A ton of news came out yesterday detailing comic book films scheduled to release soon and in the near future. Sony/Marvel’s new Spider-Man solo movie was officially titled, Batfleck directorial rumors were confirmed and this holiday’s Doctor Strange gets its very first mind-bending trailer.
Doc Strange
Benedict Cumberbatch enters into the MCU this November as world famous surgeon turned Sorcerer Supreme, Steven Strange. Cumberbatch debuted the first trailer for Doctor Strange late last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which also features Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo and Rachel McAdams in a unknown role. The short clips showed some awesome-looking, world bending visual effects and the tone was overall dark and mysterious (as Doctor Strange himself is known to be). It really feels like something totally new to the MCU – something, I think, it definitely needs after spending so much time on the same characters with Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Cap 2 and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Of course there was the surprising Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, but those were tonally the same, fitting in well with the rest of the MCU’s lively and fun heroes. Strange reminds me of Batman Begins in that it has to do with like a secret order and the colors are sort of drab, unlike the rest of The Avengers. Plus, it’s an origin story like Begins.
I haven’t read many Doctor Strange comics yet, so I don’t know deep details of the character like I do with most of the other Avengers, but I’ll definitely be looking into him more leading up to the movie to see what makes him so weird.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Releasing in 2017, Tom Holland’s solo Spidey film will be titled Spider-Man: Homecoming, which Sony announced at CinemaCon yesterday. Following the glowing reviews of Holland’s Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, this rebirth of the hero will show him at a much younger age than we’ve ever seen on screen before. Sony Pictures head Tom Rothman described the film as being about “saving the world and getting your algebra homework done at the same time.” Moreover, Peter Parker’s main struggle will be finding out exactly how he fits into the world, searching for his identity – a very teenaged and familiar concept. It’s truly a homecoming of sorts for this hero back into Marvel’s universe. While still owned by Sony, fans have been craving to see Spidey alongside Iron Man, Cap, Thor and take his rightful place among the MCU’s most famous Avengers. It looks like with the help of Kevin Feige, Spider-Man will get the reboot he deserves accompanied by the companions we deserve to see him with.
Batfleck
Ben Affleck will star in and direct the next standalone Batman film. Affleck, the newest Dark Knight, was arguably the one shining light from this year’s Batman v Superman. Rumors arose last summer, but the news was only yesterday confirmed at CinemaCon. Affleck has already shown off his directing chops, heading films like The Town, Gone Baby Gone and 2013’s Best Picture winner Argo. I have to believe whatever Affleck does with the character can’t hold a candle critically to Christopher Nolan’s immaculate trilogy, but I really liked his performance in BvS and I thought it was the best depiction of “comic book Batman” I’ve ever seen on film. Put that together with his directing abilities and maybe we have a halfway decent DC superhero movie.
I don’t review or give my impressions of movies because right out of the theatre I can never get my thoughts straight to formulate decent analysis. But I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (for the sake of brevity I’ll refer to the film as BvS for the rest of this post) twice over the weekend and my mind is buzzing from the spectacle that was thrown at my eyeballs. My conclusions are far from favorable – I’ve come away from BvS with great disdain for where the DC Cinematic Universe is headed, however there are very specific parts of the movie that I liked and a only one character that I want to see more from.
ever wanted to walk out and ask for my money back in the first half hour of the film. Granted, I liked the final fourth or so of it, but god damn was the rising action’s a slog to get through. It’s disjointed and contrived, going from one character telling you about something that’s happening or going to happen off screen to another. The film assumes we know about past occurrences and characters from the comics, when the average movie goer knows probably zero about Cyborg or how Flash can travel through time or what Darkseid’s omega symbol looks like. It’s either Snyder assumes our knowledge of the DCU, or, even worse, he’s going to fill in the blanks in later movies, expect us to keep up with and remember the world they’re building and have us have a realization later that that’s what BvS was referencing. And that’s probably the largest mistake that this film commits: trying to force all these concepts and characters and history on us without letting them grow organically. They tell us rather than show us – a HUGE gaffe in any story-telling medium. Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is where it’s at now in the public consciousness because it’s been taking its time introducing us to new characters one by one and discovering new concepts with us instead of us being dropped into this whole universe with its own backstory that we need to catch up on. I get DC wants to speed up the process and build a cinematic universe with the Justice League that rivals The Avengers, but tossing out stupid films like BvS that have poor narratives, stale characters and a drab, morose settings aren’t going to make us see their vision.
