When the emo kids are now the screenwriters.

Jackass and Jackassier.

Flash uses his super-speed to time-travel into the past to stop his mother’s murder. And meets his younger self. And discovers he’s a jackass.

THE FLASH is a surprisingly touching film about the love between a son and his mother; a poignant theme which is subsumed by the bombast of the perfunctory CGI and obligatory juvenile gags to compete with Marvel.

Ezra Miller headlines his first (and probably last) feature as Barry Allen/Flash, with a character that is not exactly canon (since his introduction in 2017’s JUSTICE LEAGUE). Oh, he’s still a police forensic investigator (as envisioned by his Silver Age creators Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino), but his personality skews Jackass Millennial rather than the thoughtful scientist of DC Comics, drawing down disdain from the purists. However, as soon as Barry meets Younger Barry (playing himself in seamless efx), we start to see Jackass as the straight man, and Younger Barry as Jackassier than the Jackass.

Matter of fact, this film restores gravitas to Barry’s character, imbuing him with a veteran’s insight and dread, while his younger self flops along in devil-may-care slappability. This raving dual performance is a testament to Miller’s acting prowess, no matter the haters who see him as one-note B-character with a queer running style. Even with his real life crimes and misdemeanors constantly garnering bad press, this movie (with some better efx decisions) might have been a grand stepping stone towards Miller making his Flash as iconic as Iron Man or Wolverine, if not for James Gunn being installed as producer-dictator at DC and scarring the slate clean of all the best ever actors to embody their DC superhero roles (Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, Momoa, and even Miller)…

Based loosely on the landmark crossover comic series Flashpoint, THE FLASH retains core elements of that sprawling epic saga:

• By tampering with the past, Barry creates a new present without the Justice League existing
• An older Batman helps Barry in his quest to get Back To The Future [yes, say it like Doc Brown]
• A Kryptonian is entombed in a power-depleting cell
• Much like the tragedy in STAR TREK’s The City On The Edge Of Forever, Barry realizes that his now-saved mother has to be un-saved for the universe to right itself.

Writer Christina Hodson (with John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Joby Harold) and director Andy Muschietti (IT: CHAPTER TWO) do a stellar job compressing the vast Flashpoint story and, being in development hell for decades, wrote the multiverse element into the story long before “multiverse” became the Baby Shark fad it is today.

In flashback we see Barry’s parents: Ron Livingstone as dad (replacing Billy Crudup from JUSTICE LEAGUE) and Maribel Verdu as mom. Because if you ever want a boy to love his mother in an almost Oedipal manner, you can’t go past the cougar from Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. I kid THE FLASH, because these flashback sequences are poignant, Barry reminiscing with tears edging his eyes; how his father left for a specific can of tomatoes and his mother was murdered offhandedly by a burglar; seeing his younger self flee the crime scene in fear instead of helping; Barry’s father wrongfully convicted for the murder, spawning Barry’s lifelong quest to unearth evidence to free him.

In frustrated rage, present-day Flash runs – runs so fast he unintentionally breaks into a nexus where all time and multiverse converge. Contemplating capitalizing on this time-travel ability, he first consults Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck – yes, the Best Batman is a cameo in the first act, as is Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jeremy Irons’ tactical Alfred; but Ben actually looks old enough to be the grizzled Thomas Wayne version of Batman from the original story!). Barry implores: “I could save her. I could save… your parents.”

But Bruce is resigned to his fate, and the paradoxes of Barry traveling back to rectify wrongs become apparent: If Batman’s parents lived, there would be no Batman.

But travel back Flash does… and all Marty McFly breaks loose!

By changing one small thing, Barry finds himself in a timeline with his mother alive, and the pure joy he feels is contagious. Until Jackassier appears. Cue sitcom gags of the 60’s, with Barry hiding Younger Barry from his parents. We must then endure a little slapstick of Younger Barry gaining superspeed. But with his mother alive, the butterfly effect has wrought its changes to the world – there is no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Aquaman, no Cyborg… and Eric Stoltz is Marty McFly!

Though the adventure takes off from here – recruiting Michael Keaton’s Batman (in a funny scene), saving Sasha Calle’s Supergirl (where the rescuee becomes the rescuer) and battling Michael Shannon’s Zod (in a terrifying repeating death sequence) – we are always reminded of that most touching aspect of Flash’s motivation: keeping his mother alive no matter the cost.

At one point, Younger Barry sarcastically retorts to Barry chiding him: “Sorry about that, mom!” – and Barry/Ezra plumbs depths of emotion we never knew he could access, ripping into Younger: “Shutup! You don’t know how lucky you are!” It’s an electric moment, Barry’s rage fueled by the fact that Younger Barry has never known a world without his mother, never known her loss, or the sacrifice to bring her back. Like being in war – how do you describe it to people safe in their beds?

Batman Keaton asks Barry: “You can travel to any timeline. Why do you want to stay, and fight to save this one?”
“Because this is the world where my mom lives.”
I’m not crying – you’re crying…

These moments are the most touching parts of THE FLASH. First viewing, you are distracted by the fake babies, and strange plastic sheen of the nexus cameos. Second viewing, the mother-son emotions hit hard… and if the film had retained more of this tone… shoulda woulda coulda… if only there was a real nexus where we could rectify our mistakes…

Is it just me, or is her costume super vaginal?

In Flashpoint, Flash and Batman rescue an emaciated Superman from a power-depleting prison. In THE FLASH (in the grand tradition of “girling up” male properties – OCEANS 8, GHOSTBUSTERS 2016, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, FOUNDATION, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE) they discover a female Kryptonian. Sasha Calle is Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (though she retains her Kryptonian canon name, this brunette dynamo is visually based on Superman’s dream daughter in DC Comics, Lara Lane-Kent); she comes from pain and deprivation, so when released, she is not suddenly in line with the frivolity of Jackassier, rather playing it somber and grounded, which immediately endeared her to me. I will never ever EVER forgive whoever is responsible for the removal of Henry Cavill as Superman from the DCEU, but the filmmakers’ decision to keep Supergirl’s tone as serious as MAN OF STEEL saved this gender-swap.

There seems to be a missed opportunity for Kara to be a love interest for Barry. Way back in the first act, the jokes were flying, about Barry “knowing sex exists, but never experienced it,” and his Jackass interactions with Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), however, by the time Barry is fleeing the prison carrying Kara, he has been upgraded to the “mature” Jackass, and he reassures her, “I’ve got you!” It’s a hero line. Then when Kara is lifting the barely-conscious Barry into the lightning to restore his powers, she in turn assures him, “I’ve got you.” Screenwriters don’t usually reprise lines like this unless they’re indicating a “connection” between two characters. It goes nowhere, but the teen girl in me wishes it would.

The final battle on a bare plain pits Flash, Jackassier, Batman and Kara against a Kryptonian army led by Zod, seeking the blood of Kara to terraform Earth into Krypton. The filmmakers really did Michael Keaton proud here, making him a combat Batman not unlike Batfleck (although I don’t know how he holds his own grappling a Kryptonian soldier, who should theoretically be as strong as Superman).

It is here that Barry and Younger Barry go back in time again and again, to change the outcome of this fatal battle, but this is no BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, where this gambit was played for laughs. At first, it’s sad, as Barry realizes “not every problem has a solution,” then it becomes disturbing as Younger Barry keeps trying to rectify the past. In the Kryptonian battle Younger Barry tried to phase through a shard of flying metal and failed, the metal jutting out of his forearm like a steel blade. At first reminiscent of our favorite berserker X-Man, as more pieces fuse to Younger Barry returning from more failed pasts, it conjures the final horrifying scene in Jeff Goldblum’s THE FLY, after his fully-insect body has melded with the transporter booth, an inhuman hybrid of meat and metal. Younger Barry traps himself in a time-loop: “I’ve lived more than you can dream”…

“Do you feel as plastic as I look?”

It is here that multiverse timelines swim by, with their wealth of cameos – George Reeves, the Jay Garrick Flash, Christopher Reeve and Helen Slater’s Supergirl, Adam West’s Batman – the multiverse has always been an excuse for fan service. But is it really fan “service” if the CGI is so unrendered? Put it this way – they ALL look like Henry Cavill’s mustache… And then – the horror! – Nicolas Cage as Superman! (Considering his casting was an abandoned misstep, why is he even here?)

This whole cameo sequence is a misstep. It seems like the movie’s climax, rendering many viewers too distracted to be fully immersed in the emotion of the actual climax, where Barry will tearfully face his living mother one last time, knowing he is about to restore the timeline and lose her forever. Heart-rending. Yet in restoring the timeline, Barry hits upon a bittersweet solution where, if he cannot save his mother, then at least he would save his father. Who says a can of tomatoes can’t save the world?

We come away from THE FLASH with shoulda woulda coulda emotions. There were some real beats in there that fleshed out Barry Allen for upcoming roles, if only comics fans weren’t such whiners, if only there wasn’t that fan-service cameo scene, if only those cameos were actually fleshed out more, if only this wasn’t the penultimate DC Extended Universe film (the last being AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM OF CLICHÉ MOVIE TITLES), which effectively means all the forward momentum this movie might have had is now relegated to another timeline, not ours.

Writer-director James Gunn, whom we all respected for restoring Marvel back to health with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and for restoring faith in DC with THE SUICIDE SQUAD, now pisses us off by biting off more than he should probably be allowed to chew, discarding all the best ever DC superhero actors set up by Zack Snyder, dishonoring all that talent, sweat and tears by bringing in new actors for his 2025 rebooted DC Universe. With the blessing of Warner Bros., who couldn’t keep their shit together from listening to the vocal minority of comics fan whiners, and so blamed Zack Snyder for their losses.

It seems Warner Bros is the Jackass. And James Gunn the Jackassier.

END

Women be Equal… in Objectifying Men.

WONDER WOMAN 1984, the sequel to 2017’s lauded, woman-empowering WONDER WOMAN, forgets how to ‘human,’ let alone empower women.

The movie opens on Barbara (Kristen Wiig), a shapely office blonde, who drops to all fours to pick up papers she just fumbled, and three guys walk past her without a second glance – because she wears glasses. The movie is set in 1984 (for the purpose of the outdated communication methods in the climax) – but it’s 2020 out here, and director/co-writer Patty Jenkins (who also directed the previous film, to the fist-up of feminists everywhere) now subjects us to the neanderthal trope of a woman being unattractive by being clumsy and wearing spectacles.

