Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 24th, 2016)

[a-dev]

Are we to understand that in deflecting Doomsday's heat-blast with her shield WonderWoman inadvertently wipes out Metropolis? Looks like it from the editing of that trailer. That city just can't catch a break.

 

[Jameson Rook]

Just saw the trailer, is that Doomsday? Looks uninspired.

I hope there's a good story that could stand on it's own after all is said and done. What I'm seeing is marketing to get these two together, with Bats and Supes almost being caricatures of themselves rather than the real deal.

 

[ironwez20]

Why can't we ever have a serious buissness man lex Luthor in the movies?
Why must it always be some silly goofy wacky person?
The cartoons portray him as this sly buissness man who can co troll the media in this he just looks really goofy.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Are we to understand that in deflecting Doomsday's heat-blast with her shield WonderWoman inadvertently wipes out Metropolis? Looks like it from the editing of that trailer. That city just can't catch a break.

It was Wonder Woman's turn to destroy Metropolis

 

[DiFabio]

I just watched the trailer and it just feels uneven, like it doesn't know what it wants to be. There's some serious acting...but then Luthor shows up and Doomsday and the weird humor. Maybe it's just a bad trailer and the film is much better.

I just watched the older trailers, the teaser and #1, the tone and feel is way different. Really strange how inconsistent this one is compared to those.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

He got his wish for a "fun" trailer... and now he calls it a Saturday morning cartoon. He still liked it I guess...

Forbes Welcome

Spoiler

'

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice' Trailer Goes 'Full Cartoon'





Scott Mendelson , CONTRIBUTOR
I cover the film industry.
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Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

As promised, we’ve got a new Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer to dissect, even if it’s 48 hours later than theoretically promised. Well, you’re going to dissect, I’m just going to enjoy it in all of its glorious absurdity. Because it really feels like the exact opposite of the “dark and serious” Chris Nolan films or even the “grounded” Man of Steel. Contrary to what everybody claims, this thing likes like a mega-budget episode of Batman: The Animated Series (or Batman: The Brave and the Bold), and that may be a wonderful thing. This looks absolutely daffy, maybe even a little campy, in a potentially glorious fashion.

As I noted on Monday morning, there are two things that Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. needs to sell for the next four months. The first is an emphasis on “fun” with a dash of “kids can see this” adventure/humor thrown in amid the grimdark posturing. We can debate to what extent that was accomplished. Yeah, it’s grimdark and angsty, but in that larger-than-life superhero comic book kind of way that makes everyone’s dialogue sound like they are coming from giant word balloons. Yeah, Jesse Eisenberg looks pretty darn entertaining as an outright campy Lex Luthor. And that closing shot, which I won’t spoil, is something out of a Saturday morning cartoon nerd’s wildest dreams.

Once again I will praise Ben Affleck’s awesomely cartoon-ish “angry face” as a wonderful thing that should become an Internet meme in four months if the fates have their way. This trailer feels big. As in, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the biggest superhero movie and/or most outwardly cartoonish superhero you’ve seen in a long while!” And that’s more important than you think right now.

Tonight we saw the conclusion to the two-part The Flash and Arrow which presumably sets up next year’s more cosmically-oriented time-travel ensemble show Legends of Tomorrow. Fox’s Gotham just wrapped its midseason finale on an allegedly high note and CBS’s Supergirl just got picked for a full season. Oh, and that show, which is getting better and better, just nabbed Lexi Alexander (Punisher: War Zone) to direct a episode, while Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is still going somewhat strong in season three. Of course the superhero project everyone is talking about remains that episodic PTSD drama that premiered on Netflix, namely Jessica Jones.

So here we are, with Hollywood offering comic book superhero movies as the biggest of the big would-be blockbusters, and the comic book adaptations that are currently dominating the pop culture landscape are television shows. Avengers: Age of Ultron may make the big bucks, but the hardcore geeks are talking as much about the smaller-scale likes of Daredevil and The Flash. You can even make the case that these televised superhero shows are doing a better job of telling comic book-friendly stories in an episodic environment as opposed to the “only tell the biggest stories” medium that is modern motion pictures.



To a certain extent, that’s the idea for Marvel at the moment. The movies are the big budget spectacles while the television shows tell the smaller, soap opera-esque stories. Heck, the movies tend to highlight the rich and/or powerful characters in the Marvel universe while the TV shows concentrate on the working poor and those who have to clean up the literal and figurative mess left behind by those pesky Avengers. But more importantly, since comic books are at heart soap operas, the televised shows have arguably become an ideal, if not the ideal, format to tell these stories.

With special effects, production design, and action choreography having caught up to its big screen brethren to at least a respectable degree, we now have a situation where a show like The Flash not only tells wonderfully written and acted long form stories of the Scarlet Speedster and his friends but also offers cosmic stories and quality special effects to the point where it will be a challenge to offer a cinematic Flash that is all that different from the TV show.

And if the whole “television versus the movies” debate advances to a point where TV claims not just the small-scale adult drama or the thoughtful character study as a prize but also the comic book superhero adaptation, well, that’s not good for the movie business. And that’s where Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes in. At this point in time, the one thing that movies can still provide is mega-budget spectacle.

You’re not going to get a fully operational Batman going toe-to-toe with Superman on a small screen budget. The advantage of the big screen and resulting production values is the ability to tell a true “battle of the gods” type epic that you just couldn’t do (yet) on a TV budget.

