If I was an American, I would vote for Bernie too!
Hi there, my name is Chris and I am over the moon that DC are doing a cinematic universe like Marvel has. I always liked DC's superheroes more (especially Batman). I am an administrator over at the Tintin Wiki, Batman: The Animated Series Wiki, James Bond Wiki, Fantastic Four Movies Wiki and founded the Spider-Man Films Wiki, Superman Anthology Wiki and Alex Kidd Wiki.
My Rankings of the DCEU Films[]
My Blog[]
Reviews[]
Man of Steel (2013)[]
I thought Man of Steel was an epic superhero film. I am a great fan and admirer of Richard Donner's Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980) and had high hopes for this film. Even though Batman is by far my favourite super hero this film has made me want to find out a bit more about Superman than I already do.
The intro showing General Zod's attempted coup on Krypton and the back story was, imo, the best part of the film with stunning backdrops and visual effects. Clark discovering his past and secrets in the Fortress of Solitude was also really cool. Personally I thought Michael Shannon's preformance as Zod was not quite as stirring as Terrance Stamp's from Superman II, yet none the less, I thought he did the character enough justice. Henry Cavill was outstanding as Superman, worthy of Christopher Reeve's legacy.
Jonathan Kent's death scene was an inspiring piece, letting himself die to protect Clark from having to show his powers to the onlookers. His ultimate sacrifice to keep Clark's identity being the reason why Lois Lane dropped her story on Superman at the end to tie in was cleverly written.
I got the feeling I was one of the few to see the film who didn't care that Superman killed General Zod. I found it amazing people would freak out like that while back when Superman II was released, where Superman likewise kills Zod, no one cared. In fact I'd argue that Man of Steel was more like the comics as he only killed him to save innocent civilians rather than like Superman II which was virtually in cold blooded revenge!
I'm proud of New Zealand's connections to the film with Weta Workshop doing an awesome job on the special effects and Kiwi-born actor Russell Crowe with his dashing portrayl of Jor-El. Overall I thought It was absolutely brilliant, outshining The Dark Knight trilogy (still prefer Tim Burton's ones), The Avengers and any other recent superhero films.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)[]
What can I say, this movie just wowed with all its action. I admit I was a little nervous that might suffer from the same overstuffing problems as films like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but was pleased to find the movie pretty straightforward to follow despite circulating through the various story arcs.
Ben Affleck was a solid performer as Batman, giving a good showing as an older more battle weary Batman which ensured the character stayed fresh, and wasn't too rehashed from the Nolan films. Jesse Eisenberg was nowhere near as bad as Lex Luthor as I was expecting. He gave a fresh performance as a neurotic, OCD type villain. While I liked the part he played, I did have to keep reminding myself he was playing Lex as it really was a massive departure from the source material, fingers crossed for improvement in future films.
Gal Gadot blew me away as Wonder Woman (too skinny my ass). It might be partly due to having never seen the character adapted as such before, but seeing her was a breath of fresh air after 7 Batman films and 6 Superman films! I was hoping Mercy Graves would be a similar character to Faora, but was disappointed to see she was a "blink and you'll miss her" type character, briefly appearing in 2 or 3 scenes before getting killed off! Not cool DC, a character like her deserved better. Doomsday was kind of wasted and such a character could have been used better before being killed off ten minutes after debuting.
The story was actually relatively simplistic, but given the amount of characters being introduced and sub-plots it was probably for the best. It did a good job of tying up all the loose ends from Man of Steel giving nice cameo appearances to even the most minor characters from that film. I can see why Batman's name is first in the title as the film wasn't quite a 50/50 split, probably about 60/40, fair enough I guess with this being Batman's introduction whilst Superman has already had a whole film to himself.
There was a nice touch of authenticity to the film throughout, consistently showing good adaptation of comic arcs, chiefly "The Dark Knight Returns" with Batman and Superman's punch up and "The Death of Superman" with Doomsday's rampage and the implications of his defeat at Superman's hand. A decent film all round, leaving me with plenty of hype to see the extended version and following chapters in the DCEU.
Suicide Squad (2016)[]
I really enjoyed Suicide Squad. It had a good pace, sticking to the plot points well, without indulging in focusing too much on every characters backstory, which was my greatest fear. I like the fact that it had more humour than its predecessors, but more importantly it was humour done well, rather than goofy, slapstick one-liners. It did this whilst maintaining DC's patented grit and realism, indicating to me that indeed you can have the best of both worlds.
Possibly the coolest feature was the killer soundtrack that accompanied it. A wide variety of different songs ranging from The Animals to Eminem. They not only fitted well, but did a great way of shaping the tone of their respective scenes. House of the Rising Sun being a great match to Belle Reve prison in Louisiana and Without Me (Guess who's back) accompanying the squad getting their gear back. What could be more appropriate?