Hey, I’m not sexist – Patty Jenkins is.

The plot itself is a case study on non-human nature, involving an artifact called the Dream Stone that grants wishes. It arrives in a shipment to the Smithsonian, where Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is plying her day job. (During that dropped papers scene, Diana helps Barbara on all fours. No man notices. Not even an Askew Glance (that neckular angle that men have evolved in the arms race to view cameltoe and whale-tail and tight-skirted thigh without being discovered). Is this what “woman-empowerment” has devolved to? Pretending these women are “equal” to men, and therefore undesirable? Whether you subscribe to woman empowerment or are a total misogynist, that doesn’t negate basic human behavior.)

A failed businessman, Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), assumes the “villain” role as he absconds with the Dream Stone, turning himself into a granter of wishes, and grants everyone on Earth their wish. Chaos ensues worldwide. And Wonder Woman beseeches the world to recant their wishes, on the assumption that all were “selfish” (n.b. chicks, cash, and cock size). But did the writers (Geoff Johns, Dave Callaham, and Jenkins) consider wishes like “walking after being crippled,” “curing my baby of cancer,” “surviving a school shooter” or even the generic “world peace”? I’m presuming they did, because they build a negative into the wish – that there is a heavy price to pay for each wish granted. It is presumed everyone in the world is experiencing the maelstrom of disorder from their wishes granted. But I’m sure the cancer patients and cripples and parents of dead kids are mighty fine with a little caca after their lives have been resurrected from the toilet.

The movie digs itself into a pitch black hole. And then it digs deeper: everyone DOES recant. Non-human nature is built into the fabric of WONDER WOMAN 1984, which is defeated by shameful writing and the utter implausibility of this plot whose ramifications are too expansive to deal with in a 90-minute movie.

Diana herself has a morbid wish fulfilled, at the expense of losing her powers gradually – to be with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) again. And we’re meant to ignore that she must be pathologically damaged for pining over a guy she slept with once over 65 years ago. Her wish is granted, with the soul/spirit/essence of Steve Trevor taking over a random stranger’s body. That is: we see the stranger as Chris Pine, but if he looks in a mirror, he’ll see what his original body looks like – another guy. And not an iota of thought is given to this other guy’s existence: Does he not have friends or family that would realize he is missing? What about his bills, his workplace, phone calls, appointments? Does Jenkins think this is how women are empowered? By simply using a rando’s body while his brain and life are put on hold? Truly the most sinister, horrifying, morbid element in this kiddie movie, Kristoffer Polaha plays this unsuspecting male rape victim, and is credited only as “Handsome Man.” In other words, given credit for his looks only. 

Hey, I’m not sexist – the writers are.

Barbara (Wiig) idolizes Diana, desiring to be as womanly and alluring as her. The Dream Stone grants her wish to be “an apex predator” – and turns her into a cheetah (which is technically not an apex predator, and technically not Cheetah’s DC Comics origin either). She doesn’t seem to mind, as she can now walk in high heels (because – woman empowerment), and becomes Max Lord’s bottom bitch for no reason.

Kristen does an excellent job in this silly role. She’s one of my favorite SNL alumni, and kudos to her agent for landing her a tentpole movie. Only problem is: this high-profile feature is excrement, and doesn’t give her any real acting (or comedy) to do.

Well, there’s THIS position… There is no way you can NOT sexualize someone as lubricious as Gadot in that costume. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a eunuch.

If it’s not the stupid plot, it’s the lame effects: Wonder Woman runs in the street at super-speed – and it looks like she’s on a moving sidewalk being pulled along, because (as Gal describes it) she was being pulled along “as fast as Usain Bolt”… All these years later and we’re still faking Jeff-East-Running-Alongside-Train? Wonder Woman and Steve steal a jet, and she makes it invisible through, uh… magic who cares fuck you.

Speaking of magic, if all the other Dream Stone wishes are being magicked out of thin air, why can’t Steve Trevor be magicked in the same way? Why did they overrun Handsome Man’s unsuspecting body to assuage Diana’s obsessive ramrod fixation? And no, it’s not unhealthy obsession that she lusts after a guy she dicked down 65 years ago; it’s “true love” because she’s a woman, see.

Diana dons angelic armor for the final battle with Cheetah; armor that apparently belonged to a great Amazonian warrior, Asteria, who went MIA. But it’s simply for trailers and posters, as Diana shucks it off after Cheetah tears it to shreds… supposedly mythical armor is pretty useless if it can’t even survive an attack by the Target Lady. Besides, it was spending too much time covering Wonder’s regular bondage costume that teases with sexy combat positions just a peek-a-boo away from BAGINA.

Hey, I’m not sexist – the fight choreographer is.

Funny how they make everyone talk in Gal Gadot’s Austro-Czecho-Germano-Israeli accent. It could be seen as the Amazons being exotic and who knows what they sound like – but it’s more a case of, “What?! She can’t do an American accent? Jesus, we have to reverse-engineer everyone else around her to sound like that…” (Wouldn’t you have killed to have been in that producer meeting?)

Final scene cameos the original Wonder Woman – Lynda Carter as Asteria (the armor owner), still radiant, drop-dead stunning and salaciously irresistible–

Hey, I’m not sexist – Wonder Woman is.

END

The tricep-ian directorial style of Zack Snyder.

Justice for the Justice League.

A harrowing journey from Zack Snyder’s brain to our eyes, but at long last the true vision of JUSTICE LEAGUE has been realized. And it is everything a superhero movie should be: gods and devils, bombast and quietude, punching and mind-games, good and evil, sacrifice and hope, with the fate of the Earth hanging… on a glowy thing.

the journey…

Writer-Director Snyder stepped away from post-production of JUSTICE LEAGUE in March 2017 after the suicide of his daughter, Autumn. He told Cinemablend, he was in the midst of arguing creative differences with the studio anyway, and had no energy left for that fight. “I was just kinda done with it… my family needs me more than this… and I just need to honor them and do the best I can to heal that world.” Out of respect, let’s not forget Deborah Snyder, Zack’s wife and Autumn’s mother, who also left the film. She was the producer – a heavy hand in any movie’s realization. With both of them absent, and a release date approaching, Warner Brothers brought in writer-director Joss Whedon, veteran of Marvel’s AVENGERS, not so much to deliver Snyder’s film on time, as to deliver the film that THEY wanted on time, tasking Whedon with massive re-shoots (which resulted in Henry Cavill’s philtrum malfunction – honestly, if the mustache imbroglio wasn’t leaked, no one would have EVER known). Cavill had to contractually retain a pornstache for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT during the LEAGUE reshoots. So the LEAGUE digital artists painted over it. And the internet collapses over a CGI non-mustache that no one can see. Warners ran roughshod over Snyder’s vision with poor Joss Whedon caught in the middle. So let’s not pile on Joss too much – he was just doing his job… (Same excuse the Nazis made at Nuremburg – just sayin’…) And Snyder still retains the directing credit onscreen for that movie, with Whedon only credited as a writer, with Chris Terrio. Gotta admit, I enjoyed Whedon’s theatrical version – now being called JOSS-TICE LEAGUE – because we saw our childhood heroes in full flight. It wasn’t all bad. It was studio approved. Which means it wasn’t great either.

Zack stepping away from his superhero film – was a superhero move. And then, after his art was rendered as less than stellar, to return to it after such a personal tragedy to re-consecrate his vision and re-render it as mythic – proves he IS a superhero. The final title card: For Autumn.

This ain’t THE RICHARD DONNER CUT with 1981’s SUPERMAN II, another Superman movie where fan outcry prompted studio heads to cobble together Donner’s original vision 25 years after director Richard Lester made a hash of it – and it ended up just as mediocre as Lester’s – because it sometimes used test footage and cutting room fodder, but mostly because Donner was not involved. No, THE SNYDER CUT is Snyder at the helm, 80% of it previously unseen, all ORIGINAL footage – not re-shoots (so Superman has a stiff upper lip), dynamically fleshing out each character that limped flatly into the theatrical version. It’s rated R, so can be more blunt about arbitrary killing of innocents – something which I’ve always said DC movies have done better than Marvel, to highlight the LIMITS and SELF-REPROACH of super beings; there is swearing, imperiling children, cruelty to animals, nudity all up and down Wonder Woman’s thighs, the only thing missing is blackface – no wait – [Darkseid]. At 4 hours long, Snyder’s vision is a monument to what superhero movies CAN be if given the time to breathe, and also a shot across the bow to the moribund theater system that tyrannizes filmmakers into 2 hour releases; you know, so they can get a maximum amount of screenings in; with longer films, they lose income because less screenings equals less butts on seats per viewing day. So with all the new platforms for viewing movies, filmmakers – especially auteurs – need not bow to the stranglehold on their art. This epic movie proves: If you film it, they will come. But – a caveat that a movie has to be GOOD to sustain interest over multiple hours, so don’t all rush out and film 4 hour rob schnieder movies. Jesus…

In its first minutes, ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE impresses, as we see Superman dying at the hands of the monster Doomsday, yelling in agony (the climax of 2016’s BATMAN V SUPERMAN); and it is elegantly portrayed how his death cries reverberate around the world – waking three alien artifacts called motherboxes, and alerting the races who guard them – Atlanteans, Amazons and Americans.

So once again, JUSTICE LEAGUE opens with Superman, but not like the 2017 version in cutesy cellphone video for kiddies rather, depicting an elemental force whose power is so great it triggers the boxes which, we would learn, are “change machines” that sensed cataclysm in the very fabric of matter when such an extraordinary power was extinguished. Are you starting to perceive the high ground Zack Snyder is hailing us from?