And a week after Captain America: Civil War debuted a trailer that (understandably) looked closer in scale to the TV shows than the movies, it is worth pointing out that a movie like Batman v Superman is valuable to the notion that superhero comic book movies do have at least one major advantage over their televised brethren. TV is thus far succeeding at long form comic book storytelling in a variety of superhero genres.

You’ve got the street-level adventure (Arrow), the police/crime procedural (Gotham), the hard sci-fi fantasy (The Flash), the optimistic female-centric empowerment feminist fantasy (Supergirl), the pessimistic female-centric feminist psychological drama (Jessica Jones), the ensemble investigative sci-fi story (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and the superpowered fantasy-centric team show (Legends of Tomorrow).

Really, if you boil it down, the only thing you’re missing is the supernatural entry (sorry, Constantine) and the lack of the so-called “big guns.” So you still have to go to the movies to see Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and the like. And you still have to go to the movies to see the Dark Knight (played by movie star Ben Affleck) and the Man of Steel (played by… uh… Henry Cavill was super charming in Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and you still need movie budgets to watch these two iconic heroes unleash hell on each other and/or their opponents in a city-wrecking battle that takes up an entire IMAX screen. For the moment, that is the advantage that superhero cinema offers.

And that is why it’s important that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice sells the scale and size of its would-be epic narrative. You could make the same argument for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, but frankly the X-Men series has often been comparatively smaller-scale give or take the future stuff in Days of Future Past and some of the bigger beats in X-Men: First Class and X2: X-Men United. So of course this trailer promises larger than life superhero action, even if that final 20 seconds drops a pretty huge spoiler about the final act of the film.

But anyway, in a skewed way, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t just selling the viability of Warner Bros.’ DC Expanded Universe franchise as something on par with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also, by virtue of its scale and size, selling the very idea that some comic book superhero stories are just too big for television in the non-animated format. Not better or worse, but just too big. Because if television really does become the dominant medium for comic book superhero adaptations, well… let’s just say there is a very good reason for the powers that be to hope that doesn’t happen

 

[meanstreak]

Wonder Woman looks amazing IMO

 

[pturtle]

Yikes, that has to be the worst trailer of the year.

I'm actually not sold on Affleck anymore as Batman, he looks the part, and has the best suit so far, but hasn't done a single thing in these trailers to impress me. Cavil seemed to be doing a far better job in that trailer and I actually think will be the stand out of the film.

Also, I know I'm in the minority here, but I actually respect what Eisenberg is doing as Lex. For the first time, he's actually acting a bit different, instead of doing his usual Zuckerberg rendition again. Obviously all the over the top comedic stuff he was doing is a front, we'll probably see his more serious side once his motivation is revealed.

By the way, I actually thought Doomsday was Abomination for a split second


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[Hologram AI]

Are we to understand that in deflecting Doomsday's heat-blast with her shield WonderWoman inadvertently wipes out Metropolis? Looks like it from the editing of that trailer. That city just can't catch a break.

It's just bad editing.

The heat blast that Doomsday does looks like the one Batman dodges with his grapple hook in one of the earlier trailers.

 

[Buttmunch]

I guess Marvel wins this round again. Very disappointing. I knew Lex was going to be awful when they cast Eisenberg. They were going to have to change him drastically to fit his casting choice. Cranston would have been far, far, far better. I guess we can only hope he gets cast as Gordon eventually.

Doomsday? Seriously? I knew they were doing something with Zod's corpse, but making Doomsday from it? And Wonder Woman just seems so tacked on as well. I sure hope the editing of this trailer is to blame, because this looks like a serious train wreck.

 

[HammitChris]

Wonder Woman looks amazing IMO

I think she was the best part. I'm not a fanboy for DC or Marvel because I grew up liking both, but the Doomsday design and cosplay Lex have me worried about this movie. I'll still go see it, but not nearly as excited about it as I was. Looking forward to Star Wars, Civil War, and BvS in that order


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[Bad Horse]

I just watched the older trailers, the teaser and #1, the tone and feel is way different. Really strange how inconsistent this one is compared to those.

Exactly! I was somewhat excited about this movie due to the tension and serious tone of the first two trailers. It looked very compelling. But, like a terminator, this trailer traveled back in time and killed all of the excitement generated by the first two trailers.

 

[HammitChris]

I guess Marvel wins this round again. Very disappointing. I knew Lex was going to be awful when they cast Eisenberg. They were going to have to change him drastically to fit his casting choice. Cranston would have been far, far, far better. I guess we can only hope he gets cast as Gordon eventually.

Doomsday? Seriously? I knew they were doing something with Zod's corpse, but making Doomsday from it? And Wonder Woman just seems so tacked on as well. I sure hope the editing of this trailer is to blame, because this looks like a serious train wreck.

The Lex from the Smallville series would have even been better...right there with you


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[a-dev]

The Lex from the Smallville series would have even been better...right there with you


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Was about to say that.

 

[pturtle]

I still think the movie is going to be good, but that was just a horrible trailer. It tries hard to show the movie has some humor and hopefully it did a bad job at that because there won't be much humor at all.


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[DiFabio]

And I just remembered that Aquaman is in this. Holy hell.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

It looks like a 90's superhero film...but with modern CGI.

 

[a-dev]

I'm off to bed. I expect to have some 30-40 pages to read through tomorrow. I'm wondering when the arguments between fanboys and haters will start....

 

[**16k**]

No arguments for me... I may be the only one, but I loved it!

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

And I just remembered that Aquaman is in this. Holy hell.

He'll probably show up riding on a ******* whale at the end saying some cheesy one liner and then BOOM...CREDITS.