhaps too far, with only one false note where a Batman one-liner might have better suited Aquaman or The Flash (a second gag flops when it verges crassly anatomical but is rescued by the appearance of the Lasso of Truth). Even Danny Elfman, who replaced Junkie XL at the eleventh hour and performed similarly for Whedon on Age of Ultron, gets in on the riffing game with a score that seems to have a few notes from the Marvel side of the street.

Setting aside the might-have-beens and the what-ifs for the version we did get, though, it’s a real crowd-pleaser. Tightly edited at just this side of two hours, Justice League clips along with barely any perceptible dead weight; though teasing multiple films to come (and with less interruption than in BvS), many of those teases are in service to introducing Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg to the DC filmic universe. Cyborg in particular acquits himself quite well by fitting into the larger narrative tapestry, though it’s Ezra Miller’s Flash who ought to become a fan favorite, quickly distinguishing himself from television’s Grant Gustin as an alternate but no less recognizable Barry Allen. Of course, I’m quite fond of Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot, who continue to develop their respective heroes through the cauldron of BvS into real team players, and I do hope to see more of them in standalone franchises.

Without losing the broad appeal of a crowd-pleaser, Justice League manages to pack in a number of surprises, many of them in the category of “Wow, they went there!” Batman v Superman wasn’t long on courage, you’ll recall, taking the exact opposite of the easy path, where Justice League plays it a little safer – a villain whose plan is quite simple, team dynamics that proceed without complication, and in-universe references that should seem quite familiar to audiences, like J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, whom everyone ought to recognize by his mustache alone if not by his ignition of the Bat-signal. There are some risks taken in the film, as when Aquaman’s backstory is given brief allusion in a conversation with the merwoman who would be queen (Amber Heard as Mera) – and while I don’t want to play “Snyder or Whedon?” too much, this scene’s dense mythology is precisely the sort of thing of which I wanted to see considerably more, for I loved BvS’s profoundly immersive sense of depth.

But I can’t overstate how good Justice League felt. I had a big grin on my face for most of the movie, partly because I loved all the small references that the general audience might have missed but also because Justice League reminded me very much of the 2001 cartoon of the same name. Like the eponymous cartoon, Justice League does a solid job distilling its characters to their cores, bouncing them off each other, and uniting them against a threat that merits their collective attention. It is just jolly good fun to see these mythic archetypes bouncing off each other, and I do wish there could have been more of it because this is a movie that accesses the hopefulness of superheroes and the inherent wish-fulfillment of how awesome (in multiple senses of the words) these characters are. It’s a film that clips by so briskly that you’re ready to queue it up as soon as the credits have rolled. I don’t think too many people will be surprised to hear I enjoyed the film – I did go in with a clear head and am willing to admit when things didn’t work – but I do think audiences will be surprised at how grievously the critical majority have misjudged this film.

Justice League is rated PG-13 for “sequences of sci-fi violence and action.” Directed by Zack Snyder (and Joss Whedon). Written by Chris Terrio, Zack Snyder, and Joss Whedon. Based on the DC Comics. Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, and Ciarán Hinds.

The Accountant (2016)

The Accountant was something of a surprise to me. The trailers looked intriguing, but I had little sense of the plot and knew only that it carried a very strong cast attached to the project. There’s no accounting for taste, but there’s much about The Accountant that should compound your interest.

Put another way, if we’ve just been through the McConaissance, which saw Matthew McConaughey score big in a slew of major projects, does this mean we’re well and truly in the age of the Benaissance? Has Ben Affleck well and truly (and finally) redeemed himself after Gigli and Jersey Girl? Has the Dark Knight returned?

Ben Affleck stars as the eponymous accountant, Christian Wolff, whose unassuming demeanor conceals his dangerous work as a bookkeeper for the most dangerous illegal operations, cooking the books for drug lords, terrorists, and enemy states. While two Treasury agents (J.K. Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson) pursue the mysterious accountant, Wolff is hired to investigate the books of a robotic prosthetic company after a low-level employee (Anna Kendrick) reports a revenue leak to her boss (John Lithgow).

