massey

And sometimes we're the Hulk.  Scary powerful and easy to provoke.

I too prefer Marvel, but you really have to watch the entire MoS to understand how relentless it is. (I am not recommending that you actually do this, because your lifespan is finite and hours of it are valuable.)
 

The other, lesser, problem with MoS is that it commits the all-too-comomon offense of assuming that spectacular fights are interesting. They can be, up to a point. But if it just drags on with no change in circumstances or personal stakes for the combatants, it gets boring. Oh look, they knocked over another building. Yawn.
 

I always thought a Three Stooges eyepoke would have been more effective, but there's enough wrong with the movie already that we don't have to spend time picking on continuity and editing mistakes.

Great examples all. This reminds me of the GMs who complain that their players don't follow genre conventions. When we get in deeper, we discover the GM does not follow genre conventions.
 
Superman and Batman do not kill. And they prevail despite their refusal to kill. When the GM puts them in a situation where their refusal to kill guarantees they lose, the players stop building characters with Codes vs Killing, and the GM gets upset that THEY are not following genre conventions.
 
I read a great article on running an early Star Trek RPG which hit the nail on the head. When the opportunity to trade his life for that of a crew member arises, the Captain should have no hesitation in taking it. That's playing to the genre. But so is the ability of the Captain to turn his certain death into victory - the GM also has to follow genre conventions.

The fundamental sin of BvS for me was that it was frequently boring. I watched a streaming version of it on an airplane flight, and frequently checked the progress bar just to see how much of it was left. Near the halfway mark, I was sorely tempted to abandon it, and watch something more entertaining.
 
As far as Man of Steel goes, it wasn't necessarily a bad movie, but it certainly wasn't a good one, either. I've seen it once, and I really don't need to see it again. Snyder put a little too much Ayn Rand into Superman for my tastes, but I haven't really been a fan of his, anyway.

You can do interesting stuff with Superman.  You don't have to change the character.  Just because he always does the right thing, doesn't mean he has to be boring.  Most TV dads will always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that they're all Danny Tanner.  I'm reminded of an episode from I think the first season of Lois and Clark (which was as far as I watched).  They're investigating some sort of mob-connected nightclub or something, and they each go undercover.  Clark gets a job as like a bouncer or bodyguard or something (Dean Cain was a big dude), while Lois tries to sneak in some other way.  Lois gets found out, and the mob guys tell Clark (whose cover is still intact) to get rid of her. So he carries her kicking and screaming out of the club into an alleyway, and is going to put her in a trash dumpster.  He uses his x-ray vision to scan the dumpsters.  One is empty.  The other is full of rotting garbage.  He glances towards the camera and gives just a little smirk.  He picks the one that is full of garbage and throws her in.
 
Just because he's lawful good, doesn't mean he's completely boring.  He enjoys practical jokes from time to time.
 
With Superman, you have to make sure you make Clark Kent an interesting character.  The hook there is that both Clark and the audience are in on a really fun secret, and nobody else is.

You can do interesting stuff with Superman.  You don't have to change the character.  Just because he always does the right thing, doesn't mean he has to be boring.  Most TV dads will always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that they're all Danny Tanner.  I'm reminded of an episode from I think the first season of Lois and Clark (which was as far as I watched).  They're investigating some sort of mob-connected nightclub or something, and they each go undercover.  Clark gets a job as like a bouncer or bodyguard or something (Dean Cain was a big dude), while Lois tries to sneak in some other way.  Lois gets found out, and the mob guys tell Clark (whose cover is still intact) to get rid of her. So he carries her kicking and screaming out of the club into an alleyway, and is going to put her in a trash dumpster.  He uses his x-ray vision to scan the dumpsters.  One is empty.  The other is full of rotting garbage.  He glances towards the camera and gives just a little smirk.  He picks the one that is full of garbage and throws her in.
 
Just because he's lawful good, doesn't mean he's completely boring.  He enjoys practical jokes from time to time.
 
With Superman, you have to make sure you make Clark Kent an interesting character.  The hook there is that both Clark and the audience are in on a really fun secret, and nobody else is.

