To me the first Keaton Batman movie still is one of the best batman movies made. Everything worked in that movie and the casting was right on the dot.
I remember I groaned when they announced Keaton as Batman because he'd been mainly a comedy actor. But he played Bruce Wayne to a Tee. Jack Nicholson was a perfect joker, he embodied the joker at the time. I even loved his henchman Bob.
I had the same feeling with Heath Ledger playing the Joker, I thought he was too much of a pretty boy actor for the role, but I admitted many times on this very board that I was completely wrong.
I can still go back to watching the original batman with Keaton when its on, just like I can watch the Batman with HL's joker everytime it comes on. The other two Bale Batman movies were ok, but not overwhelmingly awesome.
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Also, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portrayal of Black Manta is generally being praised. The movie did quite a good job of depicting his motivations. He was very "comic booky", but fit the tone of the movie.
The plot of Aquaman was very basic, but stating it isn't "cohesive" is just flat out wrong.
He was a side character in the movie for a total of 10 minutes and used mostly for comic relief. Not sure what his acting has to do with anything.
Is there a bias against DC films? I certainly think it merits discussion. Among fans, I have no doubt that general audiences like MCU films more than any other film franchise right now. When Aquaman started, the person behind me groaned when the DC logo flashed on screen and said “O no I forgot this was DC!”. Already before the film has even started, they had a negative perception of the movie. And that’s fine, I mean it’s not fine but we are all fans so it’s only natural to have a preference for one studio over the other. However, critics need to be unbiased and give an honest opinion, but when I see reviews like this about Aquaman I certainly wonder:
“If Aquaman were a worse movie it would have been a better one”
‘Aquaman’ Review: James Wan Can’t Salvage a Wannabe ‘Thor’ Movie
Wan’s “Aquaman” imitates Marvel’s “Thor” to an embarrassing degree.
Love Momoa -- but two hours and twenty-three minutes is plenty of time to contemplate why Warners cannot manage "the Marvel touch."
Just let the DCEU be it’s own thing. Stop comparing it to Marvel, and that goes with every other connected universe. When Universal announced their connected universe people all made fun of it and it was never able to grow, the concept could have worked. It’s like fans are afraid of competition or something. I think that’s part of the reason for the shade thrown on Man of Steel. It came out in 2013, the same year as Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. Now two of those films were fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and one wasn’t. I personally have Man of Steel miles above the other two and I think people are starting to agree more with me on that. I mean Iron Man 3 completely craps on the Mandrin and features a bumbling idiot actor that makes fart and poop jokes. Thor: The Dark World is probably the weakest of the MCU films and it’s received a higher tomatoes score than Aquaman and Man of Steel. And I'm not trying to throw shade at the MCU, they deserve all the success they are making right now and I'm super hyped for Captain Marvel and Avengers 4, and I'm hoping Black Panther gets a Best Picture nod.
Outside of the MCU, the DCEU is probably the 2nd best connected film universe and going forward it’s in great shape. A proper Justice League film would absolutely crush the box office right now. As great as Star Wars is, there last film flopped hard and their seems to be a civil war brewing among fans on where the franchise needs to go. The next Star Wars film will make a killing but it’s not exactly in a great place right now. Aquaman is already WB’s highest grossing film world wide of 2018 so they are going to keep giving us films set in this universe, might as well strap in and enjoy the ride, instead of finding fault with everything they do.
Also ya, The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight are the two best superhero films ever made IMO, I go back and forth between the two for my favorite. I wonder if Nolan put out his trilogy now what fans of superhero films would think. With a massive MCU fan base would they be as successful and as popular? Or would we hear the same tired critics saying the same things: Too long, dull, joyless, over serious, no quips, needs more humor.
The Keaton Batman films are great, but as a series of films, I have them below The Dark Knight films, the DCEU films and the Reeves films. If I were to rank the DC films from 11-20 I would probably go:
11) Batman Returns
12) Superman: The Movie
13) Batman
14) Justice League
15) Suicide Squad
16) Constantine
17) Superman Returns
18) Superman III
19) Batman & Robin
20) Batman Forever
People compare them because they have to be compared. It’s the nature of critique. It’s like the Vietnamese guys living in the forest in Tropic Thunder — they think Simple Jack is the greatest movie ever because it’s the only one they’ve ever seen. You need to compare products against each other.
Case in point, your post calling for people to stop comparing the MCU to the DCU features a whole paragraph doing exactly that.
Last edited by OutOfTheCube; 12-27-2018 at 01:47 PM.
No matter what happens going forward, I'm happy for Malmoa that Aquaman was a success, he seems like a solid dude. Maybe DC should just try to keep their heroes separate for a while and let them enjoy individual success.