Perhaps the key to enjoying The Accountant is not quite knowing what to expect, and the delight of it is that there’s a little bit of everything in this movie. We’ve got espionage, both corporate and political, organized crime and disorganized shootouts, nascent friendships and deep family connections. You might even think of The Accountant as a superhero origin story, showing how Wolff goes from a troubled boy on the autism spectrum to one of the world’s most capable – and surprisingly dangerous – financial analysts. Indeed, we might think of Christian Wolff as an autistic Jason Bourne, with a mathsy dose of Batman sprinkled in for good measure.

(Sidebar, and without going into too much spoilery detail, am I the only one who feels that J.K. Simmons was very much on a trial run for Commissioner Gordon here? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a little bit of this characterization carry over, and I think the hat would be a good fit too.)

I’ve had high praise for Ben Affleck over the last decade or so; he’s evolved into a fine director, and I stand by my statement from back in February that he’s “an excellent choice” for Batman, on whose capable shoulders DC seems to be resting their cinematic franchise. As Wolff, in a portrayal where it might have been easy to phone it in, Affleck does more than one might expect with monotone deadpans and escalating senses of panic brought on by moments where he’s unable to finish a task (his dominant trait, I’d say, is his single-minded devotion to completion). I’ve seen this movie touted as a thriller, and while I wouldn’t go quite that far – it seems to defy categorization in a way that I found refreshing (while others wanted more focus in genre) – I would say that there are thrills to be had when we see Wolff encounter a situation we know is going to trigger him, and we feel that same building tension within ourselves, as when a cleaning crew begins to erase his dry-erase marker work. Credit to Affleck for crafting a character whose reactions are consistent and easy to understand and to anticipate, and credit to director Gavin O’Connor for giving room for Affleck’s performance to shine.

Although there are other wonderful performers in the film – one senses, for example, that Anna Kendrick’s character could have been a downright sidekick in another version of this film, or that Jon Bernthal’s shadowy hitman could dominate a movie all his own – it is first and foremost Affleck’s show, and he handles it with grace. Points for creativity (hat-tip to writer Bill Dubuque for an original and fulfilling script) and points for the wow factor of surprise, but the bottom line is that it’s Affleck’s balance sheet and the rest of the cast are just numbers that add up to one heck of a film.

The Accountant is rated R for “strong violence and language throughout.” Directed by Gavin O’Connor. Written by Bill Dubuque. Starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and John Lithgow.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice [Ultimate Edition] (2016)

Memo to Warner Brothers: when Zack Snyder wants to make a three-hour movie about superheroes, let him. The studio is now oh-for-two in theatrical releases when compared to “ultimate edition” director’s cut. They did it in 2009 with Watchmen, and seven years later Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice sees Snyder’s longer vision improve upon the original. This time out, the difference is more negligible – theatrically, I thought BvS was more successful than Watchmen – and while the Ultimate Edition won’t change many opinions on this highly polarizing film, it does deepen the experience and even clarify a few things in such a way that we really don’t need the theatrical cut any more.

It’s impossible to discuss the differences without throwing up a major SPOILER WARNING for anyone who either missed the theatrical cut or would like to go into the Ultimate Edition without knowing the differences. Suffice it to say, though, that the Ultimate Edition is not a substantially different movie, with the added half hour consisting mostly of added beats and deeper plots but no major additions (in the vein, for example, of Hollis Mason’s death in Watchmen).

Perhaps the most significant change is that in the film Lex Luthor becomes a much more prominent character – not because Jesse Eisenberg gets any more screen time than before (he doesn’t) but because the film reveals or clarifies the extent of his scheming. The desert plot against Superman now involves implicating his heat vision by using a flamethrower, the African witness Kahina Ziri is revealed to be a Luthor stooge, and Clark’s reassignment to the charity beat is implied to be at Luthor’s request. By extension, this clarifies Luthor’s plot by revealing that it’s all his plot, an effort to discredit the Man of Steel. And in an extension of the prison cell confrontation with Batman, Lex slyly admits he’s pleading insanity to conceal the extent of his crimes. (Batman’s response is too good to spoil here but perhaps winks toward what Lex Luthor’s future holds.)

