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May 14 2021
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The Scope

Snyderfest 2021

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

Spoiler warning ahead for Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League.’ Seriously. You’ve been warned.

Can a filmmaker’s vision be fully translated to the big screen 100%? When their final product is released in theaters, are we watching their vision as originally intended, or are we watching an amalgamation of the director’s vision, the studio’s stipulations, and the fans’ expectations all at once? In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, we face an unusual circumstance where all three converge into one without interfering with the other. The result is a groundbreaking four-hour epic that challenges the very fabric of what superhero movies are and what they can be. It’s safe to say that there is no other film quite like it out there, and it’s highly likely there will never be another one like it in the future, unless Warner Bros. decides to come out with a six-hour cut of Justice League 2 or something.

If any film has ever had a troubling production, it was Justice League. Before the movie was even released in 2017, Zack Snyder suddenly exited the film halfway through production and Avengers director Joss Whedon was hired to finish rewrites and post-production in his place. The reasons for Zack’s sudden departure are still heavily up to speculation. Some say Warner Bros. was dissatisfied with Snyder’s intentions and forced him out to go in a different direction. Others feel that Snyder left due to his daughter Autumn committing suicide. More likely than not, Zack’s reasonings for leaving were probably a combination of all of his problems, both personal and professional.

Either way, Joss Whedon ended up rewriting and reshooting a good chunk of the film, ending up with what viewers call The Joss-tice League. And surprisingly enough, it ended up being just as bad as Batman V. Superman was. The colorization was way too bright, the tone was jarring and did not flow well at all, this awkward humor persisted throughout the movie, and Zack Snyder’s grounded and edgy tone seriously clashed with Joss Whedon’s fun and light-heartedness.

Say what you will about Batman V. Superman (and there is plenty to say about it): at least you can say it is one man’s whole and complete vision of what he thought a Batman and Superman movie was supposed to be. The theatrical cut of Justice League didn’t even feel like a movie: it felt like a strangely amalgamated Frankenstein’s monster of four different movies crammed into one. Nobody knew what it was supposed to be, let alone how we were supposed to feel about it. So yes, while Batman V. Superman and Justice League are both failures, at least Zack Snyder owned both his strengths and shortcomings with Batman V. Superman. You didn’t know who to blame for Justice League’s outcome, and that was the worst part of it all: it didn’t feel like it really belonged to anyone.

So when news came out that some of Zack Snyder’s original footage was still out there and just needed to be edited together, fans rallied around the director demanding that Warner Bros. #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. And I’ll be honest, whenever that news originally came out, I thought it was nonsense. After all, filmmakers’ passion projects go unfulfilled all the time, from Guillermo Del Toro’s At The Mountains Of Madness to Martin Scorsese’s Frank Sinatra. Zack Snyder’s situation wasn’t particularly unique, so why would he get the chance to remake his own movie when so many other filmmakers were never afforded their own chance?

Well never underestimate the power of the fans. After Gal Gadot, Ben Affleck, and Ray Fisher also came out in support of the so-called “Snyder Cut,” Warner Bros. finally caved in and provided an additional $70 million to fund Zack Snyder’s original vision of the movie. The result is a four-hour film split up into six parts, and whatever you were expecting, I guarantee you that it’s better.

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

The film starts in an eerie and ominous tone, quite different from the innocent cell phone footage of Henry Cavill’s CGI mustache in the theatrical cut. After Doomsday kills Superman at the end of Batman V. Superman, Superman’s final breath sends out a shockwave across the universe, illuminating everyone that, as Lex Luthor puts it, “the God is dead.” This is already a much better opening than the theatrical cut because it sets the tone of what to expect from the movie. While the original opening of Superman talking to these kids was clunky and hokey, this opener is much darker and foreshadows what’s coming to the planet. It’s a fantastic reintroduction and it really informs the audience why Batman (Ben Affleck) feels the need to assemble a team in Superman’s place.

There are other noticeable changes to other character’s intros too. Aquaman (Jason Mamoa) vanishes into the sea like Batman vanishes into the night, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) rams through terrorists in London like she’s Supergirl, Cyborg (Ray Fisher) is given a lengthy backstory into how he became a metahuman, and Flash (Ezra Miller) hilariously saves some girl from a truck collision while simultaneously scoring a job as a dog walker. They’re funny, dramatic, intriguing, and sometimes heartfelt introductions that really set up who these characters are and who they’re supposed to be. While I missed a few of the scenes from the original cut here or there, most of these reintroductions are an improvement over the theatrical cut.

At last, we are reintroduced to the film’s big baddie Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) as he arrives in Themyscira to steal one of the sacred Mother Boxes from the Amazons. In my original review, I pointed out how badly Steppenwolf was originally developed, both in his character and his visual effects. He looked like an awful Playstation 3 boss that you had to fight, and his character was about as fleshed out, serving as a carbon step-in for the big baddie we really wanted to see (more on that later). Here, he stands on his own not as a smirking villain, but as a vicious bull powering through his enemies like he’s seeing red. He hacks Amazons and Atlanteans left and right with his battle axe, he throws horses like he’s tipping cows over, and when he’s shot with arrows, his armor snaps them off like a snake shedding its skin. It’s such a great reintroduction for the character, and unlike his original debut, he has an actual presence that you can feel and are more fearful of. The fact that this mammoth answers to an even bigger threat makes him all the more terrifying.

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

One of the biggest changes between the theatrical cut and the Snyder cut is the inclusion of Darkseid (Ray Porter), Steppenwolf’s master and ruler of Apokolips. While his role in this new cut is minor and Darkseid doesn’t have many lines, he is a prominent, powerful presence that chills you to the bone. His first appearance is in the flashback where his armada fights the old Gods on Earth, a role Steppenwolf originally fulfilled in the theatrical cut. The fight is so brutal, violent, and unflinching that it felt like you were watching one of the epic battles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. His other appearances throughout the film are just as terrifying, whether he’s giving a cold-blooded speech to Steppenwolf, destroying the world in a Knightmare vision, or just eerily staring at our heroes through a portal to Apokolips. The last line he says in the movie is the most chilling: “Ready the Armada. We will use the old ways.” The flashback sequences already show us what the “old ways” are, and they aren’t pretty.

By the time we reach the halfway point, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and the Flash just came together to fight Steppenwolf for the first time beneath Gotham Harbor. And surprisingly enough, this is one of the few scenes that I felt was done better in the theatrical cut. For one thing, Flash is much more confident in the Snyder cut, whereas in the theatrical release he questioned himself and was much more hesitant to fight. That was when Batman stepped in and told him to save one person, and when Flash asks what then, Batman responds “You’ll know.” It’s a great exchange and a great character-building moment for both of these heroes. Unfortunately, Snyder decided to cut that out in exchange for more action. I’m happy to watch it, but it just feels less fulfilling than the theatrical cut did.

Also, the scene on a technical level just has some weird changes that doesn’t make sense. When Cyborg enters Batman’s Knightcrawler, the theatrical cut presents him in clear view, while the Snyder cut obscures his appearance through a broken windshield. Even if that is his view, wouldn’t it be more clear to cut to his perspective inside the cockpit rather than outside of it? Also when Flash speeds up and taps Wonder Woman’s sword to her in slow motion, he did that in the theatrical cut because she was being attacked by Parademons, whereas in the Snyder Cut he’s doing it just because she’s falling. That was a strange omission from Snyder because the theatrical cut showed there was a purpose for tossing her the sword, while in the Snyder cut it was just unnecessarily for the sake of style.