– – – – – SPOILERS – – – – –

the story…

A lumpy, down-syndrome demon named Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciaran Hinds) wormholes to Earth, to collect the motherboxes that were lost here by his sugardaddy, a lumpier demon named Darkseid, the Thanos of DC (voiced by Ray Porter); originally slated to appear in JUSTICE LEAGUE 2017, Darkseid is reinstated here as the conqueror of worlds. (Also, just to be precise, Darkseid was created by Jack Kirby in 1970; before Jim Starlin created Thanos in 1973.) Not only has the silver-spiked Steppenwolf been upgraded from his X-box Liam Neeson version, he now has pathos and motivation; for betraying his sugardaddy in some way, retrieving the boxes is his penance to return home, but you gotta admit, the poor boy looks like he’s on the spectrum.

After Steppen captures the boxes from the Amazons and the Atlanteans – in battle scenes much better than 2017’s version, Batman (grizzled Ben Affleck) recruits a team of metahumans to repel him (it’s not kewl enough to just call them superheroes): The Aquaman (warrior Jason Momoa), and Barry Allen not-yet-called The Flash (hipster Ezra Miller), while Wonder Woman (salubrious Gal Gadot) recruits a man-of-steel-parts known as Cyborg (stoic Ray Fisher). But even with battle-posing as cheesy as a German cheese festival, their combined punching of Steppenwolf proves inadequate and they need the o-boy punching of Superman as well (Henry Cavill). But he’s DEAD. With Cyborg holding the last motherbox, the gang hits upon a great marketing ploy – bring back Superman. They realize that this instrument Darkseid uses for death can also be used for life – because it’s magic who cares fuck you.

After the resurrection of Superman, Steppen gets the last motherbox, and now it’s up to the gang to stop Steppen from joining the three boxes into one box called The Unity, which would destroy the planet. Hmm, three into one – how Christian of them! And just like Christianity – destroying the planet. Congruent with this evil quest for unity is Batman’s quest for unity – to unite the League.

Motherboxes are “made from a science so advanced it looks like sorcery.” Ah, Arthur C Clarke’s immortal dictum: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke.

Which makes all these Braveheart scenes pointless, no? They’re charging at SPACESHIPS with horses and spears. These ships crossed interdimensional space – and don’t have rocket launchers and laser beams?

The whole film LOOKS gorgeous – the color palette is muted, and they’ve overhauled its color grading and tonal lighting, rather than 2017’s splashy rainbow – in other words, it’s lit like a drama rather than a comedy – but there’s no sense here –

So these magic dudes could make motherboxes to destroy planets – and are taken down by arrows? You couldn’t scare up the ectoplasm to throw up a forcefield around yourSELVES, dudes? The only things that SHOULD be able to get you guys are the Green Lanterns or the Gods fighting alongside the humans, with their OWN magic who cares fuck you.

But everyone is missing the big picture: Steppen and Darko are meant to be “New Gods” implying they are ABOVE mere mortals, meaning their methods should be “indistinguishable from magic.” As an analogy, the modern military is set up for punching, that is, physical warfare, when ACTUAL warfare is now cyber. We’re not in the Agrarian Age any more; we don’t have to meet in a field wearing kilts to extend our domain; wars are fought on battlefields inconceivable to William Wallace. Thus, actual gods would conquer on a level incomprehensible to mankind. But no! – punching.

Zack and DC, these are all the inconsistencies and stupidities that critics point to and call us childish. This is why Martin Scorcese says Marvel movies – by association, all superhero movies – are not cinema. We’re gonna suspend our disbelief that beings can fly and shoot beams and run faster than light, and even possess magic who cares fuck you – but let’s have some consistency WITHIN this make-believe world.

the aquaman…

“He comes on the King Tide.” (I dunno – I just love that line!) Bruce Wayne meets Arthur Curry, The Aquaman, in an isolated arctic village. Cast your mind back to 2017, Movie Maniacs – this was the first time we laid eyes on Jason Momoa’s new testosterone take on the future king of Atlantis. Lion-maned, body-painted, leather-panted, Momoa ain’t your daddy’s orange-and-green sea-queen, as he polishes a bottle of whiskey before diving shirtless into the tempest. A tragic king without a kingdom, when it comes to rebooting, Aquaman – with his Haight-Ashbury ethos and roaring masculinity – is surely the coolest reboot in superhero history. And wettest. YOU know what I’m talking about!

Johnny Depp’s domestic abuser, Amber Heard, is Mera, queen of double-standards. When Steppen fishes out the Atlantean’s motherbox, why does she tell Arthur it’s HIS duty to retrieve it? His half-brother Orm is the reigning king. Anyway, why don’t all the sea people back up their most powerful of all sea men?

the lover…

Amy Adams as Lois Lane has little to do amongst this sprawling epic – and so much gorgeous to do it in. Her poignant scenes as Superman’s love left behind, take us into her emptiness as she visits his monument, as she wakes in a lonely bed, as she meets Clark’s mother, Martha (Diane Lane aka “Why-Did-You-Say-That-Name?!” –  That meeting scene has its own problems – sacrificing real emotion for fangasm – no room to discuss here – I just wanna mention: when Martha Kent laments, “Everywhere I look I see that S” a tiny knowing smile flits across Lois’s face – we’re thinking the same thing, “It’s not an S.” It was her first real connection with the Man of Steel and now it connects us to Lois. These are the small things that make this film brilliant.)

So when Lois is convinced to move on, and she visits Heroes Park “one last time” (giving coffee to Jimmy Olsen from 1978), when she turns back to see a small figure hovering high in the sky, we FEEL her trepidation: she is bereft, haggard with love lost, weeped out – DARE she hope that THAT is the love she has just decided to leave behind? Would it not crush the soul of any human if this was a hoax?

In the Snyder Cut, Lois is not brought in as “Batman’s secret weapon” – she is there! – about to turn her back. Until she remembered, It’s not an S.

the wonder woman…

Enter Wonder Woman and her vaguely Mediterranean theme song – every time she is onscreen. Every. Single. Time.  It’s like they’re trying to wipe some other song from our memory (“…Imagine all the people…”). Her introduction is a fantastic scene, as a superhero vignette and a woman-empowering inspiration. (And notice how Snyder has crafted the shots so that we don’t get so many views of her black nun’s panties?) She stops terrorists from blowing up a bank – then she blows it up herself. Oh, but she needed to dramatically kill a bad guy, so that’s okay. A little girl asks, “Can I be like you someday?” And Wonder Woman lies to her, “You can be anything you want to be.” Are we still selling this shit? Or was the girl talking about being a murderer?

Her people, the Amazons – we feel their power. They are now not just toyt abs for us to drool over; we see the relationship of those toyt abs to their extraordinary strength and singleminded purpose. When Steppenwolf attacks the motherbox fortress, not only do they nearly bring him down, they sacrifice their lives for their queen and their cause.

The two Amazons holding up the falling rock slab so their queen might escape, and then being trapped inside as the edifice crashes to the sea – THAT is super.

But again, why don’t they help their princess in the “world of men”? Nah, just shoot an arrow at her and she’ll know what to do. I mean, you and the humans and Atlanteans all joined forces millennia ago – this new threat to your very existence isn’t a big enough reason to step outside your nunnery?

Without seeming like wokeness, the demi-god Wonder Woman is more integral to the fight against Steppen, and I do like the way he gets in her head with lies, about abandoning her homeland and placing their deaths on her head. In the end, she takes his, in Snyder’s original dynamic climax, as he tells us: “I use gods to kill gods.”

the cyborg…

Cyborg/Victor Stone was created in 1980, while the original Justice League of America premiered in 1960, with Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman and Flash. No one from the Silver Age grew up with Cyborg – he was retconned as a founding member in 2011, so I don’t really like the guy. [Victor: “Fuck the world!”] — I like the guy!

Victor has a … complicated relationship with his father, physicist Silas Stone (the excellent Joe Morton) – he was never a caring parent, busy with work, yet he saved Victor’s life with that work – a motherbox – but to do so, he had to make Victor a cyborg. Later, we see them gaining trust for each other when Victor creates a diversion and Silas supports him against his own scientists.

Silas would make the ultimate sacrifice for his son. And the heart-rending scene of Victor lamenting, “I didn’t save him – I couldn’t!”– which I love, showing the downside of super powers – they have limits.

Not only an orphan, but feeling not even human, the League would help Victor realize he was not broken – and not alone.

Victor is not just a simple Iron Man ripoff; in Snyder Cut we can now fully understand his role: as a futuretech hacker in this digital age, striding amongst the cyber world like a Colossus. Remember what I said about the new wave of warfare being cyber and beyond? So Zack got it right when he rebooted Victor as a CYBER-entity – the machine-man who could infiltrate the motherboxes… well, half-right, because how does Victor’s digital prowess access the magic of the motherboxes?

Uuuh, okay everyone – keep punching!

the batman…

As far as I’m concerned we got gyped out of a proper MAN OF STEEL trilogy AND a proper BATFLECK trilogy, from the two best proponents of their superheroes ever. I said it. I mean it.

And it’s sad that in Snyder Cut, Batman is actually diminished by what Snyder leaves OUT: his arc from BATMAN V SUPERMAN, of becoming more ferocious to match the intensity of the criminals he was up against, has been negated with this movie because he’s facing off against supernatural things. I hate to complain because we get to see this best combat Batman in action, but it’s not as compelling when it’s all CGI. I would have been more invested had he been fighting thugs – that’s his forte. That’s what his batsuit was built for – to scare humans – when the things he’s fighting are beyond human, they’re probably just laughing at his Halloween costume, like Aquaman does.

The 2017 film opened with Batman capturing a parademon. It was a good scene – lost here, not necessary. And I’m very sorry that Snyder removed the scene where Flash confesses to Batman his fear of battle, and Batman’s empathetic reply, “Save one!”  – but I understand. It made Batman look big and Flash look small; and Batman doesn’t need to be bigger, but the unknown filmic property Flash needs every foot of his presence right now. (Every foot – see what I did there?)

Also removed, Bruce saying, “Even if there’s a fraction of a chance…” to revive Superman, which was a nice mirror image of his rationale to kill Superman, “Even if there’s a fraction of a chance” that he would burn down the planet… And here, Bruce does not voice that Superman is, “more human than I am” which again, would have been a good arc from him regarding Superman as alien. His guilt is, after all, fueling his drive to unite the League. So yes, there WERE a few good characterizations in Whedon’s script.

fun fact…

Ben Affleck: the superhero we didn’t know we kept hiring.

