Justice League (2017) Trailer - Review/Reaction

The first trailer for the long awaited movie has finally been released.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), the movie stars Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as  Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/ The Flash and Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg.

Newcomers include Amber Heard as Mera, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Kiersey Clemons as Iris West.

Check out the trailer below:

From what I have seen in the trailer, I am guessing that this movie is based on story Justice League: Origin by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. That story features an invasion of earth by Darkseid and the heroes forming a team to stop him.

The DC animated movie Justice League: War is itself an adaptation the same story. I am quite sure that this live action movie will not measure up to the animated version.

The trailer is not as exciting as the trailer for BvS: Dawn of Justice was. Considering the quality of BvS, this does not bode well for the movie. The movie seems to suffer from the same shortcomings as the previous two Snyder movies: weak character development, weak dialogues and the most damning of all - special effects that are not worthy for a video game.




Even video games have better detailed locations than this movie does. Like BvS, this one too has been shot extensively in the studio against green screens. Instead of filling the background with details, the lazy director and his crew have just opted for darkened visuals to hide the fact that they have zero imagination.

Considering that this is a superhero movie, at least the special effects must be good if not excellent.

Even the great J K Simmons looks bored. He was on fire as J Jonah Jameson in the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies. Here he just looks lost. I think this has to do with the general lack of vision and direction about the DC Films at Warner Bros. The standalone Flash movie lost not one but two directors and is now headed for a complete script rewrite.

The Batman standalone movie is in a slightly better situation: after Ben Affleck quit as director, the studio managed to hire Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes). The movie is also undergoing a complete script rewrite after the previous script credited to Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns was discarded.

If the rumors are to be believed, Affleck completely wants out of the role. It is understandable that his retirement from the role will be officially announced after this Justice League movie will be released. Given this state of affairs, it is obvious as to why he too looks bored in the trailer.

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The rest of the cast do their best with the weak lines. But none of the so-called humor works. The actors just strike action figure poses and have minimal dialogues. Further it does not help that some of the footage are reused from the character spots the studio has been releasing for the past couple of days. I think the best shots in the movie are in this trailer.

But not all hope is lost for DC Films. In addition to hiring Matt Reeves, the studio is reportedly in talks with Mathew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) to direct the sequel to Man of Steel. That does raise my hopes. Point of interest - Vaughn's Kick-Ass had a Batman knockoff character in the form of Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage in one of his better performances in the recent past).

Clearly, Warner Bros have acknowledged the negative feedback about Snyder's “vision”. If only they had not hired him in the first place....

Coming back to this movie, I am predicting that it will earn around the same amount of money as BvS: Dawn of Justice did. Just as that movie had the novelty factor of the two heroes appearing first time onscreen, this one too has the famed DC team coming to life. Once the opening weekend is over and the hardcore fans are done with the movie, the movie should drop like a rock. Yes, pretty much the same trajectory as what BvS took before falling well short of the coveted 1 Billion USD benchmark.

The critics will no doubt be tough on the movie and I expect the Rotten tomatoes rating to fall below 30%. The hardcore DC fans will take up arms and demand the site to be closed. They will be interested to know that Warner Bros. owns the Rotten Tomatoes site.

Ben Affleck's Batman says at one point in the trailer: “My turn”. To see the same line delivered by an actor invested in his character, check out this scene from V for Vendetta:

Unless Zack Snyder has improved his sensibilities and directorial skills dramatically, I would expect this movie to be another missed opportunity.

Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

 

Image Sources: DC Comics, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment (as RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC), Lensbern Productions, Warner Bros.

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Wonder Woman (2017) Official Origin Trailer - Review/Reaction

The origin trailer for the upcoming DC Film has been released.

Directed by Patty Jenkins (Monster), the movie stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Robin Wright as General Antiope, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, and Danny Huston as General Erich Ludendorff.

After not so interesting trailers that preceded this, Warner Bros. and Patty Jenkins finally managed to put together a decent sell. After all, this movie is supposed to rescue the DC Films from oblivion after the disappointing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.

Check out the trailer:

The trailer shows a young Diana taking lessons in warfare to become the best among the Amazonians. Then comes Man and with him comes the problems of the big bad world. Diana takes a trip with Steve through Guy Ritchie's steampunk London followed by a nod to Richard Donner's 1978 Superman.

Like any self respecting superhero in the 20th century, Wonder Woman fights Nazis and brings peace to the world.

