(SPOILER WARNING (kind of)!!)
Putting it out here at the start; I did end up watching the Snyder Cut a few weeks after saying I wouldn't. I'm with the majority in saying that I ended up enjoying the movie, but I felt that there were certain moments that could've been trimmed or straight up removed and I never liked Martian Manhunter being in the movie. I'm not doing a full review of it as everyone and they're nan have talked about this film to death; I'm just giving you guys an idea of where I'm coming from when I make this statement:
I am fucking DONE with DC/WB.
I guess I should also give some further context as to my experience with this cinematic universe.
The Movies (Phase 1):
Starting with "Man Of Steel", I do not like this movie. It was ultimately a dreary, lifeless experience in the cinema with dull characters and story elements that made it seem like the studio didn't understand Superman. After at least 8 years since it came out, I have softened on it somewhat, but it still leaves me feeling cold whenever it enters my mind.
With that said, it was a hit at the box office, so a sequel was pretty much guaranteed. But as more information came out in regards to the casting and the insane amount of characters being featured in the story, I became less and less hopeful that the movie would turn out to be any good. Combine all of this with one of the most ridiculously stupid and unwieldy movie titles ever made, and I was all but certain that "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice" would be just as bad as "Man Of Steel".
However, I will admit that I was wrong.
IT WAS INFINITELY WORSE! I hate this movie. I absolutely fucking DESPISE this movie. The bad acting, the disrespectful characterisation, the slow pacing, the haphazardly edited action scenes, Jesse Einserberg as Lex Luthor, the poor attempts of conflict, the lazy attempts at setting up the Justice League movie; I couldn't find a single thing about this film that I liked. And I'm also in the minority that thinks that not only did the "Ultimate Cut" do nothing to rectify any of the issues with the theatrical version, but also introduced more gaping plot-holes that resulted in the story making less sense the more that one thinks about it. And the fact that THIS was what ended up being used to kickstart a cinematic universe (not an extended one) is just an even bigger kick to the dick.
This, in turn, made the next mess look like a step-up.
… Okay, a small step-up, but a step-up nonetheless. For every positive I can name, there's something else that detracts from the experience. I can at least say there was something of a straightforward narrative, despite it being undercut by a lack of character development for much of the cast. Some of the action is well directed, but the editing and lighting makes it hard to see. There were several good performances from the likes of Margot Robbie and Viola Davis, but then we had terrible villains like Enchantress and Joker. Throw in an inconsistent tone and a bizarre soundtrack as a means of competing with the "Guardians Of The Galaxy" movies (don't bother denying it), as well as the meddling from the studio that screwed over director David Ayer's vision, and you have a messy, albeit fun, action movie that only really exists to get rid of lesser known characters like El Diablo and Slipknot.
I actually reviewed this movie at length in my early days as a critic (don't read the review, it's shit), so I can only restate what I said there; this movie is good. Good action, good acting, good direction, and 2/3's of a good story. Unfortunately, that also leaves 1/3 of the story that wasn't good and a lacklustre antagonist that muddles the main message the movie was previously going for. Nonetheless, a disappointing ending is much preferable to me than a movie that seemed to actively piss me off with every decision that was made. I can at least recommend this over every other film in the first phase of DC's cinematic universe.
Which, naturally, includes the film that followed, as well as the greatest example of the problem present in current DC/WB.
There's no denying it; the theatrical version of this movie, commonly fan-coined as the "Josstice League", is a hot mess. The colour grading looks terrible, the tone is all over the place, the villain sucks, the cast are phoning most of the performances in the poorly done reshoot portions, the comedy misses far more often than it hits, and there was a severe lack of character development for most of the core cast; if anything, there was more character REGRESSION for the likes of Batman and Wonder Woman. I may not have liked the direction they took Batman in "Batman v Superman: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack", but I at least understood what they were trying to do; meanwhile, Josstice Batman is more akin to Phase 1 MCU Tony Stark, with snarky one-liners and no difference between playboy Bruce Wayne and vigilante Batman.
And it's appropriate that I end my experience with the DC Cinematic Universe by talking about Josstice Wheagon (that's what I'll call it now), as it is arguably the most notable example of DC/WB's biggest problem; the people in charge are absolute scum-fuckers.
Behind The Scenes:
This is pretty common information now, so I'm not really adding a lot to the table; but all of the stuff that happened on the set of the Josstice Wheagon reshoots (and the CW shows, to an extent) pretty much cemented how I would approach the DC Cinematic Universe from hereon out. During the reshoots, Joss Whedon was acting like an entitled, manipulative, stubborn arsehole; refusing to take criticism or make changes to his script based on notes from the cast, taking out all of Cyborg's character arc scenes to reduce him to the token black guy of the team, inserting needless moments of comedy in times of supposedly serious situations, refilming scenes that did NOT need to be refilmed, and being incredibly racist and misogynistic along the way. As an example, when Gal Gadot and her stunt actress refused to do the scene where Flash landed on Wonder Woman's boobs, Whedon took Gadot into a separate room and threatened to ruin her career unless she did the scene. It was gross, disgusting, and incredibly disrespectful towards the actress.