Obviously shoe horning in team movies isn't working for them.
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No matter what happens going forward, I'm happy for Malmoa that Aquaman was a success, he seems like a solid dude. Maybe DC should just try to keep their heroes separate for a while and let them enjoy individual success.
Obviously shoe horning in team movies isn't working for them.
I can't see them doing much shoe horning together for a while because the two leaders of the Justice League in Batman and Superman are probably off the table for a few years for recasts and reboots.
Ok, I've been thinking about this for a bit.
Does Marvel always seem to get higher rated movies then DC? Yes absolutely yes.
But here's why.
I think that the Marvel Universe has done a far better job of making their hero's relatable and human under their masks and armor and a lot more relaxed.
Was Thor One not a great movie? Sure, but Thor himself was fun and human and flawed until the end. Even the secondary hero's in the Avengers universe are fun and enjoyable and you really want to like them.
DC in their movie verse has really struggled with it to the point, where you sometimes feel like they're characters are props. Batman or the Affleck Batman is just not as interesting or human as Bale's was. Nor was Superman, but the problem with Superman is really the focus on superman over Clark Kent, he's almost a robot. Wonder Woman came the closest, but again in the end of the first movie she ended up feeling like a above reproach DC hero and it really flattened her out in Justice League.
The other big problem is villains. The Villains to this point in the DC Universe have been pretty bad, like really bad.
Lex Luthor in Batman vs Superman was awful, and it goes more to a terrible miscast by an actor that plays the same guy in every movie. They basically made Lex into a one dimensional mustache swirling twit.
Steppenwolf in Justice League was actually really terrible and boring and over CGI'd and you didn't really care about him.
In fact there was so little emotional buy in during Batman vs Superman that you didn't in the end really care about either character and they needed Wonderwoman to add some color.
I also think that making the Justice League movie that soon was a massive mistake because there was no investment in the main characters, they hadn't been fleshed out.
Now you look at Marvel and they did a few things really well. They made real 3 dimensional characters and really fleshed them out before bringing them together in the Avengers. All of these characters had serious personalities and personality flaws that you as an audience member could get invested in.
Was Iron Man 2 bad? Sure but it helped build up the type of character that Stark was.
The other thing that has been really well done in the Marvel Universe is the villains. Thanos is an amazing sympathetic villain for example. Their villains are real villains with flaws and reasons that you can buy into them. Even the side villain in Civil War, the guy who drove the wedge was a sympathetic character that you could invest in.
In Wonderwoman Gail Gadot saved that movie because the villain, wasn't great or all that interesting, and again turned into a mustache twirling version of Darth Vader on downers.
DC is really missing out on the humanization of their characters and the need for people to invest in those characters.
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Your right OutofTheCube I fell for the same trap, I guess its inevitable they be compared to each other, it's only human nature. If Justice League came before Avengers it probably would have been better received, and if Marvel ever makes a Namor movie it will be compared to Aquaman. I just hope that because DC is building their connected universe after the MCU started, people will not just assume it's a Marvel clone and will let it be it's own thing. People forget the missteps of the MCU at the start.
You made some good points CaptainCrunch, but I would counter with that's fundamentally the difference between the two brands. Marvel heros are much more your every man if you will, and plus I think MCU has changed a bunch of the characters from the comics. From what I know Iron Man and Thor are different from the comics but I haven't read the books so I can't say for certain. The MCU heroes are all very charismatic, and well received. There really isn't one casting that people don't like. Being around for over 10 years and 20 films people have grown up with these heroes, and we are just getting there with the DCEU heros. Certainly Gadot and Mamoa are well liked but that's about it so far.
If you compare the Justice League to the Avengers, the heroes in Justice League are much more powerful, and maybe for some people too powerful. DC heroes as Grant Morrison said are more like your Greek Gods. But you can still relate to them in other ways. Batman experienced a great tragedy and that caused him to turn into Batman, Superman is the classic American immigrant story where he comes from a different world to live in America. Wonder Woman leaves her home and everything she knows to help mankind. Aquaman is a man from two different worlds and doesn't know which one to embrace.
The villains have been hit or miss for DC, but up until now the same can be said for Marvel. Zod to me was great, same with Orm and Black Manta. Luthor and Joker are incomplete for me, still like to see more. Enchantress & Steppenwolf were both terrible.
MCU has Thanos, Killmonger, Winter Soldier as excellent villains, but also has one's like Malekith, Mandrin, Ultron, Ronan, and Whiplash which were forgettable.
What you perceive as bias could be nothing more than someone who doesn't like DC films for perfectly valid reasons. It doesn't mean they're going to hate. It just means that based on past experiences, their expectations went lower.