Then again, if Lex Luthor becomes a much more visible puppet-master, we also have to acknowledge that Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) has a much more prominent presence in the plot of the Ultimate Edition. The theatrical cut includes a few beats where Clark updates Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) on several journalistic endeavors, but the Ultimate Edition goes more cinematic by showing, not telling, these interviews. We see firsthand the terrified Gothamites interviewed by Clark, see him and Lois (Amy Adams) confront the witnesses and evidence against Superman, and we also learn – I think crucially – that many of Lex’s machinations involve lead-lined bombs and bullets (which, we all know, is a weakness of Superman’s super-vision). Seeing Clark Kent humanizes Superman, so crucial to the last act’s turn in Batman’s character, and we finally feel that this isn’t a Batman movie with Superman in it: it’s the collision promised by the title.

As for what the Ultimate Edition doesn’t do? That’ll probably continue to irk detractors; the much-ado’d “Martha” moment isn’t changed, nor is the frankly jarring moment when the plot stops so Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) can read her email and tease the next decade’s worth of franchises. But similarly, neither is Wonder Woman’s nor Batman’s role much changed; Gadot is still stunningly able as Diana Prince, and Ben Affleck might just be the definitive cinematic Batman (apologies to Christian Bale, on the grounds that Affleck seems to have emerged wholesale from Batman: The Animated Series). The promise that each of these dynamic stars will soon helm their own films – Wonder Woman in 2017, Bat-fleck some time further on – is more than enough to keep fans salivating. These performances are, in the words of the film’s opening narration, “diamond absolutes.”

That peculiar choice of phrase, intoned by Bruce Wayne in the film’s opening moments, brings me back to the thing I still love the most about Batman v Superman – its sweepingly and unapologetically operatic tone. I had said of the film’s self-serious approach to its own epic scale, “Batman v Superman takes the claim that superheroes are modern mythology to its logical extension – this is comics mythology writ large, in which men and women stand shoulder to shoulder with gods, do battle, and discover something about both god and man.” And I stand by those words. If The Avengers proved that superhero movies could be big in terms of quantity, Batman v Superman continues in its Ultimate Edition to demonstrate that comic book films can be big in a different way, in a way that doesn’t just underscore their cultural importance – it foregrounds, reinscribes, and literalizes it.

By and large, the Marvel films have been intellectually uncomplicated – and I don’t mean that as an insult. There have been big ideas in Marvel’s recent output, like Winter Soldier’s concern with oversight or Iron Man’s meditation on intellectual property rights. It’d be hyperbolic, however, to claim that those movies are “idea films”; rather, they’re films with ideas. Batman v Superman, however, is smart, perhaps even overburdened by existential, metaphorical, theological, and political questions. (A surfeit of intellectual discourse is, for my money, never a bad thing.)

To push the comparison once more to Marvel – again, not to diminish the illustrious competition to DC’s cinematic universe, but to illuminate how successfully Batman v Superman moves in the opposite direction – Marvel permits readers to read symbolism beneath and into the surface level. Batman v Superman demands that we instead read the surface as symbol, and it teaches us to do this in the opening shots. We begin with the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, juxtaposed with young Bruce’s fall into a proto-Batcave. We’ve seen this before, we think, recalling the heights of Christopher Nolan’s recent trilogy.

But then the film shows the impossible – we see Bruce Wayne fly, ascending on the wings of bats. Immediately, Batman v Superman instructs us that the surface is densely symbolic, representational in a way our eyes initially reject. The rest of the movie proceeds in this vein; as our protagonists uncover the layers plotting against them, we viewers uncover the cerebral depths of the film’s contemplation. Where Nolan included young Bruce’s fall as a way to demonstrate how humanity picks itself back up, Batman v Superman veers religious, rendering instead a world in which humanity must permit itself to be lifted by a higher power. Consider, then, the Lex Luthor monologue delivered, atop a skyscraper of his own construction, about the problems of evil in the world and his own belief that devils come not from hell but from the sky. 

