Movie review: “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)

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“You see, Clark Joe, what we call ‘God’ depends upon our tribe, because God is tribal. God takes sides! No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to deliver me from daddy’s fist and abominations. I figured out way back that if God is all-powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He is all good, then He cannot be all-powerful…and neither can you be.”

I began sharpening my metaphorical knives in preparation for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice from almost the moment it was first announced; from the moment Ben Affleck was controversially tapped to slip into the departing Christian Bale’s cowl as the caped crusader; in truth, from the moment the (approx.) fourth hour of Superman origin redux/endurance grit-a-thon Man of Steel’s overbearing climax began and my face more or less went numb. You didn’t need to be a prognosticator to feel something in the wind besides dust and falling debris. There was simply no way that grim, audacious, titanic experience would prove to be a standalone anything. Although technically a Man of Steel sequel, Dawn’s above title billing is surely no accident. Continue reading “Movie review: “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)”

DVR Hindsight #14 (11/17/15): Gotham and/or/vs. Supergirl

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Batman and Superman aren’t only doing battle on movie screens next summer. In the relative calm before the computer-generated storm that will be Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, they are already fighting by proxy on television as their B-teams (for the latter, his fair-haired, similarly-powered, older cousin and assorted cross-overs/hangers-on; for the former, no less than the collected origin stories of the caped crusader, police commissioner Jim Gordon, and the top two to three tiers of his infamous “rogue’s gallery” of enemies) take a field that a, scant few years ago, contained the barest trace of superhero DNA and no horizon to speak of, but today boasts no fewer than six separate shows (and even more if you count streaming services). “Batman vs. Superman” has been a passionate and evergreen alpha-hero debate among comic book fans for more than twice as long as I’ve been alive, but this latest round, willed into existence and shoehorned clumsily into place by the rivalry between two of the biggest networks on broadcast television, just doesn’t have a consequential feel to it yet. Continue reading “DVR Hindsight #14 (11/17/15): Gotham and/or/vs. Supergirl”

Movie Review: “Man of Steel” (2013)

“Can’t I just keep pretending I’m your son?”

“You are my son.”

When the existence of Man of Steel was first publicized over a year ago, the next words on every interested party’s lips were almost invariably “Christopher Nolan”. Flush from the success of Inception and, especially, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan was Hollywood’s new master of the big budget blockbuster. If anyone could successfully reboot the long dormant “Superman” franchise for the Comic Book movie-obsessed 21st Century, the reasoning went, surely it would be him. Continue reading “Movie Review: “Man of Steel” (2013)”