But then we come back at the Batcave, and yet another scene is performed better in the Snyder cut: resurrecting Superman. While in the theatrical cut the decision to resurrect Superman felt forced, the decision here feels much more weighty and consequential, like the heroes are playing fire with forces they barely understand. And even right before Superman is resurrected, Cyborg gets a startling vision of a future that might come to pass from Superman’s resurrection. Wonder Woman is dead. Darkseid murders Aquaman in Atlantis. Superman grasps onto Lois’ charred body. And after Darkseid gently places his hand on his shoulder, Superman can be seen hovering over a crumbled Justice Hall as Darkseid’s armies siphon the Earth. It is a chilling moment and provides a dark connotation to a moment we were expecting to be uplifting from the movie.

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

And surprisingly, everything surrounding Superman’s arc is done beautifully in the film. From his death, to Lois and Martha’s grief, to his resurrection, to fighting the Justice League, to revisiting his family farm, to re-embracing his Kryptonian heritage, everything regarding Superman’s return felt monumental and meaningful. I was surprised by this, because the death and return of Superman is actually one of my most hated arcs in the comic books, even more so in Batman V. Superman. Here his return feels like a new tomorrow: a coming of hope the heroes weren’t expecting but so desperately needed. Again, a creative decision that felt incredibly underwhelming in the original cut is breathed with new life in this version.

Cyborg’s dad Silas (Joe Morton) dies in Zack Snyder’s version, and to be honest I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I like Whedon’s version how he’s alive at the end and he and his son make amends and work towards rebuilding their relationship together. The ending even pays homage to Cyborg’s traditional look in the comics, and you know I always love a good Easter egg. On the other hand, I do like how it adds to Cyborg’s tragic arc in the film and emphasizes just how much he’s lost in his life. In truth, both versions work well and neither one is done poorly. I think it just comes down to personal preference depending on which ending you like more.

We then arrive at the film’s climax, and holeeeee crap are the stakes raised. Batman is shredding through Parademons, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are fighting Steppenwolf, Flash is building up speed, Superman pops in out of nowhere to lay the literal smackdown against Steppenwolf, and Cyborg is connecting to the Mother Boxes desperately trying to stop them from unifying. But close to the film’s finale, something unexpected happens. The Mother Boxes unify, they incinerate the planet, and Darkseid portals to Earth. The Justice League loses.

And then, right before everything is lost and the Earth is destroyed, Flash runs beyond the speed of light, reverses time, and stops the Mother Boxes from unifying. Flash literally undoes their loss. He saves the world.

I love this sequence for a number of reasons. For one thing, the score by Junkie XL is epic and moving and really swells into the emotion of the moment. For another, Ezra Miller’s performance is phenomenal and he does a great job showing off his dramatic chops aside from his usual comical lines. But one of the things I love most about this sequence was just how unexpected it was. It’s so rare for a superhero movie to show our heroes losing, even rarer to have one of them undoing that loss mere seconds later. It was such a cinematic moment, and eons better from having Flash save one family before awkwardly muttering “Dostoyevsky” in the theatrical cut.

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

Finally after Cyborg separates the Mother Boxes in an emotionally moving moment where he acknowledges that he is neither broken nor alone, Aquaman, Superman, and Wonder Woman unite to give Steppenwolf a much-deserved decapitation. Then the film wraps up mostly in the same way the original did: with the heroes going their separate ways, having their own adventures, only uniting at the Justice Hall when they are needed.

Interestingly enough, the film’s weakest moments come in its last hour, which doesn’t behave so much like it’s part of the movie as much as it is additional content included under the DVD extras. The brief exchange between Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) has a few different lines in it. The Knightmare sequence, while more ominous and forbearing than it previously was in Batman V. Superman, is equally irrelevant (although I did like Jared Leto’s return as Joker quite a bit).

The jarring inclusion of Martian Manhunter (Colin Powell) is the most perplexing. He appears twice in this movie, and in both scenes he feels like he doesn’t belong in either of them. In his first appearance, he’s masquerading as Martha Kent (Diane Lane) while having a heart-to-heart with Lois Lane (Amy Adams) about Clark’s death. This was a very human moment — one of the best in the film — and it did a great job talking about loss, grief, and the importance of moving on. Having such a raw and real moment interrupted by an alien shapeshifting from Martha was so out of place and robbed the scene of whatever sincerity it had. Did it ruin the moment? I don’t think so, because regardless of the would-be Martha, the words still meant something to Lois anyway. But it does change the implication of the dialogue, and that bothers me more.

In the second scene, Martian Manhunter appears on Bruce’s balcony warning him of Darkseid’s arrival, but Bruce’s reaction is so underwhelming that it feels less like he’s reacting to meeting an alien and more like he’s annoyed that some homeless guy walked up onto his house unannounced. His nonchalant “Can I help you?” feels so casual that it sounds like somebody is asking him for directions rather than warning him that the literal planet is at stake.

SOURCE: Warner Bros.

Overall if I had to describe Zack Snyder’s Justice League in one word, it would be “self-indulgent.” It’s indulgent in its action, it’s indulgent in its characters, it’s indulgent in its visual effects, its comic book lore and universe, and more than anything else, it’s overly indulgent in Zack Snyder’s vision of these characters and how they’re supposed to be. Then again though, maybe what this movie needed was a little more indulgence. While Warner Bros. and Joss Whedon were strictly thinking about the commercial landscape, Zack Snyder’s Justice League genuinely feels like a labor of love and deep fulfillment of a dream he’s always had. It’s rare to find filmmakers that believe in their projects as much as Zack Snyder does his own. And while many of his films lack refinement or coherency, you can’t take away the deep appreciation he has for his work and his characters.

I am confused by the #RestoreTheSnyderverse movement, which asks that Warner Bros. continue to follow the storyline being pursued in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Aren’t they already? Of the six upcoming films being released by Warner Bros., five of them are in the DC Extended Universe, including The Suicide Squad, Black Adam, The Flash, Aquaman 2 and Shazam! 2. Sure a Justice League sequel isn’t on the books, but it would be a simple thing to add it back to the slate. All you would have to do is kill off Cyborg’s father in between movies, and you’re back on track with the same continuity. So maybe the hashtag shouldn’t be #RestoreTheSnyderverse as much as it should be #ReleaseJusticeLeague2. Either way, it’s confusing and doesn’t lend much to the conversation at hand.

So which movie is better? The theatrical cut or the Snyder cut? In my opinion, the Snyder Cut is vastly superior, even if some of Whedon’s better lines and scenes were cut out. Still, we’re witnessing a special moment with the Snyder Cut’s development and release. This is the first movie, in a very long time, where the filmmaker, the studio, and the fans all converged into one very special moment they got to share with each other. More than anything else, I’m happy that Zack got to fulfill his dream and his vision of the Justice League: it’s a privilege many, many other filmmakers don’t get to experience very often.

Four years ago, I started my Justice League review paying tribute to Autumn, and I will end this article by doing the same thing. Zack Snyder’s Justice League gets three stars out of four. Autumn Snyder gets four. So does Zack Snyder.

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Oct 21 2019
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Reviews

“JOKER” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Don’t cry. Just laugh. 

The scariest thing to admit is that we have monsters living inside of ourselves. Part of the reason why Joker has amassed as much controversy as it has is because people don’t want to admit that at some level, they sympathize with a madman and a serial killer. But the thing that some people need to remember is that before they became murderers, killers, and psychopaths, these monsters were people just like you and me, and they were hurt in very profound and personal ways that would drive anyone towards insanity. Any person, through the right circumstances, can be capable of cruelty. It’s just a matter of where and how you apply the pressure.

In Joker, writer-director Todd Phillips (The Hangover trilogy) plunges headfirst into this dark and depressing place through a gritty imagining of the origin story behind Batman’s greatest enemy. Before he became the Joker, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) was a clown, an aspiring comedian, and a son to a loving mother whom he lives with and takes care of. Arthur’s life is by no means a happy one. He regularly has to fend off attacks from criminals who try to intimidate him in the streets, he has chronic depression and several self-esteem issues, and he struggles with a neurological condition that forces him to laugh whenever he’s anxious.