The end result, I believe, points to Lex’s greatest sin – his blindness to his own hypocrisy. What makes Batman heroic, by comparison, is his willingness to have his eyes opened, to realize how much he has become the thing he hated. What makes Superman godly, then, are his struggles with the great burden of power and responsibility he bears, his Christ-like moment of temptation coming in the Ultimate Edition when he wanders to a mountain, presumably to die. There, he speaks with his father, who reassures him that human life is worth saving, that each of us can save the other, if we only had eyes to see our own abilities and theirs.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a stronger film in its Ultimate Edition, albeit one that won’t win over entrenched disparagers or hardline cynics. It is, however, evidence that when it comes to comic book movies Zack Snyder is better than his theatrical editions give him credit. (Sucker Punch, though, remains exploitatively creepy and more than a little bit lame.) I just hope that we won’t need an “Ultimate Edition” of Justice League to see it, that Warner Brothers wises up and lets Snyder run wild.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition is rated R for “sequences of violence.” To my eyes, there’s no discernible difference in the quantity of violence, but it did appear that a few moments were bloodier in this newer cut. There are added shots of people being shot and their bodies burned, and there is an added F-bomb and a shot from behind of a nude Bruce Wayne.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

The big story of the weekend ended up being that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder’s sequel to Man of Steel, is critic-proof. Despite a Rotten Tomatoes score hovering in the neighborhood of 30%, the film took in about $170 million, on pace for more than $420 million worldwide. I’m one of the people who didn’t quite see what all the hullabaloo was surrounding Man of Steel – I rather enjoyed it as a more sobered first step in Superman’s hero’s journey.

Count me among those, then, who continue not to get it – I think Batman v Superman is a suitably epic next installment in the growing DC Comics cinematic universe, big and grand and contemplative.

The film begins with yet another retelling of the murder of the Waynes, but it can be said more properly to begin with Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) in Metropolis on the day of the city’s destruction in Man of Steel, witnessing firsthand the breathtaking new dangers facing earth. Eighteen months later, the world ponders the powers and intentions of Superman (Henry Cavill), who labors under the weight of his titanic responsibilities, while Batman considers taking the fight to the Man of Steel. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) attempts to manipulate the world for his own ends, which involve defaming – or destroying – Superman for good.

Critical opinion seems to agree on two things – Batman v Superman is operatic, and it is not a Marvel movie. Somehow, both of those have been received as negatives against the film’s favor, and yet I think those are among the film’s greater strengths. First, the grandiose scale of the film. I had the opportunity to rewatch Man of Steel the night before seeing Batman v Superman, and there’s a few shots in that film of mankind looking up at the Superman/Zod battle, in a way that’s very reminiscent of the old Jack Kirby Fantastic Four comics. Slack-jawed gaping is humanity’s proper response to the arrival of gods. And make no mistake: in the mythic vernacular, the DC pantheon are gods who aspire to be human (Marvel, meanwhile, features humans who aspire to be heroes).

So I don’t understand the complaint that the film is too operatic. Does this mean that the film means more than it ought to, that it assumes a mythic significance unbecoming of itself? I vehemently disagree. I will note as a matter of personal taste that there are fewer jokes in the film than I might have liked, that the tone is a little darker than I might have gone, but there is a powerful difference between a film’s ambitions and one’s own personal expectations. Batman v Superman is very much of a piece with Man of Steel in terms of tone and scale, and to me this is a compelling distinction between the DC and Marvel cinematic universes. Believe me, as someone who’s rewatched nearly all of the MCU films in the past three months, I don’t want a “Marvel’s Superman.” I want something different.

The nature of characters like this is that they endure, no matter how a creator riffs on them. If you want a Superman who refuses to kill, you’ve got comics and films that do that. If your Superman can take a life – indeed, can see the necessity in taking Zod’s – you’ve got comics and films for that. You can find a Batman who frighteningly devastates criminals, as he does here, or you can go seek out a Batman who fights a mustachioed Joker. Point being, the complaint that Batman v Superman misses the point about these characters, frankly, misses the point about these characters. Batman v Superman takes the claim that superheroes are modern mythology to its logical extension – this is comics mythology writ large, in which men and women stand shoulder to shoulder with gods, do battle, and discover something about both god and man.

All of this is to say nothing by way of actual review – just a cursory rebuttal of some of the more prominent critiques of the film. It’s got less humor than some might like, and it is ponderous in a way that the action movie crowd might not expect, but I don’t think any of that is a disservice to the film. If anything, Batman v Superman’s operatic quality is augmented by the script’s approach to subtext – namely, that it inscribes subtext as literal text, as when the film quite literally puts Superman on trial for the events of the preceding film, asking, “Must there be a Superman?”, invoking the Elliot S! Maggin classic story of the same name. Additionally, Batman’s devotion to his unique brand of justice and vengeance is literalized when he’s given an opportunity to prevent history from repeating itself.