I guess what I appreciated most was that I was always left guessing "what's going to happen next". This was very much a good thing given the whole plot of Batman v Superman was practically given away in just two trailers. Finding out who the real villains were was surprising (in a good way). Using such an obscure character such as Incubus was a good contrast to the relatively well known main cast.
Certain characters hogged screentime, though this was probably inevitable in a film like this. Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Rick Flag were the focus, whilst Killer Croc and Katana barely utter sentences longer than three syllables. The Joker just pops in and out whenever he feels, in true Joker style one might say. Despite having big boots to fill, Jared Leto was indeed great as the Joker the only problem being simply not seeing enough of him!
The film's climax wasn't nearly as big and impressive as its predecessors, and the agonizing slow motion scenes it contained were probably the most (maybe only) painful part of the film to watch. Overall this film was great, probably my favourite DCEU film so far.
Wonder Woman (2017)[]
Well I was just in awe of this movie. The film has hit a new note in the comic book movie genre and I liked it! Long overdue for a solo film of her own, Wonder Woman gives a great debut adventure story for her character, seemingly inspired by and modeled after Richard Donner's 1978 classic Superman: The Movie, which defined the genre.
I loved the setting and imagery of the film, contrasting the bright, colourful backgrounds of the Greek/Roman inspired Themyscira, with the dull and depressing backdrop to the World War I engulfed Europe. The historical setting was a big plus for me, adding to the richness of the DCEU's ever expanding lore and helping give audiences an insight to the DCEU's fictional past.
Having a female lead and female director undoubtedly added to the freshness of the film and will hopefully debunk the naysaying theories that such films are a dull commodity, this film was anything but dull. Adding such references as women not yet having the right to vote in the setting and other reminders of our more patriarchal past gives Wonder Woman a bit more oomph and makes her character impact resonate very effectively with audiences.
While the structure of the narrative is actually quite run of the mill, the story is very engaging and compelling, helped tremendously by the genuine on-screen chemistry between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. It has a nice positive theme throughout, a much needed change of pace from the serious nature of Batman v Superman, several quite personal and emotional scenes are littered throughout the film accompanied by a few actually quite funny parts which engage the audiences positively.
The only detracting factors of the film to me were the overdone Matrix styled slow-mo breakdowns in the action sequences which diminished what I thought to be one of the films best aspects, its fast, energetic pace. The plot was tidy and concise, while not necessarily a bad thing, leaves little room for a sequel/spin-off to occur at this stage in the DCEU's timeline. Any subsequent Wonder Woman films will no doubt have a more contemporary setting. The other missed opportunity was a lack of character development/exposure for Ares who has his backstory told to us before showing up right at the end and be seemingly killed off.
All in all, this was a fantastic movie, an all time great of the genre which will definitely have great re-watch value.
Birds of Prey (2020)[]
DC goes woke and not in a good way with this one. For starters the title of the film is misleading as it is basically a Harley Quinn movie with the so-called "Birds of Prey" being more of a backup band to her than anything. Also I can see why it has an R rating as there is a lot of swearing, references to sex and drugs and above all horrendous violence (leave the kids at home for this one). Most of the aforesaid violence is committed by female characters against male characters and is in tune with the subliminal social engineering messages the film carries of in-your-face feminism. This movie has gotten on the same slippery slope that Ghostbusters, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Terminator Dark Fate and Charlie's Angels went down trying to inject politics into film making either in ignorance, or in spite, of the well proven conventional wisdom of "get woke, go broke".
The overall plot of the film is decent, but at times feels like a glorified MacGuffin chase. Despite this it never ceases to inject a spark of fun and mischief in. The pacing is spot on, but the concerted focus on Harley (who narrates as well) is at the expense of the other characters who get little in the way of development. Only Black Canary and Renee Montoya get much in this regard, but even then Black Canary is more of a tack on to Black Mask's part giving up singing to become his chauffeur. Montoya is quite relatable, shown as a competent officer stuck in a position beneath her potential and overseen by a man (that's no accident!) of lesser abilities than her. Huntress is underutilized in the movie, which is a shame as, while she has a great backstory, she ends up with Harley out of a happy coincidence more than anything.
Black Mask is portrayed well as a showy jerk, who sadly only wears his mask briefly at the finale. He stands out as being perhaps the only character who faces any semblance of repercussions for his actions, with Harley & co having all of their violent actions and attitudes portrayed as being cheerfully justified (note that he is a man and they are all women). Possibly the biggest let down of the film is that none of the characters have costumes resembling the source material in the comics making it difficult for comic fans to relate with, but normie audiences won't notice and they seem the priority these days. After the woke, virtue signaling marketing for this film I went in with low expectations, perhaps as a result I was happily surprised that it wasn't quite as preachy as had been advertised. Whilst no masterpiece it was enjoyable nonetheless.