An observation on roles for aging men and women: In 2006, Ben Affleck played Diane Lane’s illicit lover in HOLLYWOODLAND, where he actually portrayed the George Reeves Superman –making him the only actor on Earth to have played both Superman and Batman (and Daredevil!). Now, I love Diane Lane, but 14 years on, Affleck is still a hulking symbol of sex – and Lane is playing someone’s mother. Don’t hate ME – I’m just the observer.

the butler…

When Bruce introduces the League to Alfred, “Everyone, this is Alfred. I work for him,” that was touching. Jeremy Irons is not only the funniest, snarkiest Alfred, Bruce himself just testified to him being the brains of the operation, not just the manservant who darns his cape and butters his croissants. Obviously a veteran, Alfred stands equal to Bruce in creating tech and bringing down crime. Makes that line in BATMAN V SUPERMAN more poignant, (“We’re criminals, Alfred. We’ve always been criminals.”) WE… I mean, Alfred never said, “Who’s WE, sucka?!” I always wanted more of this Alfred, and our wishes are granted.

Then there is the moving scene of Alfred meeting Superman, removed in the 2017 version. From its music, to the staging and dialogue, everything about this controlled, integral scene screams, “Removed by asshole Warner Bros. execs who know nothing about telling an inspiring story.” From the deference they show each other, to the underlying joy on Alfred’s face, to that word, hidden in Alfred’s final line: “Now let’s HOPE you’re not too late.” It’s not an S.

the superman…

Is there such a thing as the perfect superman? Look at that face! Look at that jawline! Look at that nose! Look at that manner! Look at his flight! Look at those lats! The way he wears those bellbottom sweatpants– Look at– What was the question again?

The plot point with the largest potential for being idiotic – the resurrection of Superman – is handled much better in the Snyder Cut. It’s not a quick “Let’s do this, Scooby!” – it’s a conflict until the very last second, as the computer incessantly warns “This process is irreversible” fighting Cyborg’s override all the way.

And what was originally the absolute best scene – Superman battling the League and Flash trying to outflank him – is now just one of many great vignettes that make up this colossal movie. But why is Aquaman surprised? Superman is confronted by people he’s never met (except Wonder Woman briefly), all ATTACKING him. And they’re saying something’s wrong with HIM? What would Jesus do? Well Superman IS Jesus, so…

Shirtless Clark is calmed by Lois, and they visit his farm, to get his mind back. Then Lois does a terrible thing – she gives him a shirt.

In his short screentime, even Superman has a powerful arc. He comes back alone, afraid, lashes out. Then he connects with his love, his mother, his past, and finally, comes into full power when he joins his “family” of metahumans, the League.

Clark visits his Kryptonian ship to get – his BLACK SUIT [dun dun dah] But hold on, fanboys, this is not the Regeneration Suit from Reign of the Supermen – this is just a “black suit” – that Snyder uses here to link to Kal-El’s homeland, where everyone, if you remember, wore black. And here’s the kicker for this scene: as Clark walks the hallowed corridors, we hear two voices in his head inspiring him to Be Best – his blood father Jor-El and his adopted father Jonathan Kent, in alternating lines, preaching their truths. Russell Crowe, great in the role of Jor-El, and Kevin Costner even greater in the role of Jonathan Kent. Man, every time Kevin Costner speaks, I cry. Every time I think of the perfection Henry Cavill brings to the role of Superman, I cry. Every time I hear this soundtrack, I cry. I cry more than a grown man should.

This movie’s ORIGINAL slogan was, “You can’t save the world alone.” And everyone, including me, made the joke, “Well, you can if you’re Superman.” But in Snyder Cut, they truly are a team.

the flash…

In 2017, Barry was introduced by Bruce throwing a bat-shuriken at him. A spectacular scene, just for the sound design alone – but we go even deeper in the Snyder Cut, as we meet Barry saving the life of a young girl – she’s meant to be Iris West – Barry’s love interest since the Silver Age. As her car slams a truck and she is thrown forward, Barry smashes through a window to save her. This glass smashing is actually part of Barry’s arc – he has not yet learned to vibrate his molecules through matter. Snyder has chosen his source music perfectly, in this scene, “Song To The Siren” by Rose Betts; I noticed that the song isn’t quantized – it breathes with its own timing; Barry is so fast he can take the time to marvel at the girl’s face and hair, as the song takes its time as well – brilliant! – as he eases her gently to the ground, and her car triple-flips like a Michael Bay movie.

I love the breathtaking representation of Barry’s speed, with the arc-lightning searing the air around him – definitely some physics tied up in that, like the friction with the air molecules creating static electricity – and I love the way his body strides, tilted forward, arms swinging, really unique and cool. His quirky personality, though not canon, is very entertaining – Snyder has made HIM 80% of the comic relief, and removed a lot of the clumsy humor from other characters in the 2017 version.

Also very refreshing – we see these heroes performing small heroic deeds: Aquaman rescues one man from a sinking trawler, Cyborg fills a poverty-stricken mother’s bank account, Wonder Woman nullifies a hostage situation, and Flash saves one girl from a crash; whereas Whedon showed muggers kicking over fruit stands to represent crime running rampant in the streets, when that’s the bottom-rung SYMPTOM of the true crimes being perpetrated in high office – Snyder opts to show unfortunate people just being beaten by the exigencies of life.

Y’know, I coulda regarded JUSTICE LEAGUE as a kiddie film all the way up to… Flash. Turning back time to save the world. They got me. The culmination of Flash’s arc is the culmination of everything – As the motherboxes achieved unity – so did the League: it was Flash who yelled in their first battle, “Guys, this is NOT together!” – at the end, they are together. The first battle, Flash tripped, now, sure-footed. He was an outcast from society, now, society’s only hope.

With the resurrection scene, we saw a foreshadowing of Flash’s powers to turn back time as the motherbox rose from the liquid to meet his electric touch – didja notice that?; now…

The ticking clock runs out. The Justice League fails. The boxes annihilate creation. In that nanosecond, Barry sees the shockwave heading towards him – he once broke glass to go through it, now, he vibrates his particles so that the shockwave passes through HIM! That eerie soundtrack as Earth’s disintegration expands into the distance behind him – Tom Holkenborg’s orchestral score is a sweeping exhilaration that makes you wish you had done more with your wretched life.

And Barry runs. Faster than he’s ever run. Toward the source of the explosion, faster than light, faster than time, pulling the particles backwards, re-integrating reality.

During this arc lightning, his arc is achieved – all his life he’s been trying to make something of himself – to please his dad (the great Billy Crudup); he’s even trying to earn a law degree to litigate his father’s wrongful imprisonment. Now at world’s end, his thoughts turn to his father, telling him he fought alongside the best of the best. We were ALL this guy! Seeking the approbation of our parents, and then one day, finding that we were running toward our destiny!

In 2017, Flash pushed a truck out of the way – here, he saves Earth… KNEEL BEFORE FLASH!

epilogue…

The super man, the black suit, the punchaboo…

JUSTICE LEAGUE is told in 6 chapters and 1 epilogue with seven LORD OF THE RINGS endings, and Amber Heard speaking British. I personally think Zack blew it here. There’s too much setup for future movies and nothing of substance. I loved the 2017 ending: “All you have to do – is look up in the sky…” with Superman ripping from the ground into a sonic boom – but then, I’m partial to Superman, and I realize he did NOT play a big part in this movie, so I understand the decision.

Here… it’s touching narration by Silas Stone. Fitting, considering Cyborg’s major role.

We also see Jared Leto’s Joker (from SUICIDE SQUAD) in a dream sequence. Taking a cue from Heath Ledger, his makeup is now smeared. And fanboys, he only says, “We live in a society…” in the trailer – a phrase from a Joker meme. Then 2 cents worth of Martian Manhunter. All of this tease and setup is just conjecture at this point, because we’ve lost the two best top-tier superheroes we will ever have – Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill. Unless some hashtags can save the day.

9 STARS…

… because no matter what Martin Scorcese or Bill Maher say, a great superhero film should fulfill every aspect of what makes any NON-superhero film great – excellent production, sincere intent, compelling story, identifiable characters, nuanced performances, adult themes of existential crises, and arcs of redemption or damnation. Check. Check. Check. / Check. Check. Check. Check. And if there is sacrifice– bonus. If the soundtrack makes me weep- bonus!

It’s grand enough filmmaking to take us along for the ride once we accept its contradictory world. [aside]: Exhibit A, Your Honor: STAR WARS A NEW HOPE is in the same bucket.) Yes, there will always be fanboys complaining about SOMETHING, however, as far as DC aficionados are concerned, ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE is canon now. Warner Bros. disagrees, maintaining that, even though Snyder just proved how big his balls are, they’re still gonna throw him off all future DC projects.

Onto the next hashtag: #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.

Movie Maniacs, use the Speed Force and buy it, rent it, steal it – what I’m saying is: “If you seek his monument, look around you” – it’s the writing on the dais at Heroes Park, it is originally from the tomb of architect Christopher Wren at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Look around you, Movie Maniacs – JUSTICE LEAGUE is Zack Snyder’s monument.

KNEEL BEFORE ZACK!

END

The League of Extraordinary Superpeeps.

Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.
— John Wayne.

An interstellar villain tries to destroy Earth, but is vanquished with punching and computer jargon, by a fresh clique of supers called the JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Batman (grizzled Ben Affleck) recruits The Aquaman (warrior Jason Momoa), and Barry Allen not-yet-called The Flash (hipster Ezra Miller), to combat an otherworldly threat; while his potential love interest, Wonder Woman (salubrious Gal Gadot), recruits a man-of-steel-parts known as Cyborg (stoic Ray Fisher). Together they beat on the supervillain called Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciaran Hinds). And then Superman (Henry Cavill) shows up, so everyone can go home.

For all the deflective advertising, director/co-writer Zack Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon might have called this movie TRAILERS WITHOUT SUPERMAN; or maybe HOW MUCH YOU BENCH, BRAH? Instead, they went with the name that DC comics dubbed their second ever supergroup, The Justice League of America, honed to JUSTICE LEAGUE for millennial cred. (The first ever group of comicbook supers that banded together was DC’s The Justice Society of America in 1940. The League debuted in 1960. And for historical context, Marvel’s Fantastic Four became supers in 1961, and the Avengers and X-Men teams both started cos-playing in 1963.)