I was an early doubter of Affleck’s ability to do Batman justice, but I think he’s an excellent choice, particularly as Bruce Wayne, where he’s able to toggle between playboy billionaire and dark knight sans cowl. His Batman is very much what you’d expect, marked by an exceptionally bulky physique. I have only kind things to say about Jeremy Irons as Alfred, here more militarily inclined but with much more of the incisive snark that Michael Caine’s Alfred lacked (Caine’s was kinder, gentler, more inclined to good-natured ribbing).

The real surprises here are Gal Gadot’s smirking Wonder Woman, who almost entirely steals the film’s third act, and Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. Of all the shoutouts to upcoming DC films – and there are quite a few, some delivered with more subtlety than others (but what does one expect, in this era of franchises?) – Wonder Woman is the most promising; the tastes we get of her in this film, nuanced with mystery and exceptional combat skills, portend a wonderful solo film next June. Eisenberg’s Luthor, meanwhile, telegraphs his Zuckerberg-esque eccentricity, but it conceals a darker psychology, a twisted mind which reveals itself in a pitch-perfect Luthor soliloquy.

Batman v Superman proves, as Man of Steel forewarned, that DC’s slate is not necessarily going to be quintessential popcorn fare – and I say that as an unabashed devotee of popcorn movies. These are movies that require a bit of digesting, that are unafraid to confront their viewers with heady thematic content, symbolic registers, and a careful bit of thought. If it’s straight fun you’re wanting, the line for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 starts over there. Batman v Superman is fun in a different way, with the feeling of fulfillment that comes from sighing as the credits roll, “Now that’s a show.” It’s spectacle in a self-assured way, bombast with an emphasis on “bomb,” a 21st century epic that isn’t afraid to go full Greek chorus and literalize its own subtext. It may not to be everyone’s liking, and that’s fine – but there are also those of us who like this sort of thing, and I’m one of them.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action throughout, and some sensuality.” There are shootings and lots of punching, but most of it is bloodless. A few characters are branded, one receives a long cut down his face, while a few characters are stabbed with some graphic content shown. Superman and Lois kiss passionately a few times during the film, and another woman wears dresses that predominantly show off her back. Overall, the grim tone may unsettle younger viewers.

Heads up, True Believers – we’ll continue to Make Yours Marvel this Wednesday with another installment in “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” so check back then for 2013’s Thor: The Dark World. Or subscribe above, and receive those missives right in your inbox. Nuff said!

Gone Girl (2014)

Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl walked a fine line between pulpy page-turner and thematic depth, grappling with important issues while never losing the breakneck pacing shared by some of its shallower neighbors on the bookshelf.  With Flynn adapting the novel into a screenplay for director David Fincher, though, Gone Girl has well and truly arrived.

On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home to find his house disheveled and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing.  A media hurricane ensues, in part because Amy was the subject of a series of children’s books authored by her parents, but largely due to Nick’s suspicious behavior during the first 48 hours.  What’s more, Nick is oddly evasive while helping the police follow the clues Amy left for their anniversary scavenger hunt.  As the film also reveals Amy’s diary entries, it asks:  Did Nick kill his wife?

As you saw from the summary paragraph, I’m going to do my best not to spoil any of the labyrinthine twists in the plot.  In fact, the surprises in the film are so well navigated that I almost wish I hadn’t read the book first.  There’s an element of almost unsettling tension in the film, even for a book-reader, and to that end I have to give kudos to Flynn for neatly adapting the structure and narrative of her novel into a finely tuned screenplay.  At two and a half hours, I was never bored because the movie keeps turning and churning, meticulously crafted with all the tightness of a boa constrictor wrapping itself around you.

I could attribute much of the success of Gone Girl to the stellar cast, as well.  Neil Patrick Harris is divinely unsettling as Amy’s suicidal first boyfriend, and who would have guessed that Tyler Perry’s turn as smarmy defense attorney Tanner Bolt would have been very nearly my favorite performance in the film?  (He certainly gets the best line, a perfect tension-popper right near the end of the film.)  That honor, though, goes to Rosamund Pike, who I’d say is looking at a very real Best Actress nomination once awards season rolls around.  Her Amy is even better than the character I’d imagined, her uncanny stares giving her the ice queen quality for which Hitchcock would have killed.  Affleck is a fine choice, too, but he’s exactly the Nick I pictured in my head; the film is Pike’s, and she owns it.