There's definitely some kind of bias there. Every Marvel movie seems to land at least a 80% on RT.
DC movies seemed doomed from the start. If you go on YouTube, the early reviews for Aquaman are much much worse than the later ones. YouTubers were anticipating mass hatred for the movie, so they made a bunch of derpy hate videos. It then turned out that everyone liked the movie, and people started backtracking.
In the current environment, reviewers gain audience share by appealing to the audience and whatever is trendy. If reviewers expect a movie to be poorly received, they'll shape their opinion to attract the largest audience.
Another big part of the issue is that Zach Snyder really did make a bunch of crap. DC movies have to deal with that reputation. Meanwhile, Marvel has really refined their movies, into a sometimes safe, but solid product. As a I stated earlier, the initial run of Marvel post Iron Man, was not the greatest. Hulk, Thor, and Captain America were mediocre to bad. However, Marvel really responded to this and molded their product into something much better. DC is still figuring things out, and they had the unfortunate reality of dealing with Snyder.....who wanted to have Batman get raped in prison.
As for the characters being more relatable on the human level, that's got a lot to do with the actors they've chosen. For example, RJD really knock it out of the park. I wouldn't, however, call Tony Stark a more relatable character than Clark Kent.
What you perceive as bias could be nothing more than someone who doesn't like DC films for perfectly valid reasons. It doesn't mean they're going to hate. It just means that based on past experiences, their expectations went lower.
So....someone doesn't like DC films and they then apply that dislike to all new DC films....is that not the definition of bias?
I dunno how strong your Aquaman review theory holds up. Critic reviews started in the 80% range during its initial day(s) on RT. Once the weekend hit it slowly slipped from Fresh status to a mere 64%, which is worse than Marvel's worst (Thor: Dark World at 66%). You can debate till the cows come home where the better DCU movies stand compared to Marvel, but most would agree there are at least ten Marvel movies better than anything DC has put out.
Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Man of Steel (which I have a soft spot for), are pretty middle of the road movies. They would be comparable to say the Ant-Man movies for me. Good movies, that either have problems or don't have the depth to reach Marvel's best.
I dunno how strong your Aquaman review theory holds up. Critic reviews started in the 80% range during its initial day(s) on RT. Once the weekend hit it slowly slipped from Fresh status to a mere 64%, which is worse than Marvel's worst (Thor: Dark World at 66%). You can debate till the cows come home where the better DCU movies stand compared to Marvel, but most would agree there are at least ten Marvel movies better than anything DC has put out.
Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Man of Steel (which I have a soft spot for), are pretty middle of the road movies. They would be comparable to say the Ant-Man movies for me. Good movies, that either have problems or don't have the depth to reach Marvel's best.
The initial official reviews always slide. Studios are able to butter up reviewers and even, in some cases, will pick and choose which reviewers are allowed to see their movies.
I do agree that clearly WW and Man of Steel don't reach the best of Marvel. Aquaman was definitely a different kind of enjoyment for me though. Nothing intellectual, but in terms of a pure visual experience, the movie is just enjoyable and fun to watch. Fast and the Furious meets Avatar. I haven't enjoyed a comic book movie on a pure action sense like that since Blade II.
For me anyways, it's not necessarily a competition. I enjoy a lot of different comic book movies for different reasons. The only two I would consider genuinely good movies (in terms of plot, acting, character development, etc.) are the Dark Knight and Logan, although there is a case to be made for V for Vendetta.
You made some good points CaptainCrunch, but I would counter with that's fundamentally the difference between the two brands. Marvel heros are much more your every man if you will, and plus I think MCU has changed a bunch of the characters from the comics. From what I know Iron Man and Thor are different from the comics but I haven't read the books so I can't say for certain. The MCU heroes are all very charismatic, and well received. There really isn't one casting that people don't like. Being around for over 10 years and 20 films people have grown up with these heroes, and we are just getting there with the DCEU heros. Certainly Gadot and Mamoa are well liked but that's about it so far.
I think that the fundemental differences are this, and this is my opinion only
In the Marvel Universe The people behind the mask or armor or whatever brutally define the hero.
Tony Stark - games the system, he cheats with technology and when the technology fails he's exposed. We saw that when he used technology to create the ultimate cheat in Ultron. But at the end of the day that concept was purely ego driven. We saw it in the trailer for the next movie, when his technology failed to save his friends and defeat the bad guy, he sounds completely defeated. He's the ultimate expression from his statement in the Avengers where instead of letting his friends crawl over him to get past the barbed wire, he'd cut the barbed wire. This makes him a all too human, his flaws are manifest and they and his ego are a constant form of jeopardy.