But even though Arthur doesn’t have a fulfilled life, he does have a normal one for the most part. That is, until something starts to unravel inside of his splintered mind. He starts seeing people and things that aren’t actually there. He starts to become more impulsive, irrational, and erratic. And he begins to find humor in situations that would sicken and repulse any other human being. This mental and emotional decay keeps gnawing away at him until there is nothing left of Arthur Fleck. All that’s left is the Joker.

Before this movie’s release, one commentator remarked that in 1989, you created the Joker by throwing him into a vat of acid. In 2019, you created the Joker by throwing him into society. That is essentially how Todd Phillips approaches the character in this film. In fact, for more than half of the movie’s runtime, Phillips doesn’t even allude to the Joker persona or what he ends up meaning to the Batman mythos. For the most part, Joker is a social observation on mankind’s flaws and how they whittle away at our moral integrity. While I was watching, I was surprised to find that the movie doesn’t play as much like a comic book flick as it does a psychological tragedy. The fact that it just happens to feature a comic book character is just the icing on the cake.

I was reminded by another movie while watching Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness, and that was Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver. Both movies feel a lot like they are about the same person. Both feature mostly whole people who are going through serious trials and tribulations. Both characters are pieces of a broken world and are trying to make sense of it all. Both start going through a moral and mental decay that wears at the people they once were. And both start committing violent and deranged acts that fit in with their twisted senses of justification.

The movie is, in and of itself, a condemnation of the Joker’s villainy. It has to be, otherwise it threatens to embody the same evil that the Joker himself does. What’s fascinating is that the movie doesn’t just focus on the Joker, but rather all of the elements that help contribute to who he eventually becomes. The movie touches on several issues such as wealth inequality, mental health, infidelity, gun control, entertainment, anarchy, and so many other themes that you would least expect in a comic book movie like this. You wouldn’t think that these serious topics would fit into a movie about the Joker, yet they fit perfectly like pieces into a messy and chaotic puzzle. It’s very easy to simply write Joker off as psychotic and blame all of his cruelty on craziness. It’s much harder to take a deeper look at what turned Arthur Fleck into a murderer and address some of those contributors that had a hand in creating the Joker in the first place.

Since the movie is at its core a character observation, so much of the movie rests on Joaquin Phoenix’s scrawny shoulders as both Arthur Fleck and the Joker. He never buckles under the pressure. Not once. He plays both sides to the character in a beautiful and mesmerizing fashion, playing a meek and cowardly fellow in one beat and then a deranged and psychotic killer clown in another. He embodies the nuances of both characters perfectly and never breaks character in the movie’s 122-minute run time. If Joaquin isn’t at least nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars next year, the ceremony deserves to be boycotted.

You need to be warned that this is not a Batman movie by any means and is not meant for the regular superhero moviegoing public. This movie is equally inappropriate for any children younger than 18, as there is a lot of profanity, blood, gore, and disturbing images. Likewise, there’s also a larger conversation to be had about how movies like Joker humanizes deplorable human beings and gives insight to the horrible actions they carry out.

My argument is that these figures were already humanized through their situations and struggles – the movie’s challenge is showing us that without veering into preachiness or self-absorption. We already know that everything Joker does in the movie is reprehensible and wrong, just like we did for the Italian mobsters in The Godfather, or the gangsters in Goodfellas, or the hitmen in Pulp Fiction. The scary part is not caring when we cross that line – when we intentionally blur it or sometimes erase it altogether because we’ve lost any sense of moral integrity. In those moments, you can’t cry anymore because you’ve run out of tears to shed. All you can do is laugh.

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Nov 30 2017
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Reviews

“JUSTICE LEAGUE” Review (✫✫)

SOURCE: Warner Bros. Pictures

Unite the Super Friends!

Before I review Justice League, I want to pay my respects to director Zack Snyder and his daughter Autumn who committed suicide in March earlier this year, coercing Snyder to step away from production so he and his wife could grieve in privacy. No parent should ever have to endure that, especially when they’re trying to make a film that is supposed to compete with Marvel’s The Avengers. So as I plunge ahead, please realize that my job as a film critic is to review movies, not people. I am judging Justice League based on its own merits as a film, not Zack Snyder as a filmmaker and especially not as a person.

After the death of Superman (Henry Cavill) during the events of Batman V. Superman, Justice League follows Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) picking up the broken pieces of their world as they try to assemble a team of meta-humans to protect the Earth in Superman’s absence. These meta-humans include Arthur Curry the Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), Barry Allen a.k.a. the Flash (Ezra Miller), and Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), a cyborg trapped inside a metallic body. Together these superhero misfits form the Justice League, protecting the world from criminals, aliens, and Gods of death alike.

Right out of the gate, reviewing Justice League is a challenge because it feels like we’re watching two different movies at once here. In a way, we are. When Snyder had to exit the production in May, The Avengers director Joss Whedon was brought in to help with re-shoots and post-production, reportedly re-writing some scenes to add his signature humor to the film. Since this is the case, it is impossible to view the film and fairly critique the right director, because we have no way of knowing for sure which scenes in the final cut belong to Snyder or Whedon.

Regardless, Justice League is a mess, from the writing all the way to the visual effects, only offering brief relief in the form of spot-on humor, fun characterizations, and dizzying action spectacles. When I spoke to one of my closest friends about the film earlier this week, he described it to me as “a beautiful disaster.” Yeah, that sounds about right.

The good news is that Justice League is a substantial improvement over it’s predecessor Batman V. Superman, a gaudy and unbearably stupid film that not even the most passionate comic book fan could defend. This is in large part because of the film’s casting, which is impeccable from the film’s most central roles to those less in the spotlight. Affleck continues to inhabit the double persona of Bruce Wayne and Batman well enough, while Gadot once again shines as the super-powered Wonder Woman that fans have come to know and love.

Yet, the newcomers are just as good as the veterans are, with many of them keeping up with Affleck and Gadot in both acting ability and presence. Mamoa brings a rugged bad boy persona to Aquaman, effectively breaking him away from his silly comic book origins. Fisher inhabits the tortured soul of Victor Stone brilliantly, with his portrayal coming off like the robotic Frankenstein’s monster of the group. And yet, the best of these new leaguers is definitely Ezra Miller’s Flash, who comes off as so excitable and happy that he doesn’t feel as much like a superhero as he does a superfan meeting all of his favorite comic book heroes at once. Be honest: if you were in a room with Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg, wouldn’t your smile be as wide as Miller’s is?

These actors are great in their roles individually, and they really come together to make the Justice League work and feel believable as one entity. Unfortunately, the film’s greater failures have nothing to do with the actors, but with the screenplay they’ve been provided. Case in point: the film’s villain Steppenwolf, played here by “Game of Thrones” actor Ciaran Hinds. I’ve never been so bored by a villain in my entire life at the movies. He’s so stock and unappealing. He has no personality, no compelling motivation against our movie’s heroes, and nothing interesting to set him apart from previous movie villains. Say what you will about Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor or Cara Delevigne’s Enchantress: at least they were interested in their parts and played them up as best they could. But at no point does Steppenwolf rise the stakes the way he needs to nor does he even feel like a legitimate threat to our heroes. He feels more like a video game boss you have to beat at the end of the level to win the game. He looks like one too with how much gray-scaled CGI he has plastered all over his body.

Speaking of CGI, the effects are God-awful and among the worst visuals I’ve seen in any DC movie to date. Yes, I’m saying this is worse than the Kryptonian zombie in Batman V. Superman and the Mummy monsters in Suicide Squad. Everything is so underdeveloped in the picture, from the flying parademons that attack our heroes, to the Atlanteans that Steppenwolf fights in Atlantis, to even Superman himself. When Henry Cavill was asked to come back to the set for re-shoots, Cavill reportedly had a mustache that he couldn’t shave due to his role in Mission Impossible 6, so the visual effects team resorted to digitally removing his mustache in post-production. They would have been better off if they left it in. Cavill’s distorted, bloated face looks so strange and artificial, looking more like one of the Kardashians than he does the man of steel. And yes, I know this was the best solution the studio could come up with despite its production issues and re-shoots. That doesn’t change how ridiculous it looks on screen, or the fact that he looks better in an Edvard Munch painting than he does in a Justice League movie.