The individualist in me squeals with delight, though, at the fact that this film ultimately feels like the vision of a single person, plainly the product of the unmistakable eye of David Fincher.  For my money (noncontroversial claim ahead), Fincher has never made a bad movie, so the winning streak continues.  I love it when filmmakers so thoroughly retain their own style across projects, and as I grow older I’m really invested in movies that have that je-ne-sais-quoi “look” to them.  Christopher Nolan does it quite well, especially with Wally Pfister (and, because of the Pfister connection, Transcendence had the Nolan-look, too), and David Fincher is the other master of a consistent, distinctive look.  Marked by half-dim lighting and a loving lather of shadows, Fincher’s work always communicates visually the themes he intends to develop in the film proper.  Of course, the vaguely unsettling score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross has become a Fincher staple; as sore as I still am about it defeating Inception at the Oscars, the Reznor/Ross score for The Social Network suited the movie snugly.

This is a Fincher movie, with all the promise and directorial grace that Fincher brings to the table, and I think we can even understand it as part of a thematic trilogy, with The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, about sociopaths and the carnage they leave in their wake.  The novel was a little bit more about the mutually destructive consequences of a dishonest long-term relationship, but the Fincher treatment is heavily inflected by the director’s own consistent theme of the banality of evil and the quotidian lurkings of the savage.  Where the novel emphasized the dishonesty of its first-person narrators to broaden the range of suspicion in Amy’s disappearance, Fincher’s adaptation focuses more on the performance of normalcy, demonstrating that the suburbs is a site for disguise and deceit.  Nick might be lying when he says he’s innocent, but so might his neighbor, who parlays a friendship with Amy into a tour of the talk show circuit.

There’s so much more to say about the movie, and maybe this isn’t the venue for it.  This is a film that needs to be discussed, among people who’ve been through it.  It’s an experience that shouldn’t be spoiled, maybe up to and including by the source material itself.  I’d like to revisit this film once the spoiler embargo is lifted, but in the meantime I’ll probably be going back to the Fincher well and hit up some of my DVDs.  For you, dear reader, if you’ve enjoyed any of Fincher’s recent work, Gone Girl demands to be seen.

Gone Girl is rated R for “a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language.”  A throat is cut in a very graphic sequence, covering both killer and victim in blood, but the color is manipulated so it looks more black than red.  We see one woman topless twice, another nude from the side in the shower, and two male rear ends.  Language consists of a few F-bombs and one monologue revolving around a crude anatomical synecdoche for a woman.

Oh, hey, tomorrow is the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month!  Former Fincher collaborator Daniel Craig makes his MI6 debut in Casino Royale, so be back on Tuesday.

Argo (2012)

I’ve been on record as saying that Ben Affleck is a better director than an actor (the former often helping the latter), and with Argo Affleck three-peats with another suspenseful thriller that, despite a true-story foregone conclusion, ratchets up the anxiety.

In addition to working behind the camera, Affleck stars as Tony Mendez, the CIA’s top exfiltration agent.  Since he specializes in getting people out of hot spots, Mendez is called to consult on the case of six Americans in Iran who escaped the 1979 embassy hostage crisis but are holed up in the Canadian ambassador’s home.  To do so, he forms a fake movie company with the support of a prosthetics designer (John Goodman) and a once-was director (Alan Arkin).  Thus armed with “the best bad idea we’ve got,” Mendez flies to Iran to establish cover stories to disguise the refugee embassy workers as a film crew.

Surprisingly for the man who starred in such trainwrecks as Gigli and Daredevil, Ben Affleck is shaping up to be one of this generation’s better directors.  With Gone Baby Gone, Affleck established a cinematic style for himself that relied on tension and suspicion, while in The Town Affleck added himself in front of the camera, demonstrating both directorial consistency and better acting than he’d done in years.  Argo, then, completes the hat trick with another taut thriller in a nail-biting setting.

