Wear me
When I first watched this movie for the first time, I felt like I did not have the full picture. Then flash forward to now, where the ultimate edition exists with 30 minute extra footage and I am somewhat satisfied. There are still some thematic problems with this movie, but I was able to get the full experience. I don’t know why Hollywood is scared of long movie run times. I don’t mind if a movie is 4 hours or 5, as long as I’m happy about the story the creator is telling me. Maybe I’m influenced by reading a lot. What I’m trying to say is that having re-watched the full vision of what Snyder wanted out of this movie, I felt he did that for some of the characters but he failed for others too.
The Batman origin scene at the beginning was amazing. Felt like watching comic book panels come to life. The music, the slow motion scenes and the actors were great. I especially like the quote by Bruce Wayne where he says, “In the dream, they took me to the light. A beautiful lie.” It’s a very accurate statement in that we know that life changed for Bruce Wayne after that night, it got darker both for Gotham and Bruce.
I never understood the desert scene until I watched this movie. It was more fleshed out. I loved two quotes from the desert warlord where first he says, “Men of power obey neither policy nor principle” which we see throughout this movie with Lex Luther’s manipulation of both individuals and the government. The other quote was “Ignorance is not the same as innocence.” There’s a book I read that claimed Ignorance is a sin and that statement resonates with me greatly. I try to know a bit of everything to avoid that sin.
I also loved how Louis acted like a real crime reporter, investigating the origins of the strange bullet and it paid off in the end to bring Luther into the light as the mastermind of the whole “framing superman” scenario. The committee hearing had the right amount of suspense including the bomb detonation. That was done perfectly. I also loved the scenes where different individuals were debating the question about superman in different media outlets across the world. Those kind of scenes ground the characters to the reality of our present world, where every action is subject to scrutiny, especially if it’s done in public or through social media.
I enjoyed the fact that the Gotham football team is “Shit”. There is no way they would be great with the high crime rate in Gotham. Villains strike very often in Gotham which makes time for practice been disrupted. I loved the focus on Bruce Wayne and how he has slowly grown tired and jaded and become more ruthless since the appearance of Superman. Here is a man who has been fighting crime for 20 years and you can see the scars in his body, the burnt Wayne manor, and Robins costume with joker taunting quotes. You can tell there is a long history that has occurred in this universe’s batman that we still don’t know about.
Gotham feels like a dark grimy city like is supposed to. It’s contrasted by Metropolitan city where Superman hangs his cape. I loved the quote by Bruce Wayne where he said, “20 years in Gotham Alfred, You know what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stay that way?” This statement is very true, especially in the Batman comics. Gotham is a city that eats you up, it wants you to turn rotten and the dark knight has to fight that instinct every day and fight those that have surrendered to that desire.
Alfred’s banter with Bruce is comic book accurate and I appreciated that. I also loved seen Bruce do detective work, He is the world’s greatest detective and it was nice to see it briefly. Diana’s dress at the Museum gala was amazing. I expect to see more of her fashion sense going forward. Luther’s speech at the Metropolis library was ridiculous, he felt like a man who has descended a bit into madness. The Batman nightmare scenes were amazing. They reminded me of the Injustice comics where superman and most of the Justice league have gone dark. This scene brought out questions, especially when the flash showed up. I think it meant in his timeline, the Justice league was never established and Darkseid attacked while they were still working alone and that led to Superman somehow turning bad, by losing Louis lane just like the injustice comics.
I was puzzled by Wonder Woman’s quote when she says, “I have killed other things from other worlds before.” That statement brought about questions of what she has been doing since 1918, during her introduction. I feel like we will see some answers to this in the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 movie. I also loved seen Clark acting like a reporter. That is also a big part of who he is in the comics.
There were some problems I had with this movie. The Batman casualties were unacceptable. Batman is a character whose core principle is not to kill. He never crosses that line, even in the injustice comics. Lex Luther felt like a mix between himself and the joker, which is not supposed to be the case. Luther is manipulative, a megalomaniac and a narcissist but I don’t think he is crazy. Why does Luther know Batman’s identity? I have a problem with that. The Martha scene is also a no for me. I get what Snyder was going for in these scene but I feel he could have done something else.
This movie scores a 7.9 rating and I am still hopeful for the rise of the DC Cinematic Universe.
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