The action scenes are way better than what we have seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. There is far less graphics and more of actual people doing the fighting. Still we have to see the movie if this is the case for the entire movie or if this is just another promising trailer that sets us up for (another) disappointment eventually.

Chris Pine has the best lines in the trailer and delivers them very well. Gal Gadot is good at action but seems a bit lost in dialogue delivery, emoting and voice modulation. Plus there are only so times we can see an origin story.

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This looks to be at least as good as Man of Steel if not better than it. This itself is a big achievement considering the dismal quality of BvS and Suicide Squad. Warner Bros. studio executives are clearly only interested in making money from these movies and they do not care about these characters at all. Which is why Ben Affleck quit as the director of the solo Batman movie and the Flash movie lost two directors and is currently undergoing a complete rewrite.

But the most disturbing thing about this movie is that Zack Snyder claims writing credits.. Let that fact sink in. The guy who is clearly anti-feminist and has already delivered two DC duds so far has contributed to this movie.

Irrespective of the other factors, if the movie has a single action sequence that is at least half as much fun as the airport sequence in Captain America: Civil War, I would consider that a major win for DC Films.

The answer lies a couple of months away. 

 
Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

Image Sources:  Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Warner Bros.

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - Review/Reaction

The long awaited movie has finally been released. There will be spoilers throughout and the readers who are yet to watch the episode are recommended to skip this post.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Watchmen), the movie stars Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Supporting cast includes Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.

The movie starts off with a funeral procession of Thomas Wayne (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Martha Wayne (Lauren Cohan). A traumatized Bruce Wayne (Brandon Spink) is seen running wildly and falls into a cave full of .... bats (what else can one expect?).

Flash forward to the climactic battle of Man of Steel. Bruce is rushing through the Metropolis streets to save his employees/friends working in the Wayne building. He manages to save an injured employee, Wallace Keefe (Scoot McNairy) and an unnamed girl from the rubble.

But instead of spending a few minutes with Bruce, we again jump to an underwater excavation under progress in the Indian Ocean. The object being retrieved is a considerable chunk of Kryptonite.

Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) wants Superman to be held accountable for his actions. She is being cleverly manipulated by Lex Luthor, who wants to get his hands on all things Kyrptonian, including the corpse of Zod (Michael Shannon).



But Finch is the not the only one, Lex is toying with. He is also setting up both the Man of Steel and Batman to a no-holds barred brawl.

In the midst of all these developments, Diana Prince is hanging around the same social gatherings as Clark Kent and specifically Bruce Wayne do. Bruce can sense that she is up to something.

The movie meanders around till it gets to the much-hyped battle of the superheroes. Like The Dark Knight Returns, the graphic novel on which the movie is partially based on, Batman ends up defeating Superman with the help of Kryptonite.

He is about to kill the Man of Steel, when Clark mentions a name: Martha. This triggers an emotional trip down the memory lane for Bruce. Lois stops by and informs Batman that Martha is the first name of Superman's mother.

Yes, that is how stupid Ben Affleck's Batman is. He does not even bother to check out these details of his enemy before he goes to fight him. For a character supposed to be the “World's Greatest Detective”, he is mindbogglingly dumb. That is probably good, as only Sherlock Holmes can rightfully claim that title.

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The movie finally comes to a conclusion with the DC's Trinity facing off against Doomsday, the monster created by Lex from Zod's corpse. This confrontation is pure CGI and is boring as hell. Except for Wonder Woman, neither of the other three combatants make no impression.

Superman and Doomday kill each other, again echoing the story-line of the 1992 series: The Death of Superman. The movie ends with yet another funeral scene, this time for Clark/Superman. In the comic book universe, no one stays dead for long and neither will Superman.

This was a major disappointment. The movie fails on almost all possible levels: acting, action, direction, music.... The saving grace is Gal Gadot's performance as Wonder Woman and her theme music. In the final fight, she is the only one who actually fights back against the villain. Batman is busy jumping around desperately trying to save himself. Superman gets pummeled around like a toy.

The only other enjoyable scene in the movie is at Luthor's party, which also features her. Diana and Bruce eye each other warily as they attempt to steal Lex's secrets.

This is a movie that is not about the DC Universe and characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. This is a movie about Warner Bros. and how the studio is desperate to create an inter-connected universe to rival the massively successful one owned by Walt Disney/Marvel Studios.

Superman is as bland as he was in Man of Steel. In this movie, he saves Lois Lane more than any other human being. It is as if he was sent from Krypton only to the guardian angel for Lois and not humanity itself.