And I find it hard to fathom – what – the – hell – everyone is whining about.

JUSTICE LEAGUE, which seems to have attracted every NON-lover of comics as a critic, is a fine superhero film, Movie Maniacs! It won’t win any awards, but not only does it feature literally the greatest superheroes in world history – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg – it is crafted with sincerity and humor, enough quiet interactions to humanize its gods, and enough bombast to satisfy a CGI nerd.

Steppenwolf: Born to be mild.

There is but one overarching problem with JUSTICE LEAGUE – the villain. As we all know: A hero is nothing without a compelling villain; The more interesting the villain, the more exciting the hero; Two sides of the same damaged coin; Yin and Yang… However you phrase this, JUSTICE LEAGUE is an example of the misstep of presenting a literal two-dimensional villain, thereby making all its heroes look flat.

A wormhole opens on Wonder Woman’s island of Themiscyra (featuring Connie Nielsen as Queen TouchMyBottom), and down flies the CGI villain Steppenwolf. Myriad ideas have been posited on why JUSTICE LEAGUE “fails” – from the Amazons showing too much man-ab, to Superman’s ‘stache – but it’s the not-quite-realistic computer-generated villain! Looking vaguely like Liam Neeson fashioned from runny candle wax, this Steppenwolf is no magic carpet ride. He’s a video game. It’s BEOWULF meets I AM LEGEND. DC, you idiots! You couldn’t afford one more above-the-line actor (Gary Oldman, Geoffrey Rush, Eric Bana, Dolph Lundgren, et al) to give this villain heft? Even the guy voicing this abomination, Ciaran Hinds, would have made a fearsome bad guy; instead, we get the laughable confrontation between humans and cartoon.

To make matters worse, Steppenwolf doesn’t have any compelling backstory or characteristics, except that he enjoys elocuting like Shakespeare in the Park, and comes with a big side of winged mothmen that DC lovingly calls parademons – simpleton minions that feed on fear. There is a hurried exposition on his absurd motivation: gathering three “motherboxes” that will allow him to destroy the world blah blah (although, like so many supervillains before him, he seems to have all the power in the universe at his behest even without the motherboxes – I mean, if you can take a punch from Superman and still be able to sire kids, that goes on the top of the résumé for life!). But with no foreshadowing of his reputation, without the first idea of his powers or limitations, the role itself is merely a shallow antagonist trope. There is no ambiguity in Steppenwolf, no mitigation of his evil that might turn our sympathies. He sticks the superhero landing in Themiscyra, bitchslaps a few trannies and quite easily steals the first of the three motherboxes…

Why should we care, when the Amazonians kept this coveted, planet-crushing box in an open room? The Atlanteans (Aquaman’s people) are no better, keeping their entrusted box in an open underwater room. Step two for Steppenwolf. At least the humans – who are criticized for burying their box merely three feet underground – BURIED their box!…

It is this last motherbox that Cyborg acquires, that primes the plot to reanimate Big Blue [can we get a snatch of John Williams’ epic Superman Theme? Just a snatch? No? DisaPPOINted!]– But hang on! Did the humans leave their box unguarded? Of course they did – it was buried! But if it was that easy to locate, why didn’t Steppenbro grab this one first? Or did Cyborg have to punch someone to acquire it? If so, it was so easy that the battle isn’t even shown. And if they just gave it to Cyborg, how could they know he was a good guy? Avoiding these pertinent questions, Cyborg just lands with it, and the League rendezvous at Bruce Wayne’s bat-mansion to have coffee over it.

After finding that punching and flashing and wondering and batmobiling and aquamanning and borging are not curbing Steppenwolf’s steppin’, Batman lightbulbs on a great marketing ploy – bring back Superman! The same conscience that caused Batman to attack Superman (in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE) is now eating away at him; he harbors the guilt of destroying a person who was “more human than me.” And DC can sell more dolls.

The League’s debate over using the otherworldly motherbox to resurrect the man from another world, reminds me of that discussion in STAR TREK IV to “slingshot around the sun to travel back in time.” That science-y TREK debate went something like, “blah blah slingshot around the sun to travel back in time” and someone said, “Why, that’s crazy!” and someone else said, “But it just might work!” and they did it and it worked and everyone was happy. In JUSTICE LEAGUE, the conversation was much more realistic, and went something like, “blah blah use the motherbox to bring back Superman” and someone said, “Why, that’s crazy!” and someone else said, “But it just might work!” and they did it and it worked and everyone was happy.

It’s ironic how Bruce, arguing to bring back Superman (even against Barry’s caveat of turning into PET SEMATARY), says, “Even if there’s a fraction of a chance that it might work, we have to try,” for that was his exact reason for killing Superman – the “fraction of a chance” that Superman might destroy Earth. “The world needs Superman, and the team needs Clark.” That would be Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent… you know, the guy who DIED in the last movie. Since Clark doesn’t interact with society in this film, the explanations of his return to life can be left for another sequel. And his dolls weren’t selling anyway.

Now here is an example of the “Interesting Villain” clause in action: When Superman is resurrected (like Jesus!) he is discombobulated enough to attack the entire League, thereby making him the villain for a few moments. Why is this segment compelling? No, not because Henry Cavill is shirtless, but because Superman is an interesting villain – more interesting than as a hero, even! – and the League superheroes (called “meta-humans” by Bruce, because – street cred) seem more relevant when trying to quell Superman’s anger at being woken, even if they are ineffectual against his awe-inspiring might.

One of the coolest scenes is when Superman grabs the whole League by the pussy, and Flash ramps into super-speed to try to outflank him… and we see Superman turn his head to follow the Flash! Such POWER that makes even a cucumber… moist.

Superman. Clean shaven.

JUSTICE LEAGUE opens on Superman. Cellphone footage, with excited kids asking him questions. Here’s a prime example of another reviewer going overboard derogating this movie for the sake of being kewl. Reviewer writes that Superman comes off as aloof and doesn’t interact well with the kids. No such thing! Superman coolly answers their questions (describing the symbol on his chest as “hope”), and when they ask him, “What’s your favorite thing about Earth?” he gets a faraway look, and we are allowed to substitute anything we want (Lois Lane, his job, Lois naked, the yellow sun, Lois moaning, Chinese food, Lois in doggy position, Paris coffee, Lois choking on his—it could be anything!), and it cuts away before he can answer. That’s good storytelling! However, Reviewer read that look as ‘…a somber Superman that makes us yearn for Christopher Reeve.’ You’re an imperceptive tool, Reviewer. I just wish I remembered your name.

And why this sudden love for Chris Reeve? He cut a fine visual as Superman, yes, and he was a tireless activist, and his life ended tragically, but don’t imbue him with qualities that are demonstrably absent. Remember all those jokes about The Man of Wood? 40 years later, he’s Olivier?

Movie then cuts to a world devoid of Superman. After his death in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, giant black banners bearing the “S” symbol adorn world landmarks (giving hope to fanboys that they might see Superman return in his seamless black ballet outfit and rock star mullet). Crime rages in the streets – and once again I will thunder that I DETEST the way “crime” is represented by movies like this: thugs being arrested and tipping over fruit crates in their anger; as if “crime” is these small-time hoods, when these are the bottom-rung symptom of the true crimes being committed by people in high office. A world without hope. Because of thugs in the streets. Not because Russia tampered in American elections, and the president committed high treason, no.

The first hero shot is a low angle upskirt, showing us Wonder Woman’s glorious black nun’s panties. (What was that again about empowering women?) A re-introduction to her powers as she saves civilians with her bracelets and super-speed, and prevents terrorists from blowing up a bank by kicking them sensually.

Aquaman is no longer for the fishes. He’s for the laydayz!

Then we see Bruce searching the arctic wasteland for Arthur Curry, “the Aquaman.” The best line: “He comes on the King Tide.” (I dunno – I just love that line!) Lion-maned, body-painted, leather-panted Jason Momoa ain’t your daddy’s yellow-and-green sea-queen, as he polishes a bottle of whiskey before diving shirtless into the tempest. When it comes to rebooting characters, Aquaman – with his Haight-Ashbury ethos, quindent (not trident!), his haughty derring-do and laughter in the face of overwhelming odds – is surely one of the coolest in superhero history. And wettest. That means YOU, ladies!

Then another great scene, done to death in the trailers: Bruce visits young Barry Allen’s man-cave and throws a bat-shuriken at him. Barry steps aside and plucks it out of the air. Listen to the sound design on this scene alone – sparkling steely shinks and crackling electricity. (Or the sound design on Cyborg walking, or the snippet of Danny Elfman’s Batman Theme when Batman appears to Gordon; throughout, this movie’s sound and music are pitch perfect.)

And the representation of Barry’s super-speed is breathtaking! An aspect which filmmakers got so wrong with Jeff East running alongside the train in SUPERMAN, the Flash’s running scenes here are accompanied by arc-lightning searing the air around him, the scarlet speedster himself tilting forward in dynamic-momentum slomo, which gives the impression he can travel much faster than Evan Peters’ Quicksilver. Flash’s quirky personality, although not canon, is very entertaining. They’ve made him post-teen (in direct competition with his ambiguously-gay TV counterpart), and he’s not a forensic scientist – he’s some kind of millennial nerd just discovering his powers, although I don’t know why they had to mess with his sleek comics costume and make him look like a Transformer.

The Flash: faster than a teening bullet.

Flash confesses to Batman before a fracas with parademons, that he is not ready for battle, that he has only “pushed people and run away”; it makes for the most poignant moment in the film, when Batman, ever the tactician, quickly gives Flash a purpose. In that gritty voice: “Save one.” That’s how heroes begin. “Save one person. Don’t talk. Don’t fight. Get in. Get one out.” He really heard Flash. It gave Batman’s character such empathy and heft.

Billy Crudup as Barry’s dad, Mr. Flash. In jail. Canon. Another solid aspect of this film is how they tie up all these minor characters in the end.