All in all, Justice League is your simple, by-the-books superhero team-up movie that has some great acting and action, however technically incompetent it may be. It has everything necessary to satisfy the hardcore DC fan. Everyone else? Not so much.

Yet I don’t blame Joss Whedon for what we see on the screen here. I don’t blame writer Chris Terrio either, as he wrote the film as best he could despite the limited criteria he had to work with. I don’t even blame Zack Snyder for this film, who very understandably was going through a lot during production. No, if anything I blame DC Films and Warner Bros. Pictures for their gross mishandling on the production side of these movies. It took Marvel five well-focused movies before they released The Avengers in 2012. Didn’t DC realize long ago that they couldn’t release Justice League with two good movies, one passable one, and one catastrophic one? Justice League gets two stars out of four. Autumn Snyder gets four.

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Nov 20 2017
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Lists, The Scope

Unite the League: 10 Greatest DC Comics Movies Of All Time

It’s funny how DC Comics is struggling to break into the cinematic universe gig despite their vast influence over comic book history. We give Marvel creator Stan Lee so much credit for all of the creative and dynamic characters he’s brought us over the years, both on the panels of the comic book and on the big screen. Yet has anyone ever stopped to think about the inspiration that came before him? Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman in the pages of Action Comics in May 1938. Bob Kane created Batman in 1939. William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman in 1941. Even with all of his young promise, Stan Lee wouldn’t create the Fantastic Four until 1961, 20 years after Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were cemented as comic-book icons, influencing our culture several decades beyond their time. Stan Lee may have perfected the comic-book craft, but he did not start it. DC Comics did.

How ironic is it, then, that the DCEU is struggling both financially and critically five movies into their franchise, yet Marvel is skyrocketing with their 18th film due for release next spring? It’s a shame, really. DC has been a huge part of many childhoods over the years, mine included. The original Richard Donner Superman films starring Christopher Reeve. The Tim Burton Batman movies starring Michael Keaton. The “Batman” and “Justice League” animated cartoons. We’ve grown up with these characters for so long, hoping one day to see them all realized on the big screen. We got our wish, although it may not be what many were expecting.

For the record, I haven’t seen Justice League yet, and will not until later this week when I’ve recovered from my sinus infection. Regardless, I have had time to catch up on the nostalgia on some older DC movies, and boy are there many. Regardless of whether Justice League is any good or not, at least we’ll be able to look back fondly on these 10 DC Comics movies.

– David Dunn

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Aug 08 2016
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Reviews

“SUICIDE SQUAD” Review (✫✫✫)

Worst. Heroes. Ever.

If you do not like superhero movies, do not watch Suicide Squad. I’m warning you now. It’s a haphazard, off-the-wall, ridiculous superhero/villain exercise that is psychotic and gleeful in every way imaginable. I highly doubt that your chess club or church study group would enjoy seeing this movie. To enjoy it is possible, but it has to be from a fan of the material.

I myself am a fan superhero movies, but only when they are confident and competent with their vision and purpose. DC’s earlier Man of Steel was one of those movies, and while many spoke out against the controversial changes to the character, the movie at least understood those changes and how importantly they played into the greater mythos of Superman. The more recent Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, comparatively, was neither confident or competent, hopping around everywhere, having no clear focus or clarity, and was more interested in setting up its future installments rather than developing its current story or characters. If you are looking for the potential of superhero movies, you need look no further than DC’s own successes and failures. 

And yet, Suicide Squad doesn’t fall anywhere between being masterful or disastrous. It finds solid middle ground between action and absurdity as its villains fight, shoot, punch, breathe, feel, emote, joke, and laugh maniacally at each other’s antics. The movie fulfills every insane requirement that you expect it to have and then some.

Following up after the events of Batman V. Superman, Suicide Squad shows government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) playing a dangerous gamble with national security. After seeing the world’s most important hero bite the dust, Waller wants to assemble a task force to protect the world from supernatural threats. This team would consist of imprisoned supervillains Waller would have under her control. If they succeed in doing what she says, they get time off from their prison sentences. If they rebel, a microchip in their neck explodes, killing them in a heartbeat.

These villains are no joke. Floyd Lawton, a.k.a. Deadshot (Will Smith) is a master assassin who hits his target with every pull of the trigger. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is a mad woman who is insanely in love with her fellow baddie the Joker (Jared Leto), whom she affectionately refers to as “Puddin'”. There’s the heathen thief Digger Harkins, a.k.a. Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), the reptilian-looking beast Waylon Jones, a.k.a. Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the repenting Chato Santana, a.k.a. El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), who can emit flames from his body. These villains-turned-sorta-heroes are forced together to do greater good, whether they like it or not.

Suicide Squad reminded me of another superhero film I watched earlier this year, one that also had a simple, straightforward plot, was unorthodox in nature, and featured a character that frequently crossed the line. I’m referring to Deadpool, which like Suicide Squad, took joy in its characters and frequently mocked genre cliches in its fellow superhero movies. They’re not quote-unquote “good guys”, and that allows them to break the mold of the typical action movie. It lets them be much more loose and flexible in their morality, and by that definition, it also lets them be more fun.

The differences with Deadpool and Suicide Squad, of course, lie with its parodist style. Deadpool called out superhero conventions with the middle finger and a dirty mouth. Suicide Squad inhabits these conventions while at the same time not playing to their nature. You can argue back and forth which is the better film, but there is one thing you cannot argue: the divisive nature of its fans.

Oh, to say this movie got mixed feedback is a strong understatement. Suicide Squad is currently at 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, 40 out of 100 on Metacritic. “A clotted and delirious film” is what Peter Bradshaw wrote for The Guardian. “Clumsy and disrupted” is what Ignatiy Vishnevetsky wrote for The A.V. Club. Perhaps the worst criticism comes from Kyle Smith from The New York Post: “What promised to be a Super Bowl of villainy turned out more like toddler playtime.”

I get that these movies aren’t necessarily geared towards critics, but at the same time, I also understand who these movies are trying to appeal to. Critics don’t bring box office numbers. Fans do. And they don’t care about a film’s direction, artistry, uniqueness, genre conventions, cliches, or anything else that critics are normally concerned about. They care about how fun it is and how faithful the movie interprets their favorite comic book characters.

With that criteria in mind, Suicide Squad is all sorts of fun and faithful, with the chemistry of its actors colliding into each other like the most dysfunctional supervillains you’ve never seen. The best thing about this movie is easily its cast, who inhabit their roles so fluidly that you take their villainy at face value without judgement or questioning. Margot Robbie in particular stands out as Harley Quinn, who has an enthusiastic wackiness and infectious personality to her that you can’t help but fall in love with. She’s a fun yet tragic character, the squad member who easily has the most life to her twisted laugh and dark humor. Robbie does a lot more than merely portray Harley Quinn: she is Harley Quinn, just as much as Hugh Jackman is Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, dare I say it, as Heath Ledger is the Joker.

But she’s not the only one that impressed me so much. The entire cast have their moments, and whether it was major or minor scenes, they inhabited the nuances of their characters with skill and brilliance. Smith, who normally gets stuck in a routine of portraying the stock action hero, switches it up a little bit here by bringing his “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” personality to lighten the movie’s mood, and the tone is surprisingly fitting. Jai Courtney, who to date has never impressed me from A Good Day To Die Hard to I, Frankenstein, fully embodies his role as this dirty, loud-mouthed, unappealing mass of redneck. Even Karen Fukuhara, who makes her debut as sword-wielding warrior Katana, provides a performance so versatile that she could be powerful and intimidating in some scenes, yet fragile and intimate in much smaller moments. This was a great debut for her talents, and I eagerly wait to see what her next role is after this.