You can do interesting stuff with Superman.  You don't have to change the character.  Just because he always does the right thing, doesn't mean he has to be boring.  Most TV dads will always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that they're all Danny Tanner.  I'm reminded of an episode from I think the first season of Lois and Clark (which was as far as I watched).  They're investigating some sort of mob-connected nightclub or something, and they each go undercover.  Clark gets a job as like a bouncer or bodyguard or something (Dean Cain was a big dude), while Lois tries to sneak in some other way.  Lois gets found out, and the mob guys tell Clark (whose cover is still intact) to get rid of her. So he carries her kicking and screaming out of the club into an alleyway, and is going to put her in a trash dumpster.  He uses his x-ray vision to scan the dumpsters.  One is empty.  The other is full of rotting garbage.  He glances towards the camera and gives just a little smirk.  He picks the one that is full of garbage and throws her in.
 
Just because he's lawful good, doesn't mean he's completely boring.  He enjoys practical jokes from time to time.
 
With Superman, you have to make sure you make Clark Kent an interesting character.  The hook there is that both Clark and the audience are in on a really fun secret, and nobody else is.

You can do interesting stuff with Superman.  You don't have to change the character.  Just because he always does the right thing, doesn't mean he has to be boring.  Most TV dads will always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that they're all Danny Tanner.  I'm reminded of an episode from I think the first season of Lois and Clark (which was as far as I watched).  They're investigating some sort of mob-connected nightclub or something, and they each go undercover.  Clark gets a job as like a bouncer or bodyguard or something (Dean Cain was a big dude), while Lois tries to sneak in some other way.  Lois gets found out, and the mob guys tell Clark (whose cover is still intact) to get rid of her. So he carries her kicking and screaming out of the club into an alleyway, and is going to put her in a trash dumpster.  He uses his x-ray vision to scan the dumpsters.  One is empty.  The other is full of rotting garbage.  He glances towards the camera and gives just a little smirk.  He picks the one that is full of garbage and throws her in.
 
Just because he's lawful good, doesn't mean he's completely boring.  He enjoys practical jokes from time to time.
 
With Superman, you have to make sure you make Clark Kent an interesting character.  The hook there is that both Clark and the audience are in on a really fun secret, and nobody else is.

Last night I dreamt that Mindy Kaling was driving me to school. (I'm not sure what she was doing in my dream because I've never watched the shows she's in and I haven't had a school dream in years.) Things were normal until I realized I'd forgotten to put peanuts in my lunch. That's when the trailer we were hauling opened and out came KITT driven by B.A. Baracus who headed for my house so he could pick up the peanuts and bring them to me at school.

Last night I dreamt that I went camping with the cast of Night Court but instead of tents we took the whole courthouse.

You don't have to frame anyone for anything; you just get vague on the details. Dent was killed in the confusion and violence after the Joker's attack, the exact circumstances are unclear, evidence is contradictory, not enough to indict anyone, we may never know exactly what happened OH WELL we have plenty of other dead bodies that we can directly tie the Joker, the important thing is that Harvey Dent was a good man who fell victim to the violence and madness instigated by the Joker. And if anyone tries to imply maybe something else was going on, you go full-on outrage I can't believe you're trying to impugn the motives of this good man who gave his life to protect us harumpf harumpf... Simple lie of omission; it's actually a far simpler lie to sell than pinning it all on Batman for no damn reason. I mean this is Gotham FFS; GPD covers up worse shit than that on their slowest days. And while not exactly morally stellar, it's far less morally objectionable than the plan they actually went with.
 
The only reason for it was Nolan needed an excuse to retire Batman so he could come out of retirement ala Dark Knight Returns in the 3rd movie.
 
You mean apart from stating outright that Batman had no impact on crime, and apparently the only thing that was really needed to turn Gotham into a crime-free utopia was tougher sentencing laws? And that despite that, the citizens of Gotham would immediately overturn those laws [legal mechanism unclear] despite 8 years of proven success, just because it turns out the guy the bill was named for wasn't a saint?
 
And apart from how after 8 years of completely giving up on trying to make Gotham a better city as either Bruce or as Bats, how he suddenly decides to come out of retirement just because he hears some guy named Bane is in town - doesn't know anything about him, mind you, just his name - and does so with zero plan and only succeeds in distracting the police so that Bane can get away?
 
Yep, sounds like a Batman movie to me... [/sarcasm]
 
The first 15 minutes of DKR were when I realized just how much Nolan - and apparently everyone at WB - genuinely hates the concept of superheroes.

It's a sacrifice he doesn't have to make. Just say the joker killed those cops. And that lady cop survived, so at least she knows that it was really Dent.

I hear it just extends the CGI boss fight by 19 minutes. 
 
 
 Just kidding. I really have no idea. 