Cyborg/Victor Stone (a character created in 1980) was not in the original 1960’s Justice League (and retconned as a founding member in 2011), and I don’t care much for the character, but I understand the marketing reason he is here – for the Iron Man demographic. Doing double duty with the minority demo. Nice seeing Joe Morton (who died after creating Skynet) as Victor Stone’s father, Mr. Cyborg. Trying to keep his son alive by using the motherbox, he only succeeded in turning Victor into a cyberfreak. So Victor also fulfills the Spidey demo, by being a troubled youth (“Ever since Superman, people have been waiting for the next alien invasion. Now I gotta wonder if I’m it.”) He discovers various powers as he goes, like a constantly upgrading iPhone.

Amy Adams, as Superman’s love, Lois Lane, has so little to do and so much gorgeous to do it in. There is no time to re-establish her as investigative journalist, or even to visit with Perry White and The Daily Planet. Adams merely fulfills the role of pining girlfriend, and secret weapon to stop Superman angrily grabbing the League, to romantically grabbing hers. And I think they filmed all her scenes before Hair and Makeup could even smooth out her bed-head. Her scenes with Supes are short but poignant, and it almost seems Adams is way too talented to be “wasting” her time on a superhero movie – but her depth and crystal sotto voce lends weight to the romance. She is also the link to Superman’s mother (Diane Lane), whose reunion with her son is touching.

J.K. Simmons takes time off from abusing musicians to play Commissioner Gordon like a tight snare. (He was already J. Jonah Jameson in Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN movies. Shouldn’t there be some rule that if you were already in a Marvel movie, you can’t be in a DC movie?) Aren’t there any other actors to hire? If you want the fucking part, earn it!

“Trying to please these fan-dorks is a mission impossible…”

One of the minor characters is a major player: Bruce’s liege, Alfred (Jeremy Irons). His few lines are profound, and I wish we had time for more. Maybe he could have reminded Batman of that batsuit with the glowing eyes that made him as strong as Superman, which would really help right now with Steppenguy. Is it at the cleaners?

The most minor character is actually the Justice League’s greatest villain in the comics, and is relegated to an Easter Egg mention by Steppendude, “For Darkseid!” simply for fanboys to gush over. Who else would be aware of this hulking New God (the analog to Marvel’s Thanos) except people who attend the theater with wraparound Steppenwolf horns?

For a movie that seemingly moves at breakneck pace, there are many heartfelt moments between the group’s members. Barry and Victor actually dig up Superman’s coffin, with Barry trying to get a fist-bump, which Victor denies him. During the final hero shot, Barry gets his fist-bump; it’s not highlighted, simply another small detail that the film gets right, and that its critics will never be attuned to.

Wonder Woman/Diana does the old “tending-wounds-intimately” scene with Batman, where they philosophize over lost loves. However, whatever sexual position Bruce is cultivating with Diana is shredded when Superman appears, and Diana is the first to gush, “He’s back!” All talk of her lost love (Steve Trevor from WWII) is forgotten, as this super woman realizes the only person who can properly pound her is a super man, and her eyes go directly to the place where he now doesn’t wear panties.

During the League’s darkest punching hour, Superman appears with the cheesy line: “I believe in truth… I’m also a big fan of justice.”

When Batman sees this, he spurts a little in his tighty-blackies.

Possum codpieces and black nun’s panties – a winning combination.

As soon as the man of steel addresses the problem, it is resolved within minutes. This includes: saving civilians, preventing the motherbox from melding three-into-one (how Christian of it!), and defeating Steppenwolf. Quod erat demonstrandum. This movie’s slogan is, “You can’t save the world alone.”

Well, you can if you’re Superman.

And in modern film, his powers can be depicted as the most breathtaking we’ve ever seen. Every time he takes off, there is a sonic boom as he disappears in a haze of blue blur; his flying is seamless, his strength simply awe-inspiring – as when he shows the youngster Flash how it’s done, by carrying a building full of people, as Flash saves just one van-full.

But what’s the big deal with his mustache that no one can see? Poor Henry Cavill had to contractually retain a giant porn-stache for his role in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 6, during reshoots of JUSTICE LEAGUE. So the LEAGUE digital artists painted over it. And the internet collapses with this news. And critics sacrifice their viewing pleasure to gaze intently at Cavill’s philtrum to nitpick single frames… Go on. Stare all you want. You’ll get so bored trying to find fault with Cavill’s perfect features, you might even start paying attention to the movie again. If it weren’t for the studios leaking the mustache imbroglio, no one would ever have known!

One of the two post-credits scenes features my two favorite supers: Superman and The Flash. They both gots to know… as they take their marks on a deserted road…

JUSTICE LEAGUE’s faults are more to do with expectations than lack of quality or fun movie-making. The plot is simple, the villain unremarkable, the story sometimes lacking in logic and depth; however, the movie itself features the greatest incarnations in filmic history of the superheroes of DC’s Golden Age, taking every aspect into account, from the production design to the performances, from the casting to the special effects.

Different age groups will have their faves – Kirk Alyn’s 1948 SUPERMAN, Chris Reeve’s 1978 SUPERMAN, Michael Keaton’s 1989 BATMAN, Christian Bale’s 2008 DARK KNIGHT; with television lagging far behind, with Linda Carter’s 1975 WONDER WOMAN, and John Wesley Shipp’s 1990 THE FLASH; with Aquaman and Cyborg never represented on the silver screen until now – but we arrive at a pinnacle in movie history with JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Cavill, with his angular face so like Reeve’s and his body built by Adonis, purveys the nuance and silent majesty of a being that can crush a planet, with creative flying scenes and mega-human power that packs a visceral punch; Affleck has shown his vigilante’s violent tendencies and a poignant side, as well as the most muscled bulk of any Batman, and tech that only a billionaire could possess; Gadot’s Wonder Woman charged onto the silver screen with female empowerment and tritones screaming, power like a goddess and thighs to match; while Jason Momoa rips apart the conventional image of the fey fish-talker to slam down his rambunctious brawler – He comes on the King Tide!; and only with modern computer graphics could we begin to visualize the surreal time-warping ultrasonic velocities of Ezra Miller’s fastest man alive.

It’s for those of us who believe in heroes, Movie Maniacs!

JUSTICE LEAGUE ends with narration that brings a tear to my eye, telling of:

“…heroes, to remind us that hope is real.
All you have to do…
is look…
up in the sky.”

Oh god, I nearly did what Batman did.

END

Superman in a bra.

Thighs shaved smoother than a cucumber. Cupid-bow lips. Armored breast. Screenings for Lesbians Only. The first ever feature film for the DC superhero WONDER WOMAN has already caused its fare share of controversy and orgasm.

It seems as if critics are only lauding this Patty Jenkins-directed film for fear of retribution from the female gender, and as contriteness for heaping such derision on the female-driven GHOSTBUSTERS last year. The first female superhero movie? Oh, it’s the best movie ever made! Best superhero movie by a mile! Totally “gets it” for women!

You lost me at lesbian screenings.

WONDER WOMAN is undoubtedly a thrilling tale, with excellent production values, an origin story not done to death like Batman’s or Spider-Man’s, its star an alluring neophyte in man-dribbling mini-skirt, with a scarring orchestral theme that halts armies and storms ramparts! (The bed of Hans Zimmer drums, the wailing banshee tritones of Junkie XL; insistent, vertiginous, clawing into your cerebral cortex!) Yet the movie fails to jolt into the upper climes of superherodom. Maybe it does for feminists and those boyfriends who need to gain access to feminist panties, however as part of the DC Extended Universe, WONDER WOMAN fails to grapple with the darkness and depth of MAN OF STEEL or BATMAN V SUPERMAN. It gets very close though. As close as a shaved thigh on a pouty face.

From Here To Themiscyra.

Wonder Woman’s origin story (created by William Moulton Marston in 1941) was originally set during World War II. WONDER WOMAN (written by Alan Heinberg, Zack Snyder and Jason Fuchs) is set in WWI, because the filmmakers wanted “social innocence” (read as women being treated like second-class citizens without repercussions: they wanted Diana to be out of place when brought to 1900’s London, yet unable to change the social climate).

Other than the era change, Wonder Woman comes to us as we remember her: embarrassingly patriotic red-white-and-blue garb, shield, sword (called the “god-killer”), Lasso of Hestia (aka Lasso of Truth), and tiny black nun’s panties covered with armored platelet and a gold-rimmed corset that makes us yearn after that and those.

A brief prologue shows Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in modern times, looking at a vintage 1918 photograph of herself (see SIDEBAR). Then we are flashed back to a sun-soaked paradise island – Themiscyra, where we find a city of warriors bred for battle, ruling their land with wisdom and strength, running a society with ingenuity and intelligence, with no need for the opposite gender except for procreation; in other words, a society of men— Uh oh! Now I’m in trouble. No, not men – Amazons! Wild warrior women!

We meet young Diana (remarkable Lilly Aspell), mimicking General Antiope (statuesque Robin Wright, bringing her sensual venom from HOUSE OF CARDS and expressing it in real battle). Connie Nielsen is Diana’s doting mother, Queen Hippolyta, describing Diana’s birth (molded from clay by Zeus). And what is that accent they’re all using? Are they reverse-engineering Gal Gadot’s exotic Israeli accent into the full Amazon cast?

Baby Diana is trained by Antiope until she blossoms into Gal Gadot, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap— well, you know. And that is the movie’s contradictory misstep: Diana and the Amazons are bred for one thing – battle against Ares (Hippolyta warned: “Ares the god of war turned men against one another and war ravaged the earth”) – yet when grown Diana wants to lend her fighting bosom to the World War because she suspects Ares’ meddling, the first thing the Amazons do is disown her, telling her The legends are not true!… See? Now do you get the reason why this movie is not credible? And you thought I was just being sexist.

Y’know, if you try to find a picture of Wonder Woman that ISN’T prurient – you will fail.

When American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash-lands on Themiscyra and inadvertently leads Germans to its shores, the warrior women launch into sexy battle and win. (Fist-up for woman empowerment and all that.) Sexy and kiddie-clean, as there is no blood whatsoever in this balletic battle utilizing blades, arrows and guns. Antiope even takes a bloodless bullet for Diana. (But I thought their armor was bullet-proof, or is that just Diana’s gauntlets? Even so, the pellets from these old-fashioned guns couldn’t have done that much damage – why not rush Antiope to that pool of rejuvenation that they put Steve in? Movies, huh?)