As emotionless as Cavill is throughout the movie, the standout is his reaction after the explosion during the hearing that leaves everyone around him dead. Cavill just looks around as if nothing happened. At least that is the impression that I got from his “acting”. In the history of worst casting decisions in superhero movies, this has got to be near the top of the heap.

Ben Affleck is either angry or snobbish. Batman's action scenes are heavily inspired by The Arkham series of Batman games and it shows. The actions look quite cartoonish both in their content and the way they are executed. Both Kevin Tsujihara (current CEO of Warner Bros.) and Zack Snyder have a strong background in video games and this works against the movie's best interests.

Except for the Batman vs gang of thugs fight sequence, both the Batman v Superman and the climactic sequence are as generic as possible. There is no element of fun behind the way these scenes have been designed. A fight scene showcasing each character's unique skills/fighting styles would have been so much fun. But this is a studio mandated product that has no time for imagination or fun.

Hopefully Suicide Squad will be much more fun than this self-serious piece of nonsense that pretends to about some of the world's most iconic superheroes.

This movie solely exists for the reason of setting up the DC Extended Universe. The best proof of this would be the “cameos” for The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. These have to be the most shoehorned in scenes in the history of Hollywood or any other cinema for that fact.

I had hoped that at least with the critical drubbing this movie has received would make Warner Bros. reconsider their decision to retain Zack Snyder's directorial talents (?) for Justice League Part One and Two due in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Now that the movie has grossed 424 million USD worldwide, it looks increasingly possible that Snyder would continue to taint the DC Universe with his “vision”.

Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

Image Sources: DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Syncopy, Warner Bros.

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The Flash Season 2 Episode 15 "King Shark" - Recap and Review

After returning from Earth-2, Dr Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) advises Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) not to discuss with Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) or Iris West (Candice Patton) or Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) about what happened to their doppelgangers.

Torn between his desire to be honest with the Wests and his guilt over the murder of Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears) at the hands of Zoom (voiced by Tony Todd), Barry yearns for a meta-human to vent out his anger upon.

Barry's wishes come true when King Shark (voiced by David Hayter) escapes from his holding cell at the A.R.G.U.S. Lyla Michaels (Audrey Marie Anderson) is  the new head of A.R.G.U.S. and witnesses this escape along with her husband, John Diggle (David Ramsey).

Diggle warns Barry about the impending danger. Barry learns from Dr Wells that on Earth-2, King Shark was actually Shay Lamden, a marine biologist before he mutated into the half human-half shark monster. Dr Wells advises Cisco and Caitlin to approach Dr. Tanya Lamden (Haley Beauchamp), wife of the deceased doppelganger on our Earth. Tanya also happens to be studying sharks.

A secondary plot involves Barry trying to make amends with Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale). Wally is insecure about his place in the family vis-a-vis the well-established Barry, whom both Joe and Iris dote on.

After the superior two parter episode set around Earth-2, it was a tough task for any episode to maintain the status quo. To the credit of all the talents involved, they succeed for the most part.

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King Shark has been executed very well. Though we know that the meta human is a walking talking group of computer generated pixels, still the villain was enjoyable. His encounters with the Flash were entertaining. It is interesting that a TV show made at a fraction of the budget that Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder, can give us such engrossing villains like Reverse Flash, Zoom and King Shark.

This only goes to shows what great difference people with passion for the source material can make. It is quite obvious that both Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder have absolutely no respect or passion for the comic books on which they are basing their DC Extended Universe upon. The special effects for Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice pale in comparison. I highly doubt that Doomsday and/or whatever other villains we will be seeing in the upcoming movie can have 1% of the impact that Zoom or King Shark have been able to produce.

Cisco acting afraid around Caitlin and her retaliatory prank was hilarious. Cisco again proved his geek credentials by wearing a Godzilla themed T-Shirt this time around.

In the previous episode, Cisco made a reference to the crime thriller movie: Heat. This one contains a ton of references to (drumroll please).... Jaws:

1. The aquarium employee referring to King Shark as “Bruce”.

2. Cisco's response to the fact that King Shark is coming to Central City to seek revenge against The Flash: “We are gonna need a bigger Flash”.

3. Cisco's comment: “Cue the Jaws Soundtrack”.

4. Cisco and Caitlin arguing who should be “Quint”

5. Cisco's comment: “Just when you thought it was go back in the suburb, King Shark shows up at your house”.

6. Wally West explicitly refers to “Jaws” after the King Shark attack.

Joe West also refers to “Sharknado” attack.