Sadly, my least favorite character is the one that I was most eager to see: Jared Leto’s Joker, who plays a smaller role in the movie than people may expect. The problem is not Leto’s performance, who throws every bit of his energy and effort into this role. It’s how the character is written. If you take away the green hair, the makeup, the tattoos, and the grilled teeth, what you would have left is not the Joker. You would have a stock movie gangster that is obsessed with guns, knives, torture, slick cars, and violence, with no demeanor of his resembling that of a clown or a twisted comedian. The Joker we have in this movie is not the anarchist you’ve come to know him for. He’s a mob boss, and that is an absolute waste on the character’s potential. The Joker is a much more interesting villain than that, and Leto deserves so much better than just portraying Scarface with makeup on. If this Joker is going to reappear in future DC installments, they will need to rewrite the character in order to make him more accurate to his origins.

I can easily name a few other flaws from the movie. A few character’s motivations make no sense. The editing in the first act was choppy and erratic. And the action, while fun and stylish, was at times long and overbearing. None of this changes the odd-baldish chemistry the actors share, the unique spin the movie itself has on the superhero genre, the compelling dichotomy between the characters, or the fact that this is one of the most exciting movies I’ve had the pleasure to sit through this summer. Many more critics will no doubt discount this movie as supervillain trash, but this movie was not made for them. This movie was made for me. And I will say without batting an eye that Suicide Squad is sickeningly entertaining.

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Apr 04 2016
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Reviews

“THE DARK KNIGHT” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Two madmen at war with each other and themselves.

Editor’s note: I was originally going to hold off on publishing this review due to an upcoming in-depth article I’m working on. However, upon learning that today would have been Heath Ledger’s 37th birthday, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to honor the late actor’s magnificent work. So, without further adieu, here is my review for the magnificent superhero epic that is ‘The Dark Knight.’

The Dark Knight is a moral dilemma about two madmen trying to make sense out of their own worlds. One hides his madness with a mask. The other demonstrates it proudly with a crooked smile and a demented laugh. We define one as “good” and the other as “bad”, but really, what’s the real difference between these two? They are both traumatized by tragedies they’ve experienced at very young ages, and one was clearly more devastating than the other. Just switch around Bruce Wayne’s childhood with that of the Joker’s for a second. Is it really that far-fetched to think that they could have grown up to become the other person?

It’s difficult to draw such similar parallels between a film’s protagonist and antagonist, especially in a superhero movie where everything is supposed to be so cut and dry. But Christopher Nolan orchestrates his characters masterfully here in The Dark Knight, a film that feels more like a Shakespearean tragedy than it does as a superhero blockbuster. It isn’t a film that is driven by big-budget fights and special effects, although those technical elements definitely don’t suffer in the movie all the same. This is a movie driven by character’s ambitions, desires, loss, and pain. Rarely does a film reach into such dark depths and have such outstanding payoff.

This movie is, of course, the sequel to Nolan’s highly praised 2005 prequel Batman Begins, which too succeeds in showing Bruce Wayne not as a comic book icon, but as a human being, reliably portrayed by Christian Bale with his own complexions and regrets. The Dark Knight continues Bruce’s story, but takes focus off of Batman and puts a larger focus on Gotham, the city Bruce is sworn to protect. In doing that, Nolan inadvertently creates another character in the Batman story, and you only need to look at its citizens to see what the character is like. It’s manipulative, murderous, deceitful, selfish, and crooked, with the only evidence of decency in only a handful of citizens wanting to do the right thing.

Heath Ledger’s Joker, of course, sees the sick nature of Gotham and imposes his own version of justice upon the city. From a different perspective, could the Joker be considered the hero of the story? Both Batman and the Joker are vigilantes in their own ways. The difference is who they see as the main poison to Gotham.

Like any other superhero, Batman sees the criminals and mob bosses as the biggest culprits to Gotham’s decay. The Joker, however, sees it differently. He sees the city’s politicians, judges, police officers, and commissioners as the real criminals. Technically, neither is wrong. All of these people are responsible for the state that Gotham is in, and Batman and Joker are just picking two different sides to the same coin. Our instinct tells us to root for Batman, mostly because we are the everyday regular citizen he’s fighting to protect. But the Joker has been hurt day-in and day-out by regular citizens. So has Batman. His parents were killed by a citizen of Gotham. The Joker forces citizens to kill each other in The Dark Knight. In witnessing all of this murder and corruption taking place, you can’t help but ask yourself one question: are we even worth saving?

This gloomy idea of morality has been explored by Christopher Nolan before. Indeed, his career has been defined by character’s questioning ethics in 2000’s Memento and 2006’s The Prestige. Look at those films and how eerily similar they are to The Dark Knight. Look at the parallels not just in character and theme, but in tone and aesthetic. Look at how closely they are shot. Look at how tightly the action is edited together, yet coherent enough to understand everything we need to. Look at the character’s conflicts that test them and, in some cases, even break them. Look at their state of mind and security, and how quickly they decay in the midst of crippling loss, paranoia, and distrust.

This is why The Dark Knight is almost universally seen as the best comic book movie of all time: because it is not a comic book movie. Nolan didn’t film it like a comic book movie. He didn’t want to make a comic book movie, or at least, in the conventional sense. Everything involved with this movie, from the writing to the framing to the visual effects to the acting, was constructed with the idea that Nolan and Warner Bros. were making something much more than a comic book movie. They were making a crime film, a psychological drama, and a visual poem in disguise as a superhero blockbuster.

Just to clarify, I’m not knocking the superhero genre. Some of the greatest movies of all time spawned out of that genre, and if done right, it can be the best out of any of the other film genres. Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Superman II humanized a superhero that was anything but human. Spider-Man made an ordinary character extraordinary. X2 embedded a message of prejudice into an action-fueled sci-fi thriller.

Great superhero movies have come before The Dark Knight, and many more will come after. But what makes The Dark Knight unique is not its status as a quote-unquote “superhero” movie. It is its mirroring psychology that makes you question what is truly right or wrong. Superhero movies don’t normally do that. They normally provide our hero and our villain and have them go at each other in fun, comic-booky fashion. But that wasn’t enough for The Dark Knight. It needed to ask why they were going after each other, and what was at stake if they didn’t do so? This is one of the rare action movies that questions if our hero is actually doing the right thing, and if he’s fighting this labeled villainy in the right way.

In these characterizations, the performances are key, and Bale and Ledger alike to brilliant work in not just bringing their characters to life, but their beliefs as well. Ledger has received all the acclaim and the Academy Award for best supporting actor as the Joker, and he’s right to. He’s delivered a downright chilling portrayal of a mentally disturbed madman: a brilliant finish to a long and successful career up until his death in 2008. Yet, I don’t think many people notice Bale’s nuanced performance as a man struggling to know and do the right thing. That’s genuinely a shame, because the movie is a success due to their acting together, not just one performance over the other. Again, they treat their characters not as superheros and supervillains, but as competing complexions, battling each other not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of proving their own personally defined morality. At the end of the day, isn’t the battle of morality more powerful than any physical battle can ever be?

The film builds up to it’s highly-anticipated climax in classic Nolan fashion. The final battle, however, is not between our hero and villain, but instead between the two sides of Gotham. One side has been convicted by the law. The other has been convicted by God. And in their convictions, both sides are forced to make a choice. I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say this: they make the right one.

Batman and Joker are not two different people. They are two sides to the same coin. We too exist on a coin and have the equal potential of being either Batman or the Joker. It’s only a matter of what we choose to be.