Steve, an American spy, importunes the Amazons to join him in the war effort, telling them of the villainous General Ludendorff (Danny Huston), and his chemical warfare mistress, Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya), from whom he stole deadly information. But the Amazons do not believe, as Diana does, that Ares is behind the “war to end all wars,” so decide to bravely sit out this world conflict. Diana is forced to steal the shield, lasso and sword, and sail off as a runaway with Steve. She’s painted as a rebel because Wonder Woman, like Superman, threatens to become a boring character if she is all-pure. Hippolyta laments to Diana, “If you choose to leave, you may never return.” (Uh, one good reason, please?)

Yet… as Hippolyta watches her daughter disappear over the waves, she proclaims, “The more she knows, the sooner he will find her,” meaning she ADMITS Ares is behind the war, also revealing she has not told Diana something important. We would learn later it is Diana herself who is the “god-killer.” And there was no reason to keep that secret. And if Hippolyta is so dubious of Diana’s battle prowess, why not just mobilize her army of lazy Amazon bitches and join the war effort?

You lost me at star-spangled underpants.

Back in smog-choked 1918 London, it’s fish-out-of-water time as Diana tries to fit in with a misogynistic society where women are subservient, like Steve’s assistant Etta (Lucy Davis, still a secretary; in THE OFFICE, sensual; here, frumpy). Diana enters the all-male House of Lords, led by David Thewlis. She berates the generals, not understanding how they can knowingly “sacrifice all those lives.” Answer: Because all men are pigs, right girls?!

Superhero sugar high.

Movie is funny in innocuous ways: Diana tells Steve, “Only an Amazon can defeat Ares.” He replies, “We need to get to London and try to find the men who can.” She retorts, “I’M the men who can!” It’s cute because it’s true.

Homage to SUPERMAN: they put glasses on Diana as a disguise; she stops a bullet in an alley mugging; she gads about in a big cloak to cover her armor/nakedness.

The old trope of Steve recruiting his men while they’re engaged in bar fights – Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock (very cool to include a Native American on this ragtag team); the three men who would be in that amazing cross-generational photo.

Quite childishly romantic, as Steve and Diana spend but one night together in a hotel room, before they will be separated by tragedy; although I’m thinking of the logistics on how a super-powered being can ever be satisfied by a mortal, even if he is the Captain of the Enterprise. Superman’s Kryptonian thrusts are two decades away.

At the front lines, the team is pinned down in a trench. Steve yells, “This is No Man’s Land; no MAN can cross it!” Oh, here we go – fist-up for substituting the word ‘woman.’ Thankfully, they don’t, and instead go for the jugular with the Wonder Woman reveal.

Slow motion, Diana climbs out of the trench, shrugs off her cloak, revealing the battle armor that wouldn’t cover a midget (prompting all male genitals to slowly “unfold”), and steps into the mud of No Man’s Land. Somehow, she has her sword and shield, boots, gauntlets, thighs, waterfall raven tresses babbling over naked shoulders, flap of groin-skirt sensually teasing, you could almost taste the pearbottom… In this hero shot, violins chug, smoke drifts, she looks like Linda Carter – the movie has won! –

Bullets scream at her, they ping off her gauntlets and shield, and then, the chugging is joined by those temple-throbbing drums – and the jarring tritone theme unleashes its fury. We almost wet our groin-platelets in ecstasy.

She takes on armed Germans, clobbering, swishing, deflecting bullets; flawless skin, vermilion lips, corded thighs, nun’s panties, raven locks… I don’t know where you’re looking, but my cinema experience is a wonder…

DC movies have started to follow a dangerous pattern (no, not just the new longer motion logo, which Cinema Sins will go ape over): their third acts devolve into eye-shattering CGI battles that would do TRANSFORMERS films proud. It was great in MAN OF STEEL, as Superman used his powers of flight and strength in ways that had never been visualized before; the city-sized explosions became a little tiresome in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, but here… they’ve bought the farm on predictable and overblown with Wonder Woman versus Ares, just clobbering the shit out of the greenscreen.

The villain gets to soliloquy on “wiping out Mankind and bringing paradise to the Earth,” which I can’t find fault with. She actually answers, “I can never be a part of that!” Give me one good reason why you don’t want paradise on Earth again? But the audience is not given the chance to ponder contradictions, as now Wondy is fighting a gigantic Viking special effect with a man-skort. How can she possibly win against this obviously stronger god? Answer: more special effects.

The big questions in play in WONDER WOMAN (Is Mankind worth saving? Will love save the world? Is every human both darkness and light?) become totally irrelevant due to the movie’s own plot. You see, after Wonder Woman defeats the Visual Effects Department (aka Ares), all the Germans break out of a trance and become good again. They’re telling us that all that “morality” and “love of war” has nothing to do with human free will, but possession by Ares! Which means that questioning Mankind’s dual nature, and capability for love, and busting out the painfully trite “They are warlike – yet noble” speech can all be boiled down to, “Just keep Ares away from them, they’ll be okay.”

“It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” Diana’s opening and closing maudlin narration makes us cringe, as the filmmakers try to tie Wonder Woman to William Marston’s original ethos – that she would combat hate (i.e. war) with love (i.e. breasts). “I have seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love.” My gorge is rising, as well as… “Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission. Now. For ever.”

And a cheese factory exploded in London.

END

Dawn of the Golden Age of Superhero Movies.

…if Jesus was alive today and walked on water, it would be instantly on YouTube… And the first Comment would be: “Fag.”
— Bill Maher.

There is a scene in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE where Batman turns a corner in his Batmobile and runs headlong into Superman blocking him in the street. Superman stands calmly, not moved one iota as the Batmobile slams into him and ricochets to a halt. All is quiet, somber, dark, as Batman slowly rises from the cockpit, to confront a grim Superman now standing on the Batmobile’s hood. There it is — a scene envisioned from all our childhoods: the two greatest superheroes the world has ever known, face to face in living, breathing, shining reality.

“Sorry for hitting you buddy. I’m guessing you’re not standing on my hood to exchange insurance information?”

These are the First Heroes, the OG’s, from the Golden Age of Comics. Supers, which were paper and colored ink, now flesh and sinew – incarnate after 80 years of expectancy. At last on the big screen in darkness and badassery. These were never just cartoon characters – they were archetypes; historical memes that represented the highest aspirations of humankind; ultimately, they were more than just brains and brawn, but the epitome of each. These beings guided us through the uncertainty of puberty, forged our visions of adulthood, infected our notions of morality. Like the God of Abraham breathing life into the mud of Adam, DC Comics and director Zack Snyder have hewn from the pages of past summers, the gods who made us the men we are today.

And instead of delving into this sincere movie’s deeper layers, the uneducated, short-attention-span lunkheads have chosen to knee-jerk and bitch-fit in ignorant spasm, focusing on the obvious lesser faults in this fantasy script, like it’s an historical document that needs to conform to real world rules. They’re all just JELLY that they didn’t make this movie first!

And I wept as my childhood slapped me in the face. I wept for all the times I tied a towel around my neck and swished around the backyard. I wept as this cinematic tableau authentically depicted what was buried under the rubble of my adult brain. And I wept because, no matter the quality, no matter the blood and bone expended in the cauldron of creation, the first Comment will always be – “fag.”

Superpoff V Batpoff: Dawn of Salad
“Hi pal! Wanna wrestle?”

Batman battles Superman for destroying Metropolis while he was trying to save it, and destroys Metropolis while he’s trying to save it by battling Superman.

Uh…

It’s the darkest superhero movie ever made. DC Comics has outdone Marvel and any other contenders (like HANCOCK, DARKMAN, THE CROW, et al) in creating an almost disturbing adventure that delves deep into the minds of two distraught men. The gravitas here stems not from the usual childish punching between good and evil, but in that age-old adage about great power spawning great responsibility. And it goes further, into the Shakespearean, “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown.” (Henry The Fourth Part 2, Act 3:1.)

We’ve all grown up with the notion that having super powers (or being in Batman’s realm of tasty gadgets and optimum training) would be peachy keen. But the abilities of these two men are a curse, a burden, and weigh on them morally for their limitations. For all his seemingly limitless abilities, Superman knows his power is finite. He cannot save everyone; he is not omniscient. In messianic scenes, we see him performing incredible feats of strength and bravery, yet behind his furrowed brow, he mourns for those he could not save; he does not embrace the joyous/evangelical reaching out to touch the hem of his cape; his visage is steeped in sadness and self-doubt.

And Batman, who donned the cowl of a bat to strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers, realizes the new top dog is far more fearful, for his capacity to “burn down the world” in an eyeblink. To put it simply: it’s a dick thing. In a world where Gotham and Metropolis are across the bay from each other, Batman is so threatened by Superman, he steps over the moral lines he set for himself, just to match that terrifying killing power – resorting to branding criminals like cattle, then outright murdering them. When Alfred muses to Bruce about “everything changing” and “the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel”, he is not talking about super criminals – he is talking about Bruce!

Also, just before Alfred subtly chides him, Bruce says, “We’re criminals, Alfred! We’ve always been criminals.” Did we hear that correctly?! Batman admits openly he is an outlaw, and is not self-deluding that his righteousness outweighs his illegality!

These pathological insecurities are woven so deep into the fabric of this tale that it totally loses the lunkheads. Where’s the colorful quipping? Where’s the simplistic punching of bad guys? Where’s the “fun” in being super? I don’t get it. I know, I’ll whine like every other beanstem on social media because I’m not used to a superhero movie forcing me to use my brain that’s been turned to pulp by Reality TV.

I think I’ll type “fag” in the Comments section…

There are real world repercussions. This movie addresses the massive collateral damage in its predecessor, MAN OF STEEL (2013). The city of Metropolis won’t stand for Superman’s decisions on how he wields his powers, and the plot foreshadows the dilemma in the upcoming Marvel production, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR – on how to regulate superheroes and their deeds. Batman, battling his own demons and critics in pushing his vigilantism to murder, takes it upon himself to regulate Superman.