Bruce Banner - The man inside of the hero is really a passenger and everytime the Hulk comes out he loses a greater amount of control. The ultimate illustration of sacrifice, loss of control and the willingness to do anything in the face of ultimate defeat
Captain America - The idealist. He believes in the ultimate good of nation and his friends and is thrown for a loop when those don't turn out to be true. He's trapped in his own ideology and his whole feeling of worth comes from that. He also feels less valuable then the others because he knows that his edge like Tony Starks comes from a lab. However he's the counter argument of Tony Stark in that he's willing to make the sacrifice play.
The Marvel hero's are all fundamentally born from human and were granted their powers through intentional acts, accidents and circumstance. Because of that their flaws get magnified 10 times over.
The exceptions in the Marvel World.
Thor - The unworthy god. He started out as your spoiled brat, granted god like powers and the promise of ascension to rule. Because of that he was badly exposed as believing that his feelings of self worth and ego were the right path. He did the rare thing for a hero and that's change and became more human after having his powers stripped away from him. He became less internally focused.
DC - So here's where I think the differences are. In the DC world the human faces under the mask are the facade and the hero's and powers define the characters, and in a lot of ways that's what I think makes them less interesting.
Super man - The god among men. He has a unbreakable set of morals he's the strongest and fastest and most indestructible being out there, but he won't go out of his way to kill, or to take matters into his own hands when he really should (IE take over the word). This translates directly into Clark Kent who is really a disguise and nothing more. Superman is never afraid to take risks because realistically he's always going to win. Because of that Clark Kent is has to act like a slice of wonder bread. There's really not that much that's interesting about Clark Kent the person. He never falls to temptation (Well there was that one time in Alaska).
Wonder Woman - Again she's a god among humans, and she stands as the paragon of virtue. Because of that her only real flaw is her understanding of the humans below her, but we never really get to see them dig in on that to any great degree. Diana Prince is just there as a skin suit to the god underneath, and WW's values and the way she expresses herself come through as Diana Prince.
Batman - Normally the most interesting character of all. He's basically Iron Man if Iron Man was a psychopath. Batman knows he's probably the weakest character in his universe, he wasn't given any gifts at all and is a black hole of anger in a mask. Because of that like Tony Stark he looks to game the system through technology. But somewhere between the Bale Batman and The Affleck Batman something was lost. Instead the writers of SM vs BM and the Justice league said we're going to make him older and more angry. But what made Christian Bale's batman seem special was the same thing that made Keaton's Batman special in that there was still a bit of humanity left in him and also you could feel an unwillingness to be stuck in that life. Instead we get morally angry Batman who has embraced it and even without the mask on Bruce Wayne just doesn't seem to be what he used to be which was the moral compass and counter to Batman. Batman and Bruce Wayne in the new movies are the same guy with or without the mask.
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It's one thing to say "I don't think I will like this movie because I haven't liked previous DC films."
It's another to say "I absolutely refuse to like this movie even though I haven't seen it because DC sucks."
I was responding to a post that can basically be paraphrased as:
Aquaman is a bad movie. The only reason people are saying that it's kind of good is, due to bias, as they are saying it's only good relative to DC movies.
My point is the exact opposite is more likely true. People expect DC movies to be bad, and that seeps into their enjoyment of the film.
Basically, what I am saying is that Aquaman is most certainly not benefiting from being associated with the previous DCEU movies.
Can't argue Cap Crunch, I agree with alot of what you wrote. I think it shows the difference between the two companies. When I read a WW book for every 50 pages she is WW 45 pages and Diana Prince only 5 while a Spider Man book is about 25 pages Spidey and 25 pages Peter Parker.
Also Snyder is pretty much removed from anything from the DCEU. Judging the upcoming slate of movies would be like judging the Flames based on Gulutzan instead of Peters.
Haters going to hate. Love that half are from DC. DC gets a hit with Aquaman quick let's start the hate train on SHAZAM! Can't wait until SHAZAM is a giant hit
I can see a preconceived negativity towards DC films. I havnt seen Aquaman but already assume it sucks and have no desire to. That's what happens when you release such horrible movies.
It will take an amazing movie to get past the stink and set DC on a good path again.
Really? I think Aquaman was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was terrible I thought.
Shazam looks like it is a good idea that will be terribly pulled off by Hollywood imo.
What were you looking for going in?
I wanted a fun action movie that looked cool and it delivers on that. My expectation was that it would be a terrible cheesy mess as aqua man is a terrible hero. Instead it was an entertaining 2hrs that didn’t try to do too much.
I don’t think you can screw up with Shazam given they casted Zachary Levi. Chuck in a superhero suit, sign me up.
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