Friday, March 25, 2016

change in plan

Unless I go insane in the next few hours, I'm likely not going to see "Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice" tonight, but will instead see it tomorrow morning—ish—when there won't be much of a crowd. Ligament will not be in attendance; she's too swamped with grad studies now that the semester has sunk its claws into her. That may be a good thing: I'm hearing almost nothing but bad reviews about the movie: it's overstuffed, it's too lugubrious, it's convoluted, etc. One of the bloggers I trust the most, John Lee of The Korean Foreigner, has penned what is likely a scathing review: I read only the first couple lines of what John wrote (thanks to my blog feed, which shows the first paragraph or so of people's blog entries) because he warned that his post was full of spoilers, and I didn't want to read anything too specific until I'd had a chance to see the movie for myself. From what I read, though, I get the feeling that John was outraged by what a time-waster the film was.

The critical reviews (see Metacritic here) are so widely negative that I'm wondering whether it's even worth spending $8 and three hours of my life to watch BvSDOJ ("Beavis! Dodge!"). But as my old high-school French teacher used to say, curiosity killed the kitty, and I'm going to succumb to my all-too-human attraction to stories. This story might be told badly, but I'll have to see for myself, especially since part of the plot is inspired by Frank Miller's mid-1980s The Dark Knight Returns, in which an aging Batman's final battle is against Superman, who has become a godlike arm of the American government (it's implied that Superman ripped off one of Green Arrow's arms in an attempt to keep that obstreperous superhero in line).

So, yes: up at the crack of 8 or 9 tomorrow morning, then a 10:55AM screening of the movie over at the Lotte World Tower Cinema, and perhaps a nice lunch while I'm at the mall.

Unless I experience a sudden reversal and decide to hit the theater tonight.


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3 comments:

Charles said...

Yeah, I would say that this film has been widely panned, but I think that would be an understatement. The outrage being directed at this film is stunning. HJ wanted to see this for some reason--I will be doing my best to try to talk her out of it.

SJHoneywell said...

It does make me wonder why studios seem to be willing to throw money at Zack Snyder.

I can't be bothered. Then again, I still haven't seen Deadpool, so...

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

On my Twitter feed, Canadian tweeter Barry White (no relation) saw the film and registered his deep disappointment. He wrote something like, "I saw this film so that you don't have to. Seriously—don't."

Steve,

I read—and you probably did, too—that BvSDOJ cost almost half a billion dollars to make. I wonder whether the film will manage to break even with global sales.