The final and crucial aspect was the revelation regarding Zoom. In the final scene, we see that Zoom is in fact Jay Garrick himself. Now it makes sense that the masked hostage was trying to communicate the name “JAY” to Barry on Earth-2.

This is an interesting plot development and promises more interesting episodes in the future.

Recommended watch to fans of The Flash/DC Comics.

Click here to read all my posts related to DC Comics.

Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, The CW Television Network

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The Flash Season 2 Episode 14 "Escape from Earth-2" - Recap and Review

In the previous episode, Zoom (voiced by Tony Todd) had taken Barry Allen/Flash (Grant Gustin) as his hostage. Zoom had also killed his minions, Deathstorm (Robbie Amell) and Reverb (Carlos Valdes).

Zoom now goes after his next target: Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh). Harrison, Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Bartholomew Allen (Grant Gustin) just about make their escape from the unstoppable villain.

Explaining how things stand to Bartholomew and subsequently to Detective Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton), they decide to track down Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker). The team hopes to use the death of her lover to turn her against Zoom.

Bartholomew zeroes in on Frost's location using his algorithm. Interesting thing was the passing mention of Patty Spivot, the CSI Tech who worked on Killer Frost's cases and is supposed to be “thorough”.

Frost is not co-operative initially, but the team overpower her and “convince” her to take them to Zoom's lair.

Back on our Earth, Adam Wells/Geomancer (Adam Stafford) is back after his first round of confrontation with Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears). He challenges the newer version of Flash by putting people in peril.

Jay manages to save the people, but trouble is not yet over. Geomancer turns up at STAR Labs. Jay is exhausted and is dozing, oblivious to the danger right next to him. It is up to Caitlin and Iris to confront the villain. Caitlin subdues him using a weapon. Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) has him arrested and taken to Iron Heights Penitentiary.

A secondary plot on Earth-2 involves Flash trying to decode what the as-yet unidentified masked hostage is trying to convey by tapping his fingers on the cage door. With the help of Jesse Wells (Violett Beane), Barry deduces that the man is trying to pronounce the word “JAY”.

Help arrives shortly as Frost leads Dr Wells, Cisco, Iris and Bartholomew to the place where he is being hostage. So does Zoom. It is revealed that Frost deliberately led them there as part of Zoom's plans.

Cisco again reminds Frost about the fact that Zoom killed Deathstorm and that Frost knows better than to just follow Zoom blindly. Frost finally sees the wisdom and turns against her boss.

This gives the team just enough time to make their way back to our Earth. But Zoom has the last laugh, as he whisks Jay back to Earth 2 with him before the portal can be closed.

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This was a good episode - not on the level of the first parter, but nonetheless better than most others. Once again, the humor is one of the main aspects.

Everyone from Grant Gustin to Candice Patton get to flex their acting chops. Grant is hilarious as the nerdy Bartholomew and works well in the scenes with Wells and Cisco, as he threatens to have a word with Barry's Flash. He also proved his geek credentials with his talk about the sci fi series: “Commander Carl, Space Marshal of the Galaxy”.

Cisco gets his share of the laughs with “Zoom's Lair”.

Danielle Panabaker gets the best bits in this episode. As Frost on Earth-2, she is the one who helps our team escape from a certain death at the hands of Zoom. As Caitlin Snow, she not only puts Geomancer out of commission (temporarily), but also devises a solution to cure Jay's illness via Velocity-9. In the end, she becomes the tragic figure (again) as she loses her loved ones on both Earths.

There are a number of references to DC Universe. Some of the easter eggs I caught are:

1. Cisco asking Frost to give up by warning her that she would not be able to make another icicle - Icicle is the name of a supervillain who also has the abilities of cold manipulation and generation.

2. Iris West-Allen mentions having friends in Atlantis with whom she can stay to maintain a low profile - In the DC Universe, Atlantis is the kingdom ruled by Aquaman.

3. The message written by Zoom out of fire on the side of a building: “Bring Me Wells” - This reminded me of the similar message sent out by Batman by burning the Bat signal in fire on a building in the movie: The Dark Knight Rises.

Finally, we come to Zoom, the clear cut winner and stand out in this episode. The look he gives the security guards when they order him not to move was just chilling and masterful. All the scenes featuring him were just electric like the villain himself.

Hats off to the producers for creating such an amazing and heart-stopping character and making all the right decisions, including the character design, the special effects and the casting of Tony Todd to voice him.

Recommended watch to fans of The Flash/DC Comics.

Click here to read all my posts related to DC Comics.

Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, The CW Television Network

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