Affleck uses claustrophobia to great effect here, giving the sense that the walls are closing in.  Absent are the spacious CIA interiors we’ve come to expect since Homeland or the James Bond flicks; instead we get an intelligence office where the ceiling is too low, the lighting dim, and the tempers high.  Similarly, Iran is a place swarming with bodies, physically and ideologically oppressive.  All of this is captured in the film’s visual language, which builds an effective sense of discomfort even though we know that the ending is going to be a happy one.

But the film isn’t all gloom and doom.  In the best film tradition, the film defuses weighty subject matter with a talented cast of lighthearted characters, where the humor isn’t always dark.  As a CIA head honcho, Bryan Cranston continues his inter/post-Breaking Bad career revival by popping tense moments with an expertly timed one-liner (the result, no doubt, of his comedic training).  Also fun to watch are Goodman and Arkin, the film’s ostensible Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who manage to balance patriotism with pathos, solemnity with comedy; true, they play the same characters they’ve always played – the gregarious goliath and the cantankerous old man – but they play it well, their star power and recognizability even helping their performances as Hollywood power brokers.

Conversely, Affleck wisely casts relatively unfamiliar character actors as the escaped hostages.  You’ll probably recognize them in passing, in a “Where have I seen her” kind of way, but it won’t distract; rather, it underscores the universality of the story Affleck is telling.  Likewise, familiar face Victor Garber hides under a wig and thick glasses to portray the Canadian ambassador as a paternalistic shepherd.  The cast clearly has chemistry among themselves – the refugee hostages in particular – but they’re also quite good at subtle glances to indicate internal stress or some emotional backstory.

While it isn’t enough to put him in the same strata as Scorsese or Nolan, Argo does demonstrate that Ben Affleck’s recent string of successes has not been a fluke.  Rather, I’d say we’re looking at a contender once the Oscars roll around.


Argo is rated R “for language and some violent images.”  The F-word is dropped several times in the film, often as part of a hilarious catchphrase, and the film’s depiction of Islamic fundamentalists may be disturbing or frightening for some, though the film is mostly bloodless.

Come back on Wednesday for The Cinema King’s review of Looper – stay tuned!

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Memo to the Affleck brothers - Ben, stick to directing, but leave the acting to your brother Casey.

Based on the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name, Gone Baby Gone is less the story of a child's abduction than it is a character study of those searching for her - private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan), the Boston Police (Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris), and the girl's own family (Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver, and Amy Madigan) - and how far they're willing to go to make sure the case ends happily. The plot is supremely revelatory, exposing piece by piece details of the abudction, building to a conclusion as shocking as Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Ultimately the film becomes a meditation, much like Alan Moore's magnum opus Watchmen, on the morality of making things right. Which lines (as I'm certain Christian Bale finds himself asking as Batman) are worth crossing?

Let it be known first and foremost that I am not the world's greatest Ben Affleck fan. He was supposed to be blind in Daredevil? He was supposed to be British in Shakespeare in Love? He got an Oscar before Martin Scorsese?! So that makes my enjoyment of his direction here all the more landmark since it makes me a convert to the church of Affleck. Ben displays a knack for direction that would surprise any who are familiar with his empty portrayals that ought not be as irritating as they often find themselves. Similarly, Casey Affleck is incredible as the lead detective on the case, proving that he's as versatile as he is worldweary-voiced, racking up the Oscar nominations that Ben thought he had coming with his dismal turn in Hollywoodland in what appears to be a mockery of George Reeves.

The ensemble cast is similarly powerful, with the exception of Monaghan, whose most powerful scenes take place behind closed doors where we can't even see her. Freeman and Harris are their usual selves, respectively wise and tempermental, but they do such a good job at those roles that their casting seems natural. And Amy Ryan, as the lackadaisical addict mother who seems that she couldn't care less whether her child returns, deserves every accolade she receives for her turn, up to and including the Oscar nomination that is rightfully hers.

As unpredictable as it is extraordinary, Gone Baby Gone does what a lot of movies do - get me to jump in my seat - but it also does what very few films can do these days - smack me with a contemplative surprise ending. To ruminate further on it would be to spoil the movie for anyone, but suffice it to say that this movie kicks you in the gut the way The Sixth Sense did when you realized the full import of the line "I see dead people."