We have plenty of reason to doubt that WB "insiders" can even recognize what makes a good comic-book movie.

I absolutely agree. But then we must occasionally remind ourselves that superhero movies are not made for comic book fans. They're trying to pull in a broader general audience, and they obviously think that lighthearted "unrealistic" Silver Age stuff won't bring in $1B in ticket sales. [shrug] The studios spend more money on marketing research than I'll ever see in a lifetime, so I'm not in a position to tell them they're wrong.
 
Again. I personally agree. But subtext doesn't always sell as well, especially when subtitled for foreign markets.
 
I still have hope for the MCU. The fact that they made the very deliberate choice to tell Civil War primarily from Cap's perspective in Cap's movie speaks volumes. I think at the end of the saga, the moral is going to be something like "If you stick to your guns and do what's right, people will eventually come around." I can live with that.
 
Don't even get me started on that ending... [tl;dr - I agree with you]
 
I think Batman works well as grimdark. But he also works well as the slightly-darker contrast character in lighter stories like the animated Justice League. Heck, I even loved him as the straight man/adult supervision in the old Giffen Dematteis Justice League comics. ("One punch! One punch!!") Even Wonder Woman can occasionally get a little dark, as happens when you're fighting literal gods and so forth.
 
But Superman should never go dark. Even if the world around him goes dark - hell, especially then - that just makes him shine all the more brightly in contrast. Of course, that would require a filmmaker who isn't a Randian douchebag who thinks helping other people is for suckers.

The irony of this article is how the author is, while decrying how outrage journalism has taken over movie reviews, makes his case through invective and hyperbole.  It's kind of sad.

Probably so. But the superhero genre isn't primarily about what would happen, but about what we want to happen. It isn't the way the world is, but it's the world the way it should be. And it inspires us to try to make our world more like that.

Continuity should be a bonus for viewers/readers, not a requirement to understand what is happening.

I liked Hulk.  I liked the focus on the characters yet with more than enough Hulk action (throwing tanks hundreds of feet, the super leaps).  I liked the comic book feel of it as well - very creatively shot.
 
Even the silliest components (hulked out poodles) could have been lifted directly from the source material.  Hulks opponents are always over the top or silly looking. Making him 15 feet tall sometimes also a little odd but not without precident in the comics (I remember Grey Hulk during the Spider Man as Captain Universe run being drawn to be easily 12 feet tall in a panel facing Spidey).
 
I liked the Incredible Hulk as well for what it was ... a standard fare action film.
 
My best Hulk movie would be somewhere in the middle - the character pieces and sheer power of Ang Lee's version of the character combined with the art consistency and appearance of the Incredible Hulk / Avengers Hulk.

While the circumstances have been grim, Cap has remained true to his classic comic-book persona: idealistic, selfless, inspirational, a man who does what he believes is right no matter how hard it is. A lot of people complain that characters like him and Superman are boring because they are so "good." I believe Marvel has found a formula to counter that perception. They put Cap in situations that challenge his values, where it isn't immediately apparent what the right thing to do is. In his past two movies Cap has initially struggled with deciding what course of action he needs to take, which has led to interesting dramatic conflict; but once he has decided, there's no more doubt or hesitation. He projects a quiet certainty of purpose that other people are naturally drawn to. The airport scene in Civil War highlighted that for me. In his confrontation with Cap, Tony Stark is almost breaking under the emotional stress of what he's doing, while Steve Rogers is calm and firm.
 
What I'm hoping is that Superman's next movie appearance will use his experience of, essentially, dying, as the excuse and basis to bring him back with heightened clarity of identity and purpose, so he can be more like the the movie Captain America we've gotten recently, and thus more like the Superman we all know.

I don't know why everybody is complaining about Eisenberg...I thought he was an awesome Joker.

So I bought Ultimate Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Too Many Semi-colons the other day. 
 
Like Fan4Stick, it had a pretty dour (I think they say "somber") tone: people suck, colours muted, heroes . . . 
 
Wait, no, that comparison does neither movie justice. Fan4Stick has no heroes in sight, except possibly Doctor von Doom, who is pretty much on the money with his plan to suck the movie through a black hole. Too bad he wasn't the first to think of it. (Thanks, Josh!) Also, I didn't have to restart U:BvS: four times to get through it. It was actually pretty engaging all the way through.
 
