Is WB destroying the Superman brand?

Superman Returns didn't fail because he was too much like the ideal Superman. It failed because of Super-baby's daddy with the weird stalker vibe, a bad script with another lame Lex Luthor real estate scheme, and a debt carried over from Tim Burton's Superman that affected the profit margin

I probably won't see Batman vs Superman because I didn't enjoy Man of Steel. I found it dreary, depressing and uninspiring.

Superman is an iconic character. Someone to aspire us all. Even if he had no powers, he would still be a hero. He's spent the lionshare of his history with established characterization as the type of hero who could find his way out of situations where he might need to kill. The move towards his 'boyscout' direction actually began under his original creators. He's bigger than any one creator who wants to make their mark. Batman carried a gun when he first appeared in comics, but he's the same situation applies to him, as well. But I'm just one fan, so I'm sure the movie will do just fine without my money. Even more than with comics, movie tickets are too overpriced to spend money on what you already know you probably won't enjoy

If it flies, lifts heavy stuff, and trades punches with other people that can do the same, it's superman enough for me.

GQ's review of Batman vs Superman:

BATMAN V SUPERMAN WILL MAKE YOU HATE BATMAN, SUPERMAN AND THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

This is a film so bad it wears you down and makes you wonder if there was ever such a thing as a hero anyway

STORY BY
HELEN O HARA
Tuesday 22 March 2016


It says a lot of very depressing things about our world right now that this astonishingly dumb film has real-life parallels. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is the story of a self-important billionaire with a casual attitude to the truth, who becomes paranoid about a segment of the immigrant population. He decides to take brutal and - as it happens - entirely unjustified and even self-endangering action against that immigrant, to the benefit of a rich psychopath who wants to distract everyone from their own nefarious grasp at power.


We cannot, however, credit this as satire. It’s too bombastic, too loud and ultimately too meaningless to qualify; any similarities to real life are entirely coincidental. The effort, following 2013’s Man Of Steel, to tint Superman darker with a dollop of the grim solemnity that Christopher Nolan brought to Batman is now complete, and we have a Superman film with barely a glimmer of daylight. Given that he’s powered by the stuff metaphorically as well as literally, that’s unfortunate.

And of course now he’s squaring off against Batman, for reasons that even the film can’t quite understand. “He has the power to wipe out the entire human race,” says Ben Affleck’s Batman of Henry Cavill’s Superman. “If we believe there is even a one percent chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty.” Bruce, you’re meant to be among the smartest men on Earth and you can’t tell 1 per cent from 100 per cent? That makes literally no sense.

This has a moment’s potential early on when we see the destruction rained on Metropolis last time from a ground-level view, with Bruce Wayne rushing to assist his apparently oblivious staff. There is a genuinely interesting question there about the effects of that (entirely needless) destruction, but it’s lost amid the endless thunder crashes and stormy skies and overbearing opera that follows, and the fact that no one seems able to say anything that isn’t portentous.

Ben Affleck is fine as Batman, once you get past the fact that he’s Ben Affleck in a waistcoat. The problem is the film’s vision of Batman. Fans of the same old beats will be thrilled to see the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents. Again. And young Bruce falling into a bat cave. Again. For fans of new beats, there’s the fact that this Batman is apparently some sort of demented Oracle, enduring endless, detailed visions of possible pasts and futures complete with fully choreographed fights. Oh, and this Batman repeatedly shatters his "one rule", and kills willy-nilly while demonstrating a disturbing taste for sadistic mutilation. The excuse is that Superman has driven him to the edge – and yet this guy is still supposed to be our hero. There’s a difference between an antihero and a full-on villain, but this film never figures out where the boundaries lie.

Meanwhile it's hard to imagine what Superman did to DC or Warners to earn the characterisation he has been saddled with here. He's never been further from a Big Blue Boy Scout; this guy doesn't seem to have a straightforwardly decent bone in his body and barely cracks a smile. Goofy and loveable Clark Kent is almost entirely absent, and when he is onscreen he’s every bit as stern and unforgiving as this Superman, berating Laurence Fishburne’s fun Perry White and failing to turn in copy on time (he has no excuse. He can type at super-speed).

Since Man Of Steel, even Ma and Pa Kent have been tainted with this air of nihilism and grim despair, cautioning Clark not to help anyone if it puts him at risk. It doesn't help that Henry Cavill, an actor who was both charming and funny in last summer’s Man From U.N.C.L.E. has apparently been directed to make his resting expression a sneer, the one look that should never cross Superman's face except in the presence of red kryptonite.

The supporting cast fare little better. Neither Amy Adams' Lois Lane nor Diane Lane's Martha Kent can get through to Superman, who seems more inclined to listen to hallucinations of his own, and Jeremy Irons' dry, sardonic Alfred is similarly brushed aside by Wayne. In fact, if there’s a scene where two characters could easily make things better by saying one simple thing to one another, you can bet good money that they will say something irrelevant and foreboding instead. It’s particularly frustrating with Lois, a smart character who keeps doing breathtakingly dumb things – and not in a fun, she’s-so-fearless way, but pointlessly, under the cover of strong-female-character window dressing.

Jesse Eisenberg, as Lex Luthor, takes full advantage of the resulting vacuum – both within the story and as an actor. He’s the only person onscreen who seems to be having any fun, or attempting anything really fresh with his take on an iconic villain. This Luthor has some of the same maniac energy as Ledger’s Joker, alongside a smart-ass calculation that’s all his own and a fantastically thick eccentric streak. But the film short-changes him too, while adding in duller subplots that could usefully be cut from the 152 minute running time. With about six fewer characters and a lot more lightness, this could have been something.

As for the "Dawn Of Justice" bit, Wonder Woman is the only member of the Justice League who gets any real screentime, and Gal Gadot is fine with the little she has – particularly in her very good fight scenes, which follow the moment when Batman makes the dumbest strategic decision in history. But the wider problem is that this film doesn’t make you want a Justice League film. It just wears you down and wears you out, making you wonder if there was ever such a thing as a hero anyway. Let them pummel each other if they must; just leave us out of it.[/i]

Bad reviews and bad word of mouth tanked Fantastic Four. But this is Batman and Superman, so undoubtedly, there will be plenty who go just because of the characters.

Since the reviews for Josh Trank's Fantastic Four were overwhelmingly bad, I feel like I dodged a bullet by not seeing it.

Reviews I've seen so far seem to be leaning in the same direction and these are characters I have an emotional investment in so I'm doubly turned off I really don't want to pay to see them treated poorly.

Yeah, Bruce Timm's JLU universe got it right. It's a shame a series of cartoons succeeded where big budget Hollywood movies failed.