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Apr 02 2016
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The Scope

The Biggest Problem With ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’

It’s been a week after the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and I still can’t shut up about it. Can anybody? Whether you see it as good or bad, you no doubt can see the impact it’s having on the comic book and movie communities alike. Some fans like it. Most critics don’t. But regardless, Batman v Superman has caused a massive divide in the DC Comics fan base and on how to best proceed with the DC cinematic universe.

I myself didn’t care much for it. I gave the movie two stars out of four, citing Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill’s performances as the best things about the movie, but Jesse Eisenberg and the editing as the worst things. As a comic book movie, fans might see the movie as passable. But as a movie standing on its own two feet, I found it to be pitiful. At least be honest with yourselves, DC fans: if this movie had anyone as its leads besides Batman and Superman, you would not have enjoyed this movie as much.

My biggest gripe with the movie was one that I didn’t even mention in my review. I had a good reason for doing so too: it had to do with the movie’s ending. Even now, I still hesitate to mention it because of my extreme hatred for spoilers. Yeah I didn’t enjoy the movie, but that doesn’t mean that somebody else out there won’t, and the last thing I want to do is to ruin the experience for them.

All the same, if you’ve already seen the movie and are curious as to my biggest gripe with the film, check out my commentary video below to see my biggest problem with Batman v Superman and the upcoming DC cinematic universe.

And of course, obvious spoiler warning ahead.

– David Dunn

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Mar 25 2016
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Reviews

“BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE” Review (✫✫)

How’s does the peach tea taste, Mr. Wayne?

Let’s start with the obvious: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the worst title for a superhero movie since Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. And yet, it’s so appropriate for a movie like this. The title is on-the-nose, hokey, ridiculous, and clearly unfocused, just like the movie itself is.

Taking place a few years after the events of Man of Steel, Batman v…. screw it, I’m not going to repeatedly spell out a bad title. BvS: DOJ picks up in the aftermath of the disaster that struck Metropolis during the battle between Superman (Henry Cavill) and the Kryptonian army. The city is dismantled. Hundreds of casualties have been named. A memorial that evokes the tragedy of 9/11 sits in the heart of the city, right next to a monument dedicated to the superhero that saved everyone. It is a tense time for Metropolis as they’re trying to rebuild, and everyone has one question on their minds: Is Superman doing more harm than good?

Enter billionaire Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), who unequivocally sees Superman as mankind’s enemy. During the day of the attack, Superman fought inside of one of Wayne’s corporate buildings, which had many of his employees still inside when it fell. Wayne took the hit very hard. He’s too familiar with losing a family, and here he lost his second one. Now, he once again adopts his criminal-fighting personality of Batman with one focus: to kill the Superman.

Let me start with the positives. First of all, Ben Affleck was incredible as Bruce Wayne and Batman. That genuinely surprises me, because A) Christian Bale’s Batman is still fresh on my mind, and B) Ben Affleck isn’t normally a great actor, minus the movies that he’s written or directed. This movie is a game changer for him. He’s playing Batman with a more grim facade; an older, meaner, more coarse attitude that is even more distrusting of people than The Dark Knight’s Batman was. This is not the same Batman that you’re familiar with. His psychological trauma and torture tactics have intensified, and he isn’t above killing criminals. This might be maddening for some comic purists out there, but I found it to be a refreshing take on the caped crusader. After all, in a DC Universe where you’re fighting for your life against space aliens and Frankenstein monsters, I think it’s reasonable to say that the stakes have been raised on all fronts.

And the Batman/Superman dynamic was equally amazing. The thing I liked most about this movie, and what I think most fans were looking forward to, was the contrasting nature between Batman and Superman. I’m not talking about the fight itself, although the buildup and the payoff to that sequence definitely did not disappoint. I’m talking about the real conflicting ideals of Batman versus Superman. Batman is a mortal who has faced cuts, bruises, and bloodshed all his life. Superman is an indestructible alien from outer space. Batman believes torture and intimidation are effective tactics for fighting crime. Superman finds those things to be disturbing and unnecessary. Batman sees a Kyryptonian alien as mankind’s greatest threat. Superman sees it as a vigilante that answers to no one. I was expecting their ideals to clash in this movie, but I wasn’t expecting to be rooting for them both when the film built to its climactic titular fight. The fact that we’re engaged in a superhero beatdown between our two protagonists and we can understand where both are coming from is the evidence of strong, smart writing, and Affleck and Cavill alike do very well in bouncing their personalities off of each other to make a strong, rivalrous relationship between the two.

Unfortunately, as far as positives for the movie goes, it ends there. Where do I start with the mistakes of Batman v Superman? First of all, its editor David Brenner needed to be fired. Either him or director Zack Snyder, depending on which one decided this movie needed to be two hours and 30 minutes long. There were so many unecessary scenes in the movie, so many sequences that added nothing and truly took away from the larger conflict between Batman, Superman, and our mischievous third player Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). Don’t worry, we’ll get to him in a bit.

Look at the first act as an example of the film’s poor editing. If Brenner knew what he was doing, he would open the film right on the destruction going on in Metropolis, with Bruce frantically driving and running around in a quickly collapsing city trying to save as many people as he can. That was a great scene that showed Bruce’s vulnerability, and even more rarely, his fear. We didn’t start with that though. We start with the same sequence we’ve seen in every Batman movie now, which is the death of Bruce’s parents. Why? Why do we need to see this again? Haven’t we seen it enough in Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies? What is the purpose in showing this again? And also, when a younger Bruce falls into the cavern and becomes enveloped in bats, is there any reason to show him as a levitating Bat messiah floating to the top of the cave?

I’m blaming Brenner because he didn’t cut the sequence out, but the truth is it is just as much Snyder’s fault as it is Brenner’s. Why did he choose to even film these scenes in the first place? Didn’t either of them see that these scenes weren’t necessary? That the dream and hallucination sequences added nothing to the plot, that the easter eggs to the DC Universe did nothing to develop the story, or that the epilogue of the film was sappy and dragged out? There were so many stupid scenes in this movie that made no sense and formed no coherency with the greater ideas of the film. You could have cut 30 minutes from the film, make it shorter than The Dark Knight, and have a better movie.

And then we get to Eisenberg. Ugh. Remind me again why he is Lex Luthor? I get that he’s a great actor and that he was enthusiastic for the role. That doesn’t make him right for it, and he’s definitely not right for it.

I’ll give Eisenberg this: he tried. But he tried too hard. We’re not seeing Lex Luthor here as much as we are seeing a B-grade Joker or Riddler. He’s not the smart, calculated supervillain you remember. He’s ecstatic, chaotic, and impulsive, which makes him a good villain archetype, but not a good Lex Luthor. Eisenberg throws himself into the role and succeeds in portraying it, but it’s not his portrayal that’s the problem. It’s the way him and Snyder envision the character, as a psychotic messenger of doom rather than the intelligent, well-crafted, yet connivingly evil gentlemen that he’s supposed to be. If Batman was my favorite part of the movie, Lex Luthor was my least favorite. He’s that far off of the map from what Superman’s arch-nemesis is supposed to be.

What we end up having then, is an out-of-focus movie that does a lot of things right, and then equally does a lot of things wrong. That’s the most disappointing thing about this movie, is seeing its potential and how wasted it is by stupid editing and even stupider characters. And this is the movie that’s supposed to set up the Justice League films. Pray that those movies display smarter storytelling and editing. And a better title.

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Feb 07 2015
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Reviews

“THE LEGO MOVIE” Review (✫✫✫1/2)

Bricks, businessmen, and Batman.

The last thing I expected from anything titled The Lego Movie was anything good. How could I? The trailer had the reeking stench of an advertisement, barely differentiating itself from the Lego set commercials that air on children’s cartoon networks. Believe me, I went into this movie expecting an artificial, brainless experience looking only to profit itself from the name of it’s toy line. Boy, do I love it when I am proved wrong.