Fan4Stick had four very good actors, and still did very bad things with them. Following the source material, and by that I mean the Ultimate series that no-one read or cared about, the writers got rid of the whole, boring, "family" thing, and recast them as horrible teenage science Goths. This solved many problems.
 
For example, people are often upset that Reed Richards is some old, uptight science guy with questionable decision-making skills and a horrific lack of concern for his alleged team mates, up to and including his wife. Making him a teenager sure solved the problem of him being old! Also, when he makes hopelessly irresponsible and reckless decisions while drunk, at least we can remember that he's supposed to be acting like a teenager, because he is a teenager. (Good idea involving him in a trillion dollar project, by the way.)
 
Many people worry that Sue Richards tends to be  eye candy, a problem that raised its head again when they decided to cast an attractive person as the new Sue. Making her an anomied Goth who can barely be moved to like her brother, never mind Reed, sure solved whatever problem that actually existed. Meanwhile, making her the team seamstress who doesn't even get to go to the Negative Zone was a great tribute to the original Sue, always shopping and getting taken hostage. Heh. Chicks. You know what I mean?
 
An interracial Storm family gets you your diversity. (Not like making Reed black.That's just too much diversity. Like, it's a 7.28 on the diversity scale, where we're aiming for a 6.37.) The racists will complain, and that's why Johnny becomes a truculent street racer who gets to be included in the project because he can weld or something. I'm pretty sure he uses food stamps to buy steak and lobster in the original, long cut. Balance! 
 
Ben Grimm, I vaguely recall, was once a test pilot who had a reason to be involved in the project. Making him a glum, silent, child abuse victim  who basically waits by the phone in Oyster Bay waiting to be summoned by Reed to do more heavy lifting is definitely a choice that a writer could make. At least the parts where the Grimms beat each other up is super-excellent for tone-setting, plus also closest this movie gets in any way to being "super." Plus I love the way he silently endures Johnny's verbal abuse. A great call back to the "everybody sucks" tone-setting we got with his brother beating him up to the ringing declaration that it is "Clobbering time." Also, it really brings out the fact that this is just Johnny's horrible personality venting in naked verbal aggression --probably displaced from his sister-- and not, you know, "banter." Then he kills 42 people on a single mission for the US government (which sucks --did I mention that this was a theme?). This is the kind of awesome stuff that I like seeing superheroes do, and really comes back to bit the sucky US government in the butt in the end when the Fan4Stick threaten to unleash him against the nation unless they're given their own private science city to do science in. I really liked the last part, where the group is shown the science city and told by the people who work there that they are . . .
 
Actually, I'm pretty sure that what comes next in my memory is a super-pervy, kinky dream, and not something that was actually screened, but ever since the disappointment of the Gor movies, I've been ---I'm sorry. Too much information?
 
Moving right along, Fan4Stick had four great actors who really sold the tone that the movie was trying to present. Or maybe there were all drugged. Either way. Also, can I say how totally immersive it was to see Reed towering over a diminutive Ben Grimm in the adult scenes?Super-excellent casting, guys!
 
U:BvS: was a lot less concerned with getting great young actors. Instead, it had old, established great actors, who did pretty solid work. For example, Jesse Eisenberg was told "Give us Lex Luthor if Lex was Zuckerberg, only psychotic," and he delivered! Now, as for who the person was who decided that what he delivered needed to be shared with the world, I think from internal clues in the movie that it was probably Darkseid? Aside from that, though, good work on Ben Affleck's part, good work from Jeremy Irons, good. . . 
 
Henry Cavill. That's what I'm saying now, instead of "Good God." "Good Henry Cavill." 'Cuz I'm an irony guy. Also, and I don't know if anyone else caught this subtle subtext, I think they might have been reaching for some kind of Jesus imagery in their casting. (Except that Superman dies in the end, unlike Jesus. Well, okay, Jesus dies and then comes back in the sequel books, but . . Wait. Do you think they might bring Superman back in the next movie? Because that would be awesome!) The irony part of saying "Good Henry Cavill" is that I'm not sure that he is good. Either he was told to play Superman as pretty glum chum, or  he was doing a hilarious Kate-Mara-as-Sue-Storm impersonation through the whole movie. Only with better hair. 
 
