Film Friday: Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

I finally got the chance to see Superman v. Batman. Yee haw. What a ride... to nowhere.

“Plot”

Ok. This has some twists and turns, so take notes if you need to. The guy who founded Facebook wants to kill Superman because somethingsomething God. Wonder Woman is in the movie. Facebook tricks Ben Affleck into fighting Superman but he loses, so Facebook sends a generic blobby muscle creature to do it. Superman, Affleck and Wonder Woman kill it, and Superman fakes his death.

Got it? Don’t worry if you don’t, you’ll have about an hour long pointless fight scene you can use as time to think about it. You might want to bring a book.

Who's A Bad Boy?

So what can I say? DC sure knows how not to put together a movie. To sum up this stink-burger, it is fake liberal “drama” randomly sprinkled between tremendous sound and fury signifying nothing.

Here’s the thing. The back half of the movie is designed for idiots who like shiny lights. The front half of the movie needs to offer some explanation for the back half, or people complain. So the front half needed to figure out why Batman and Superman would fight. The answer, originally offered, comes from modern liberalism. Modern liberals are conflicted cowards (except when attacking people “who deserve it”), ergo they think that all heroes must be conflicted types who see the faces of the people “they killed” when they sleep. And naturally, "they killed" anyone they didn't save.

Indeed, the story starts with the public turning against Superman because people died whenever he tried to save the planet. Ergo, Superman is the menace... not the thing that would have killed everyone. That makes no sense except to snowflakes, but Hollywood is packed with snowflakes and “strong” women... the greatest snowflakes of them all.

So Superman is bad.

Now we need to hate Batman, so he brands a couple child molesters and rapists and that shows that vigilantes are just sadistic criminals who target other criminals, making them worse than the people they stop... the standard Hollywood view. “No one is above the law, unless it’s for the right reasons, and stopping criminals is not the right reason!”

So Batman is bad.

Now we just... huh. Crap. This explanation didn’t get us to where we need to be. //scratches head Wait! I know! Lex Facebook send nastygrams to Batman and Superman making them think... You know what? Let’s just cut to the fighting.

There were only two things that interested me in this film. The first was that the bad Senator who tries to make Superman a villain is a Democrat from Kentucky. Why a Democrat? Democrats are never bad. Hmm. Then it hit me. This was Affleck’s dig at his estranged wife, Jennifer Garner, a Democrat from Kentucky. LOL! Niiiiiice!

The other thing is this. The initial discussion of how the public could come to hate Superman offered a promising social commentary on modern cynicism. The problem was, it never fleshed it out. To do this, the film should have been smaller with Superman and Batman in closer contact and coming to dislike the other. The story should be told through assistants who represent the two positions. The cynicism needs to grow: cynical logic being used... increasingly self-aggrandizing armchair quarterbacking... the rise of conspiracy theories believed through confirmation bias and growing paranoia... a growing acceptance of extreme solutions and positions, leading to violence... and then the arrival of opportunism – journalists first, then academics, comedians and finally politicians. Team Batman falls for this, as does the vocal public. Team Superman understands genuine goodness, real logic, actual facts, and the importance of good faith. The fight starts until they remind Batman that the majority of the public isn't this stupid and doesn't deserve to be lumped with the sh*tbirds.

Unfortunately, that would make for a strong, emotional film... not a shiny stupid one. Hollywood also doesn't understand what Superman needs to understand; good faith, logic and lack of cynicism are like a foreign language to them. So Facebook’s plan it is!

Thoughts?