Based in a colorful world full of Lego bricks, buildings, and set pieces, The Lego Movie follows Emmett (Chris Pratt), an average, regular, 100% ordinary minifigure who loves coffee, people, Taco Tuesdays, cats, cars, work, television, and just about everything else under the orange Lego-bricked sun. If any of the characters in the film knew that they were in a movie, none of them would expect Emmett to be the main character: he has the personality and the appearance of a background character if anything.

One day, while working at his construction job, Emmett comes into contact with a strange red object called “The Piece of Resistance”, and passes out. When he wakes up, he is recruited by Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), a punky and feisty master builder who tells Emmett that he is part of a prophecy that declares that a powerful being called “The Special” will find the Piece of Resistance and use it to overthrow Lord Business (Will Ferrell) and his plans to conquer the Lego-verse. As a result, Emmett gets catapulted into a decade-long conflict between wizards, robots, businessmen, DC superheroes, crazy cats, cyborg pirates, spacemen, and Batman.

Good God, where do I start with this? The Lego Movie is by every definition, a surprise; a fun and wacky little adventure that is just as original and audacious as it is clever and funny. Written and directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the same guys who co-wrote and co-directed Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, these filmmakers worked to instill the same sense of energy, youth, and entertainment from that movie into this one. It’s surprising that the movie is not just good: it’s borderline great.

One of the things I love most about the movie is the animation. Like any great animated film, it reaches out to you in vivid, eye-catching detail, it’s beautiful colors and visuals striking out to you like a panel on a beautifully-crafted graphic novel. But it’s not just how the animation looks in itself: it’s also in how Lord and Miller achieved the effects they were going for. Nearly everything in the film was modeled from lego bricks and pieces, and I do mean everything. The buildings, the vehicles, the space stations: even seemingly trivial things such as the water, lava, and clouds are all made out of lego pieces, with explosions literally showing red-and-orange lego studs as they blow up. It would be so easy just to be cheap and give basic effects for the wind, the water, fire, sky, and everything else in the film, but Miller and Lord didn’t want to go that route. They wanted to make an authentic, accurate world jam-packed with lego pieces and objects. To put anything else in there would just cheapen the effects, and their persistence made for the best visual result that they could possibly have had.

Just as much though, I love the characters Lord and Miller wrote for this movie. Like the animation and lego bricks, they all have variety to them, and they all have colorful, unique personalities that make you want to relate to each character. You have Benny, a 1980’s space astronaut who is so obsessed with spaceships that he could build one from a pile of garbage bricks if you dared him to. You have UniKitty, a unicorn/kitten that has such a split sweet/violent personality that she would scare little children if they were locked in the same room with her. There’s Metal Beard, a pirate-turned-cyborg whose body literally blows up like a amalgam of lego bricks like a real lego mini figure. Also, Batman is in the movie.

The key character here, however, is Emmett, a sweet and charming little mini figure with intentions so pure, he at times can seem like a child with his quirky little antics. Emmett is the epitome of childhood in this movie: innocent, curious, creative, passionate, and at times a little too immature for his own good. His strengths and his flaws both make up for a very interesting character, a mini figure that we can all relate to because of his average nature and his desire to be greater than he already is. He may be made out of Lego pieces, but Emmett is more human than most of the live-action actors you’ve seen in motion pictures this year.

The movie does suffer from a slight drag in run time, and like it’s protagonist, the movie is at times too childish for it’s own good. That doesn’t change the fact that this movie is a clever, funny, original, and heartfelt take on childhood and what it means to be grown up, but always remain young at heart. The Lego Movie is much more than just a movie. It’s a celebration of creativity.

Post-script: Did I forget to mention that Batman is in the movie?

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Jan 01 2015
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Lists, The Scope

Top Ten Films Of 2014

Has anyone ever stopped to wonder why all of the best of the year lists have to be in the top ten? Like, what sort of critic was working on his list and thought that ten would be the magic number? Why ten and not twelve? Or fifteen? Five? Twenty? Eight? Why was ten specifically chosen as the big number? Was it chosen at random, or was it actually chosen for some relevant, significant reason?

Regardless of whatever the case may be, I’m choosing to be a little rebellious this year. For the past few years, I’ve seen enough films to make a “Top 15″ list if I wanted to, but if I had done that, my site viewership would go down by about twenty views.

So this year, to battle the preconceived notion that “best of the year” lists have to have ten movies, I’m doing two different things. 1) I’m adding an “honorable mentions” selection that while those films aren’t necessarily in my top ten, they are still significant films that have contributed to the year’s industry regardless. 2) In honor of our first full year without the wise, sometime snarky, words of film critic Roger Ebert, I’m offering a special Grand Jury Prize, which honors a film from the year which has made a notable accomplishment that fits outside of my year’s top ten.

As always, there is a few things you need to know before I get into my year’s best. First of all, I haven’t seen all of the films the year has had to offer. I’ve heard from so many people how Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild was emotionally stirring, with Reese Witherspoon’s performance being the greatest highlight of the film. I’ve also read from critics that Selma, A Most Violent Year, and American Sniper were great movies as well, but guess what? None of those movies get a wide release until after Dec. 31, so I’m not able to even see those films until after the year anyway. So what am I going to do? Release a revision to my current list, or add those films to 2015 if they’re good enough? I’ll make a decision when it comes to that. It’s the studio’s faults for releasing those movies so late into the year anyway. Blasted film mongers.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, this is my list for the best films of 2014. Not yours. There has been high praise from many notable films of the year, including Edge of Tomorrow, The Theory of Everything, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. None of those films will be on my top ten list because I didn’t deem them worthy enough to be on there. It’s nothing against the films or the filmmakers: I just didn’t think they were good enough.

If you’re not satisfied with that, then please, make your own top ten list. I’d love to read it, and if your reasonings are sound enough, I’d like to share it with others.

Now then, let’s hop to it, shall we? Here are my top ten films of 2014:

10. Interstellar 

A mesmerizing, breathtaking, and exhilarating journey that may have only slightly exceeded it’s grasp. Based on an idea by physicist Kip Thorne and directed by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar takes place in the future on a dying planet Earth, where the only source of sustainable food is by growing corn. When former aircraft pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) stumbles upon a secret station that has been hiding NASA for so many years, Cooper enlists in a daring space mission to find a new planet that will be able to sustain and save the human race. A testament to the quality of film that Nolan is consistent in making, Interstellar is a brilliantly woven, thought-provoking plot, invoking the same themes of humanity and identity that Nolan exercises in all of his films. McConaughey reaches an emotional depth much deeper than past “Nolan” actors, and succeeds in making his character more human than hero. This is Nolan’s most emotional movie yet, but it’s also his most complicated and convoluted. But if Nolan’s only real flaw with this film is being overly ambitious, I don’t consider that a flaw at all. Three and a half stars.

9. The Grand Budapest Hotel

A crafty and artsy film that acts as a homage to the early days of cinema. After being framed for a violent murder of one of his former hotel guests, Concierge Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) teams up with his young apprentice Zero (Tony Revolori) to set out and prove his innocence through a series of weird, wacky, and crazy adventures. Written and directed by Wes Anderson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a peculiar, quirky film, a fun and enjoyable ride in it’s own singular way. Anderson is very specific with the direction of the film, using practical effects and set pieces that gives the film a very distinct visual style and aesthetic. The antics Gustave and Zero go through are the stuff of slapstick gold, with these guys doing silly stunts and chase sequences that reminds me of the silent film days of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. It’s definitely seasoned for the art house crowd, and it’s definitely more difficult to appeal to the masses. But if you allow yourself to be lost in it and have fun with it, you’ll find that it is easily the most unique film of the year. Three and a half stars.