Like every normal person who saw the movie, I thought Gail Gadot was an excellent Wonder Woman who managed to breathe life and personality into a role that is more iconic than character-driven. Quite a contrast from Cavill, who seems petrified of putting anything into Superman, at least in this movie, unlike when he gets to play Clark Kent. (By the way, having Clark and Lois in a relationship isn't a bad choice, but I wish some serious writer would take on the Clark(-who might be Supereman)-Lois-Superman(-who might be Clark)-Superman (who isn't Clark)-Clark (who isn't Superman) relationship pentagon and give it the heat it deserves.) 
 
Finally, a point about plot coherence. Fan4Stick notoriously went off the rails, and the results show, painfully. :BvS:U isn't the best place to start with a comparison, since it is the "Snyder cut," and not the "incoherent mess that was shown in the theatres," but you can definitely see the latter in the former. The story is composed of a lot of discrete chapters, and following along smoothly from one to the next is a bit of a challenge. There was kryptonite in the Indian Ocean? And Lex needs to get it into the United States? And so he needs an import license, because he is all about the law? Only he is only doing this so that Batman Wayne will steal it? Because Lex is manipulating Bruce Batman into stealing it? So that he'll kill Superman with it, without being aware that it was actually Lex's plot? Because if Bruce Man knows that it was Lex who wanted him to kill Superman it would change his mind? Only instead of saying, "Oh, I am getting an import license to bring kryptonite into the country, and it is a big secret, and totally don't come to my headquarters dressed as a giant bat and steal it," he leaks the information through his criminal associate, KGBeast? Who, because of Lex's limited budget, is also the guy who is in charge of, uhm, framing Superman for the murder of Jimmy Olsen, would be the best way of summarising it? (Great tone-setting, Zack!) 
 
I'm sorry, that's a bit hypercritical. I just wanted to work the killing of Jimmy Olsen into my rant, in much the same way that I wanted to work the Ben Grimm-as-victim-of-child-abuse bit in, earlier. Just strange, strange choices. In an interesting way, that goes to the plot coherence. Given the amount of story that Snyder wants to cram in, the fact that you have to follow the kryptonite along through chapter after chapter is hardly fatal. The fact that you have four(!) this-is-actually-a-dream-sequence revelations isn't fatal, even if it is a bit repetitive. The problem is that by the time all is said and done, your changes of missing a key point are, like, a million percent. I guess Lex sends aides to their death is to ensure silence about an earlier episode in which he lets Bruce Wayne get away with some vital information? Maybe? Because otherwise it seems like a pretty, casually, awful move. Which is in character for this Lex, but makes it hard to understand why the Goverment is letting him indulge his kink with General Zod's dead body, as opposed to arranging for him to be bought out of Lexcorp.
 
Seriously: there's a scene relatively early in the movie where Eisenberg's Lex has a well-sold, public psychotic breakdown at a charity function. The consequences of this sort of thing in a movie are the consequences the writer needs to move the story forward, and since I kept watching, I guess I have no grounds for complaining that "This isn't realistic." But still. 
 
That's a bit choppy, but I will defend myself on the grounds that that's my point. It is very hard to say anything coherent about the long succession of events-that-happen that set up the not-climax, followed by the more-not-climax, followed by the climax, followed by the sad ending with the funerals. The critics who went to see the movie in the theatres probably sound exasperated because they were distracted by something, at some point. Having lost the thread of the story, they were just waiting for easter eggs, which dropped in a spectacularly unsubtle way, and for the pretty lights to stop.
 
So I guess that the studio should have trusted Snyder more in terms of putting a story together out of all those chapters? Wow. That sounded like a defence of Zack Snyder. And an interesting comparison with the complete sidelining of Josh Trank at Fan4Stick, the difference being that I think that Trank probably lost the actors. Whereas Zack's indulgence of Eisenberg came close to ruining his movie. Given the consequences flowing from the two approaches, I am left defending Zach again.
 
Now there's just the question of tone to be resolved. The word is that Warner has dictated the somber tone of the DC universe, and maybe Zach was just complying with corporate? Fox, on the other hand, pretty much went out shopping for the tone they wanted, and got it. Marvel Studios makes it look easier than it actually is, maybe?

From Twitter: "if you see suicide squad be sure to stay after the credits. lots of people leave half empty containers of popcorn and you can just have them"https://twitter.com/robwhisman/status/761676958082146304

I trust the reviews of other people based on whether they have previously liked stuff that I liked and disliked stuff I disliked. Hence why I asked the question.
 
For professional reviewers, I don't actually care if they like the movie or not; I care if I can tell whether or not I'm going to like the movie based on their review. Ebert was a genius at that; the AV Club is pretty good too.