And when he finally responded to everything that was said about his performance, he acted even more like an entitled little shit-stain; having the gall to state that the cast were "rude" to him, stating that Gadot misunderstood what he was talking about due to English "not being her first language", and needlessly claimed that Ray Fisher, who was incredibly disheartened with all of the bigoted shit he had to face on-set from Whedon and the execs, was a bad actor and that his allegations (despite the multiple eyewitnesses to Whedon's disgusting behaviour) were unfounded.
It actually got to the point where Ben Affleck, who already was going through shit in his personal life due a recent divorce and problems with alcoholism, tried to convince the entire cast and crew to straight up leave, as everything that Whedon had done has left Affleck to become practically misanthropic with Batman which in turn lead to him walking out of the "Batman" film project that he was writing and producing. And with how all of this was also overseen by WB, who basically forced the entire crew to cut the film to exactly 2 hours while giving Whedon entire creative freedom, it basically also means that WB are just as complicit in this with how they never bothered to step in when Whedon overstepped his bounds.
So, TL;DR: Joss Whedon and WB are bad, and they should feel bad.
But it wasn't just limited to Josstice Wheagon being a complete clusterfuck behind the scenes; the CW DC shows were also a disaster in regards to how the cast and crew were treated. The main example comes from what was going on with "Batwoman", and why the lead actress, Ruby Rose, straight up quit after the first season finale. During production, exec Peter Roth supposedly hired a P.I to keep tabs on everything that Ruby was doing both on and off the set, made worse by how Roth would have "young women steam his pants […] while he was wearing them". But this was just the start of the misconduct; at one point, Ruby went through a serious accident that required immediate surgery on her spinal cord due to herniating two discs. And instead of allowing her the necessary time to recover and simply writing some episodes without Batwoman in the story, the execs all but demanded that she'd return to the set 10 days after the surgery due to Roth saying that Ruby "would be costing the studio millions and endangering the jobs of the cast and crew if she didn't return to work at that time". Combine this with WB refusing to adjust the Comic-Con schedule due to how her surgical scars hadn't yet fully healed and Ruby being forced to announce her appearance at the convention, furthermore exasperated when they refused to shut down during the fucking COVID-19 pandemic, and it's really no surprise that Ruby ended up quitting by the time the first season wrapped up filming.
And WBTV had the flimsiest excuses when approached about this; claiming that what Ruby said was "revisionist history" and that they fired her due to on-set behaviour, despite the fact that a stunt double suffered from 3rd degree burns all over their body and wasn't compensated, as well as how similar complaints levied towards producers on other CW projects for creating an unsafe and toxic work environment have cropped up from other actors and crew members before. Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Ruby would lie to her fans about the reasons why she left in order to stir up some shit about a show that she wasn't a part of anymore. And considering that WB has had a tendency to overstep their creative control on their DC projects in the past, I'm not even giving them the benefit of a doubt that they were telling the truth versus the one who was a victim of the studios carelessness and lack of safety protocols.
Conclusion:
It's because of the studios involvement, as well as how badly that these movies and TV shows have been handled, that I've made this choice with any future DC/WB projects coming out; until the studio finally take the time to actually show respect to their cast and crew and stop interfering where they are not wanted, I refuse to watch ANY of their DC movies after Matt Reeves' "The Batman" coming out next month. Because at the very least with the Reeves movie, there is the sign that the people behind it actually know what the fuck they're doing and are doing everything that they can to make the best movie that they possibly could. Is it possible that the movie will flop? With WB's track record, certainly. But it's equally possible that it can be the kick up the arse that WB need to finally understand that what they're doing is abhorrent and wholly unnecessary.
Otherwise, I am perfectly content in keeping up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe instead, as they have more good movies than bad compared to DC and Disney tries to not to interfere too much in the production process. I'll happily take several Marvel movies where the studio kept relatively hands-free, versus an entire laundry list of shitty decisions caused by forcibly direct studio involvement that results in their Cinematic Universe crashing and burning.
Regardless, this is just where I stand with the current situation regarding DC/WB. If you have your own thoughts about everything that's going on, please let me know in the comments. You can also show your support for my reviews by sharing this on various social media platforms, including Facebook (or Meta, whatever the fuck it's called), Twitter, and Instagram. You can also follow me on Twitter (@MediaHood23) and on Instagram (@mediahood23) if you're interested in a dumbarse Bri'ish twat who likes talking about movies. I also have a YouTube channel (Media Hood Reviews), so please feel free to subscribe and ring the bell for notifications.
Oh, and I guess check out my Facebook page (Media Hood Reviews)? I don't really pay much attention to that one.
But until next time, because there always will be one; this is Callum Lewis, the Media Hood, signing off!
#IStandWithRayFisher