8. How To Train Your Dragon 2

A wildly exciting and entertaining animated ride that appeals to both kids and adults. When a crusade of dragon-hunters reach the land of Berk and begin their hunt for the flying beasts, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) must team up once again with his dragon Toothless to stop the brigade and save Berk’s dragons and dragon riders. Written and directed by Dean DuBlois, who returned from directing the first film, How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a near-perfect follow-up. It hits on every note it needs to, from the comedy, to the animation, to the action, to the emotion. Hiccup is a much stronger, yet more vulnerable, character now, and needs to face more mature situations now as a grown man rather than as he did when he was a boy. In many ways, How To Train Your Dragon 2 is to it’s first counterpart as Hiccup is to his younger self: they both grew. Three and a half stars.

7. Gone Girl

A brilliantly frustrating thriller that exercises themes of infidelity and media harassment. When Nick Dunne’s (Ben Affleck) wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing, all eyes turn to Nick for what happened to his wife. When clues slowly surface and more details surrounding the disappearance reveal themselves, everyone is asking the same question: did Nick Dunne kill his wife? Directed by David Fincher and written by author Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl is a masterfully orchestrated thriller, equal parts daring, inventive, intelligent, and unpredictable. Fincher propels Flynn’s brilliant plot forward with expert direction, eye-striking camerawork, and a cast that Fincher pulls the best from. This movie is like a game of cat and mouse, except no one really knows who is the cat or mouse. There is not one note in the film that you can guess is coming. Three and a half stars.

6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

A compelling and exciting survivalist-drama that looks at the human/primate condition as two sides to one coin. After the chemical attack on planet Earth that took place at the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes follows the story of Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Malcolm (Jason Clarke), the leaders of the apes and the humans, respectively. As the human-primate war rages on violently, Caesar and Malcolm begin to see that the apes and the humans aren’t so different from each other, and they begin to explore any possibilities of peace between two races. Matt Reeves builds an intelligent, in-depth story around Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and handles its premise with skill and precision.  It surprising that the basis of this film wasn’t grounded in action or ridiculous CGI stunts, but rather in small, intimate moments of conversation and ape-sign-language that characters share with each other. Serkis is a revelation in the movie, and deserves an Oscar nomination for both his physical and emotional performance. Four stars.

5. Birdman

One of the most mesmerizing, unique, disturbing, shocking, and darkly funny films I’ve ever seen. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu writes and directs this ingenious dramedy starring Michael Keaton as Riggan Thompson, a washed-up movie actor trying to escape his image in a former superhero role by adapting his favorite broadway play to the stage. Keaton is a natural in the role, relating his own experience to portraying Batman in order to further authenticity for the character. Cinematographer Emanuel Lubeski contributes to the visual design of the film, shooting and editing it to look like one, continuous shot rather than multiple longer takes. But Inarritu is the most essential storyteller here, making a visual and emotional masterpiece that is so distinct in its own language that it is impossible to define it, let alone replace it. Four stars.

4. Whiplash

One of the most edgy, thrilling, and provocative films of the year. Miles Teller stars as Andrew, an upcoming college student who is majoring in music and dreams of becoming one of the best drummers in the country. A series of events lands him in the top jazz orchestra of Shaffer Conservatory and under the tutelage of Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), a brilliant but harsh and antagonistic instructor who is known to go very hard on his students. Andrew and Fletcher both develop an intense rivalry that both hurts Andrew, angers Fletcher, and yet equally compels them both to become the very best they can be. Writer/director Damien Chazelle conducts both actors through his sophomore effort, and does a great job in producing a tense, electric vibe consistently throughout the film. Teller and Simmons’ chemistry with each other is equally perfect, with the both of them bouncing off of each other’s words and emotions as perfectly as a drum beat. This film is about more than just music. It’s about the human desire to be great and what sacrifices we’d make to get there. Four stars.

3. Boyhood

The most revolutionary film of the year, ambitious in both production and vision. A twelve-year project pioneered by writer/director Richard Linklater, Boyhood tells the story of Mason’s (Ellar Coltrane) childhood, chronicling his entire life from when he was six years old, up until when he turns 18 and leaves for college. The movie isn’t so much a story as it is a scrapbook of memories, and Linklater is pulling each photograph out of it just to show it to us. When he is younger, Ellar isn’t acting but living, behaving like any other child would in the moment because he is in the moment. As he gets older, his performance gets more stagnant and Coltrane becomes more of a surrogate for us to express our emotions through, rather than experiencing his own. In this day and age, it’s rare to find a film as real and honest as Boyhood is. Four stars.

2. X-men: Days of Future Past

The best entry out of the X-men franchise, and the best superhero movie of the year. Serving as a sequel to both 2011’s X-men: First Class and 2006’s X-men: The Last Stand, X-men: Days of Future Past is set in the apocalyptic future where mutants are being exterminated by humanoid robots called “Sentinels”. Having only one chance to go back in time and stop this future from ever happening, Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) through time to their younger selves (Portrayed by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) so they can stop the triggering event and save the future. Directed by Bryan Singer, who formerly helmed the first two entries in the franchise, X-men: Days of Future Past is a game changer. It is not only a visually-dazzling and highly climactic sci-fi blockbuster: it is a vastly intelligent and contemplative story that focuses on its recurring themes of racism and xenophobia, once again bringing the consequences of discrimination to the forefront. X-men: Days of Future Past is one of those movies that restores your faith in the superhero genre. Four stars.

And finally, my number one film of the year is —

1. The Fault In Our Stars

Surprised? I’m not. The Fault In Our Stars is one of the most magical, heartbreaking, and genuine films you will ever see, and is more than worthy of being called the most emotional film of the year. Based off of the novel by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars follows the love story of two Cancer-stricken teenagers: the shy and book-loving Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley) and the optimistic amputee Gus (Ansel Elgort). Written and directed by independent filmmaker Josh Boone, The Fault In Our Stars is one of the best stories ever translated from book to film. I initially was skeptical on seeing this film, considering how much it seemed to have been doused in rom-com syndrome. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Boone adapts Green’s story perfectly to the big screen, retaining everything in the novel from the visual details to the words that were written. But its Woodley and Elgort that sells it so well, their chemistry that vibrates so wonderfully with each other and leaves such an impression on you. Trust me when I say this isn’t your typical rom-com: it’s a heartfelt drama disguised as a tween movie, and it is the best of it’s kind. Four stars.

And finally, this year’s first Grand Jury Prize appropriately goes to Steve James’ documented biography Life Itself. Following Roger Ebert’s life and career from him growing up in Chicago, to when he got his first reporting job, to when he won the Nobel Prize for film criticism, to when he lost his best friend, to when he got Thyroid cancer, this film is everything that Roger Ebert is: funny, honest, heartfelt, unabashed, unflinching, and real. It doesn’t give you a peppered-up look at his life: it’s whole and accurate, as genuine as any of the reviews he’s written. I’m probably biased towards this subject, but the subject doesn’t count as long as it is handled well. James’ handles this story with respect and humility, and ends up telling a story about life itself rather than just limiting it to Roger’s story. It’s my favorite documentary of the year, and it brings me great pleasure to award my first Grand Jury Prize to this wonderful film tribute.

Honorable mentions include the creepy and morally ambiguous Nightcrawler, the funny yet stylish Guardians of the Galaxy, the humorously innovative The Lego Movie, and the quietly thrilling The Imitation Game, featuring the year’s best performance from actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Not all films can be honored at the end of the year compilations, but this year I was glad to have seen so many films and give each of them a chance to shine in their own way.

All the same, if you feel differently about some of the films on my list, or you have seen another film that deserves to be recognized, please comment about it. Or make your own list. Movies are deemed as great films not from individuals, but from the masses, and the only way you can tell if a movie has truly accomplished something is if it has the same effect on all its viewers.

On that note, my fellow moviegoers, I end with a classic line from my favorite film critic: “I’ll see you at the movies.”

– David Dunn

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