A friend of mine is always reminding me superhero movies are, in essence, “kid’s movies.” Not any more. When we see a clothed Clark Kent climb into a tub playfully with a naked Lois Lane (living together like a well-adjusted couple), we realize – this is an adult rendering. (There are also rumors of an R-rated version of the film, available only on Blu-Ray – which is not, disappointingly, for the purpose of revealing more tey-tey, but to include more violence). So put on your thinking cap and your big boy pants or get the fuck out.

Even you got too old to die young.
— Alfred, to Bruce Wayne.

Affleck: Bat to the bone.

Ben Affleck is Batman. First comment: fag.

After the internet explodes due to this casting choice, Affleck turns out to be nothing short of brilliant! Bringing a grizzled, cynical brutality to his Batman, even closer to Frank Miller’s envisioning of the Dark Knight than Christian Bale’s interpretation; a rugged, unapologetic continuance of this character. (We even see the voice modulator that makes Batman’s voice raspy – which might explain why Christian Bale said, “So that’s how it feels” in that rasp, when he didn’t need to because no one was listening).

Affleck (who was Superman in HOLLYWOODLAND! – where he dated Diane Lane, Superman’s mother here!) embodies exactly the type of vicious vigilante we saw in KICK-ASS. Remember that scene in the warehouse where Nic Cage’s Big Daddy – looking decidedly like the caped crusader – kicks and kills his way through a bunch of henchmen? And I yearned for DC to step up and make the Batman look as dynamic and lethal. Here is that dance of death. It’s thrilling to see such real world violence at last in these “kid’s movies.” Our heroes are back, and badder than ever. This ain’t your granddaddy’s Batusi, this ain’t your daddy’s Mr. Mom, Hell, this ain’t even Christian Bale’s Dark Knight. It’s Frank Miller’s nightmare vision realized in murderous Bat-Kwon-Do.

We probably know better, as an audience, the death of Batman’s parents, than the death of loved ones we know.
— Kevin Smith, director.

And in Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, Affleck brings a sadness and resignation. We feel that child who witnessed his parents being slain. And – lest we forget – here’s that origin story YET AGAIN! But it’s recreated for a very important plot jolt later, as we see Bruce’s father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) utter his wife’s name with his dying breath, “Martha…”

Lois, Clark and Perry discuss how to benefit Mankind, by firing the guy who eats everyone else’s food in the office fridge.

Henry Cavill is Superman/Clark Kent. And he can do no wrong, as actor or character, embodying the perfection of Nietzsche’s Űbermensch (the “over-man,” the next step in human evolution, acting as his own god, without the constraints of religion, giving himself morality and value as he sees fit. Ironically, the opposite of the Űbermensch is Jesus Christ – but that’s who Superman is modeled after!). Is there some kind of physics law that states a man can’t possibly be that handsome? So flawless he’s swaying the evolutionary scales so that us natchell-born cucumbers can never mate again and pass on our genes…

Amy Adams is Lois Lane, lubricious hairstyle and a voice like she’s speaking through the finest Baccarat crystal; Supe’s live-in girlfriend and Daily Planet reporter, who earns her paycheck here not reporting one single thing. Laurence Fishburne is hilarious in a few key moments as editor Perry White: “‘Crime Wave in Gotham’! Other breaking news: ‘Water, wet’!”

Jeremy: Iron man.

Jeremy Irons is impertinent and sarcastic as Bruce’s faithful liege; the best Alfred yet, not only for his imperiousness and biting wit, but for the content of his discourse.

Diane Lane is Martha Kent, Supe’s strong mother, who rescinds Glenn Ford’s bullshit from SUPERMAN (“You’ve got a purpose, and it ain’t scoring touchdowns”), with her own advice on Clark’s duty to humanity, “You don’t owe these people anything!” I LOVE this contravening of maudlin canon! It’s all these small concepts that add up to this movie being better than its small faults.

And Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent makes a cameo so moving, it reduces us to tears in five minutes screentime. It’s a wonder the government aren’t using him as a lethal weapon on the front lines in Afghanistan, making the enemy weep themselves to surrender. In a quasi-dream, he advises doubtful Clark on the cruel kindness of saving one thing at the expense of another; that something must die for something else to live. And he caps it with, “I miss you, son.” Clark: “I miss you too, dad.” Oh sweet Jesus, I am a blithering wreck! If I ever take a Method Acting class, I’ll know what to think about when I need to cry like a baby-man.

Costner, Fishburne and Irons prove that adage, “There are no small roles, only small actors.” These three GIANTS overwhelm their few minutes screentime with depth, personality, humor and empathy, as if they were the focus of the tale!

“Am I losing my touch? I can’t seem to top facebook with any greater evil…”

And in another stunt-casting coup – Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Superman’s nemesis since comic books were invented. Eisenberg ain’t your daddy’s Luthor; he’s Zuckerberg-as-Joker, a shifty-limbed, loquacious super-genius, who is practically an ally to Batman here, in that he wants a preemptive strike on Superman before Superman can destroy the world. It is his Machiavellian plan that sets in motion “Son of Krypton versus Bat of Gotham.”

A senate committee (led by Holly Hunter) wants to bore Superman into submission with hearings and edicts (red tape v red cape?), and won’t grant Luthor permission to build kryptonite weapons fused with the DNA of the deceased Zod (Michael Shannon), for fear it might get interesting. “Don’t build a weapon of assassination, and call it deterrence.”

Luthor discovers that Zod’s cells degenerate when exposed to kryptonite – a scientific reason for Superman’s weakness, rather than just, “Pieces of his home planet make him weak.”

Cameos aplenty: Andrew Sullivan, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, Neil deGrasse Tyson (oh yes!), with Charlie Rose asking the right question of the committee, “Are you comfortable saying to a grieving parent, ‘Superman could’ve saved your child but on principle, we did not want him to act’? Senator: “I’m saying he shouldn’t act unilaterally.” Typical politician asshat. (When that building is falling on you, Senator, I hope your red tape is all in order before Superman can be granted a senatorial injunction to save you.) When weighing the pros and cons, Superman’s deeds – unlike any god’s – are demonstrably beneficial. How can anyone mistake his averting tragedies as enmity? One word: Republicans.

When Luthor masterminds an explosion that destroys that committee, I’m not cheering for eeevil, or for the deaths of the innocents in the courtroom, but I am sure as shit cheering for the deaths of those politicians.

Title card: Mankind is introduced to the Superman.

Opening scenes of BATMAN V SUPERMAN draw on the last scenes of MAN OF STEEL, during the destruction of Metropolis. This time, as seen from the ground. Two small figures battle in the thundering skies (Superman and General Zod), as buildings topple around them. We see a man desperately navigating the shuddering streets, and we mark the true measure of heroism as he runs toward the danger to save others. The man is Bruce Wayne, trying to save people in his crumbling Wayne Foundation building. He looks up at the inhuman figures rending the world, pure hatred in his eyes.

Thus the plot is set in motion, and the reasons why these two heroes fight is quite compelling. Batman plots to preemptively destroy “the alien”: “If there is a one percent chance he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty…” And Superman, who can admittedly crush Batman easily, enhanced suit and all (with the gentlemen’s agreement that he never lasers Batty’s mouth opening), doesn’t do so because he was only blackmailed into fighting Batman over the life of his mother. The script is well crafted by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, each line of delicious dialogue heavy with portent. [See POFFY SEZ: The writers behind the stories that other writers take credit for.]

As everyone knows by now, the reason they STOP fighting seems weak at first blush. Batman, with his various kryptonite tchotchkes, has brought Superman down, and is about to spear him through the heart with a krypto-spear when Superman – with his dying breath – just like Bruce’s father – mumbles “…Martha…”

And the Bat pauses: “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?!”

One would think the viewers best suited to understand this reversal would be the truest fans; those who know Batman’s OCD; the ones who understand how driven/damaged a soul must be to dress as a bat to combat crime; the viewers who would comprehend how something as small as his mother’s name would adversely affect the fearful Bat Man. Nope. First comment: fag.

Like the movie, this plot point is not as simplistic as the lunkheads would have us believe. “Martha” is the wedge that opens a broader cave-in for Batman. With that plea from the man of steel to “save Martha,” Batman realizes Superman is an empathetic being, with family and human values. After all, Batman was driven to destroy Superman because he believed Superman lacked humanity; that the coldness of his alien heart might cause him to destroy Earth without even the barest moral twinge, not through malignancy, but because he was incapable of feeling at all. Hearing that Superman cared for someone else – with the added jolt of her name being Martha! – stayed Batman’s hand. This alien could discern; this being had a moral compass, this man was human after all.

Heated talk of devils falling from the sky, gods ascending from the depths. “Maybe he’s not a devil or Jesus character; maybe he’s just a guy trying to do the right thing.” Messianic, magisterial, epic in darkness, pain, moral ambiguity. Our Heroes are born anew, Movie Maniacs! Cherish them.

It is no secret BATMAN V SUPERMAN is opening up the DC Universe to spinoffs and sequels, thus the teases of The Flash (a time-travel mishap), Aquaman (mighty Jason Momoa wielding a trident underwater!), some guy whose symbol I don’t recognize and–

The Father, The Son and the Holy Wet Dream.

Wonder Woman! If the sight of bulked-up Ben Batman and square-jawed Super Cavill isn’t enough to keep everyone’s panties pouting, here comes the smooth-skinned Amazonian princess to finish the job. Her superhero name is never mentioned, and she is teased in an ominous old photo from 1918 Belgium – yet we all know who the luscious Gal Gadot is playing. An immortal warrior from a distant past, moving amongst modern mortals like a wet dream.

Luthor forges a Kryptonian abomination called Doomsday (we know him best from that limited 1992 comic series, The Death Of Superman), and in a lightning strike of mini-skirted glory, the enigmatic Wonder Woman appears, thighs akimbo, shield aloft, “W” symbol placed discreetly over her vagina, flanked by Superman and Batman.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The Holy Trinity of DC! Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman Wagina. Together on the silver screen at long last. Once again, step outside your social media clique of closeted dipshittery and bear witness! How many decades have we waited for this?! When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream…” he might just have been talking about this moment in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE.

And if this scene doesn’t move you to slapping yourself with your childhood towel —

fag

END