I generally like Jesse Einsenberg in films, but casting had me scratching my head from the moment it was announced. I wanted to give him a fair shake – nobody though Heath Ledger could pull off The Joker and look how that turned out. I went into the movie with an open mind about Lex Luthor, but came out disappointed and confused about the villain’s motivation and identity. He’s meant to be a young, eccentric billionaire heading this multinational corporation – a very millennial trope. He’s meant to sound brilliantly psychotic in a sort of “you don’t understand my evil brilliance” sort of way. I guess he’s behind the plot to get Superman and Batman fighting, but that’s not well conveyed in the rising actions at all. I never understood why he was even in the film until the end when he created the fifth ninja turtle… I mean Doomsday. To that end, isn’t it super convenient that the Kryptonian ship Luthor gets access to just happens to have all the information about the history of Krypton and other spacely things? Like, wow! Great tool for the bad guy to have and get easy access to. Overall I’m unimpressed with Luthor in the new DCCU and I’m not looking forward to seeing him in future films.
I wish we saw more Clark Kent and less Superman this time out. In Man of Steel, we kind of connected with Clark, seeing his family, his father die and his struggles during his childhood, but we don’t experience happy Clark or depressed Clark or angry Clark. We do see Superman angry – when Luthor shows him the pictures of his captive mother and in Man of Steel when he’s punching Zod a bunch – but Superman isn’t really who the man is. We never connect with Clark the average Joe. There could have been so many opportunities with him and Lois simply conversing, struggling to figure out what’s the right thing for him to do, maybe even arguing about it in their apartment for us to relate to the god posing as human. The only emotion Clark ever conveys is “stoic concern,” like he’s always analyzing situations rather than letting his emotions control how he feels. Like I said, we get a brief glimpse of him being emotional atop LexCorp in his suit, but not in the glasses. That’s why ultimately when he dies at the end and they try to drum up sympathy with a long, drawn out double funeral sequence, there is a noticeable lack of concern from the audience (or at least from the two showings I went to). I genuinely don’t care that Superman is dead and that bothers me because I should. It’s Superman! Truth, justice and the American way! Hope incarnate! Just not in this universe; not to me.
Simply put, it feels unearned for multiple reasons. Superman’s death isn’t inherently an emotional moment. After just two films, there was no way his death could have been impactful no matter how charismatic Henry Cavill played Clark Kent. We’ve just been introduced into the DCCU and already you’re killing off your most iconic character in it? It goes right along with my main theme – Zach Snyder is telling us to feel bad for Superman not letting emotions come organically. Had Superman died in the upcoming Justice League part 2, I might have felt something for this hero who I’ve spent four films with. But here, we know he’s coming back somehow, one because the Justice League hasn’t even been formed yet and two because we see the stupid dirt rising at the very end of the film. If that happened a few films later, his future in the DCCU might be ambiguous. Here, it feels rushed. Same thing with Doomsday’s appearance and demise. In a few films, had Luthor unleashed his monster on Metropolis and killed Superman, I’d be ok with that. But in the BvS we got, a big, dumb monster shows up with a half-hour left in the movie and kills Superman. Sure, Superman give his life to kill this unkillable beast, but we care nothing about Superman’s character, we care nothing about Metropolis or this universe that Snyder’s trying to build, so Supes’ death seems superfluous. I’d have walked out of this of the theatre feeling the exact same way about the DCCU had Superman died or not.
minute scene, we’re told there are other metahumans in the world and see brief clips of each hero in action. Instead of building to a team-up movie, we’re meant to care about characters who the general audience, the non-DC fanboys, know nothing about. I wish I could say I’m excited to see more from these heroes, but I’m honestly so turned off by the DCCU at this point.
The Trivial Matters 