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Oct. 9th, 2013 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficSo you may not remember this, but soon after The Dark Knight and Superman Returns came out, Warner Brothers was working on a Justice League movie that would be separate from both those continuities, with a bunch of no-name and somewhat odd actors taking the lead roles (Santiago Cabrera would be Aquaman. You know… that guy). There were even rumors it would be motion-captured, like Beowulf. There were various reasons behind it falling through, but basically, people wanted to see Brandon Routh and Christian Bale on screen together, not D.J. Cotrona and Armie Hammer. But was the shutdown a loss or a blessing in disguise? Let’s read the script and find out.
We start off with Wonder Woman talking about “Justice. Truth. Peace” just to piss off everyone that still likes America (seriously, when will DC Comics get that it will always sound awkward to change Truth, Justice, and the American Way to anything else?). The Justice League—at least some of them—are attending a funeral in all-black costumes, which must make the merchandising people happy. “Buy Funeral Wonder Woman with Super-Grieving Action!”
The whole gang’s at this funeral except for Batman—WHERE COULD HE BE?--making this pretty much the most egregious schmuck bait ever. Say what you will about X-Men: The Last Stand, but at least they didn’t pretend they were ever going to kill off Hugh Jackman.
Flashback to two days ago (“THE WORLD IS AT PEACE”) and we see Barry Allen and Iris Allen… ugh. Sorry, but I think science has conclusively proven that everyone who likes Barry Allen more than Wally West touches themselves while thinking about their siblings. He’s just such a nothing character, and Wally West has so much more going on. At least his storyline here isn’t quite so offensive, but they still pretty much give him Wally’s “dorky jokester” characterization from JLU. And there’s no mention of him wearing a bowtie, so really, what’s the point?
Anyway, they go to “Planet Krypton,” a superhero theme restaurant named after the site of the mass extinction that isolated Superman forever. Isn’t that a little like a Native American restaurant named “Trail of Tears”? Anyway, they’re sooooo in love, Barry sees Wonder Woman talking on TV about the usual peace malarkey and thinks she’s hot, then we see that something called ‘Brother Eye’ is keeping tabs on him. Brother Eye, of course, is a creation of Batman, who is described as sitting at his computer with his feet up. Yeah, can’t picture it.
I gotta wonder how this would play coming off The Dark Knight, where Batman specifically rejected this kind of surveillance state thing. I know, I know, different Batmen. The storyline here combines the Brother Eye plot with the Tower of Babel plot, so Bats isn’t just cataloging the future Leaguers’ weaknesses, but monitoring them. Couple problems with that:
The Tower of Babel plot worked because Batman was on a team with the others, so there was a betrayal. Here, they don’t know him from Adam. There’s no betrayal beyond “hey, haven’t you heard about what great guys we are? How can you take precautions against us not being great guys?” Yeah, tell it to Lex Luthor and his ninety percent approval rating.
Second, the Brother Eye plot was more extreme than Tower of Babel (which was just Batman having contingency plans in case a superhero went rogue), but it sprung from more extreme reasons—Batman knowing that the League had brain-washed him. Yeah, you could argue that was dumb, but by removing that dumbness, you take out what it justified. So given all the shit Batman pulls in this script, I can’t imagine him ending up as a Superfriend. Imagine being friends with someone if, the first time you met, you learned that he was stalking you, taking pictures of your kids, and planning to kill you.
Anyway, Batman changes into a tux to attend his surprise birthday party (a tad too reminiscent of Batman Begins?) where we meet our villain for the evening, Maxwell Lord, a charismatic millionaire whose charm and good looks hide the most sinister, the most evil, the most ruthless…
Oh, he was going to be played by Jay Baruchel? No wonder even DC knew to shitcan this thing.
Anyway, mark me down as having the usual misgivings to Maxwell Lord being a Big Bad. It’s just a slap in the face to a large segment of DC’s readers and, since his backstory is entirely manufactured for the film, they could’ve used any evil millionaire or telepath for this character. Lex Luthor alone, with a little work, could be a much more convincing antagonist.
So Max—I mean, ‘someone’—hijacks the Brother Eye system the moment Batman has left… lucky for him Batman didn’t run back to get his drink or anything and see the big “COMPUTER NOW EVIL” message on the big screen. The system targets Martian Manhunter and I’m sorry, but here we come to another problem of the whole enterprise.
Remember how Avengers did such a great job of reintroducing the characters, so even if you hadn’t seen the Captain America movie, you’d get what his deal is? Well, this script doesn’t do that. It’s acting like a sequel to a bunch of solo movies that were never made. Martian Manhunter’s first scene is literally him dressed as a police detective, pulling up to check-out something, and then getting flamed. Nothing to explain his character, to introduce him to the audience, or even to explain his very odd powers. The writers are banking on all these characters being iconic, but c’mon, if you went to a man on the street and asked him who the Martian Manhunter was, let alone if he was vulnerable to fire, you’d get lynched.
And yeah, it doesn’t take all that much to set-up the Flash—he’s really fast—but cramming in so many characters just because they’re the traditional line-up means that none of them stand out. Unlike Avengers, there’s no interesting pairings or dynamics to explore. You could take out any number of characters and it would just make for a leaner, meatier story.
Anyway, it turns out that Maxwell owns the Planet Krypton chain and is doing free catering for Bruce’s party, with all the Kryptoburgers you can eat (“I don’t eat food with names, Max,” Bruce says… doesn’t all food have names?). After that weird digression, back to Barry Allen, who Iris is telling “Wonder Woman’s a bit of a blowhard, don’t you think? And how come she gets all the credit for World Peace?”
I don’t even know where to begin, there. First off, the villain’s eventual plan is one of those “peace through superior evil” deals, so why is he bothering with that if the world IS at peace (with even Batman commenting on how street crime in Gotham is at such a low as to BORE him)? Second—Wonder Woman? A blowhard? Isn’t that like accusing (insert topical pop star reference here) of being too modest and free of Autotune? But hey, if the only contact between two females in this movie is one of them calling another a bitch from afar…
Suddenly, we get one of those extremely topical news reports, where we find out that J’onn, while on fire, has gotten into his car, started it up, accelerated to 90mph, and NOW loses control to hit a fuel depot at Denver International Airport, turning one guy on fire into a national disaster. Good going, Manhunter. Now we know why the League kept you around for so long.
The Flash hurries to Denver, where he puts out the fire and runs into Wonder Woman, where—I’m sorry, really—we hit another issue with the script. It’s really unclear what relationship all these people have to each other. They all seem friendly, and say they’ve wanted to form a team for a while, but Flash is just now meeting Wonder Woman, while other people have these long-time friendships that they make reference to. And this isn’t even the most outrageous example of the backstory being unnecessarily complicated. When you compare it to the Avengers all meeting up for the first time, it makes this story seem like a much smaller deal. More “oh, we finally got around to being in the same room at the same time” than “THE WORLD NEEDS ALL ITS CHAMPIONS FOR THE FIRST TIME!”
As Wondy and Flash try to save the flaming Manhunter, Bruce is still at the party, running into Talia Al Ghul, who is described as “exotic” and “from some other country, some other world, almost” with “dark, almond eyes.” So no wonder they tried to get Australian super-blonde Teresa Palmer to play her.
And get this: we have Maxwell Lord explain her and Batman’s entire backstory to Bruce. “That, my friend, is Talia al Ghul. Daughter of Ra’s. The Demon Head. You must remember…? It’s legend, almost. Ra’s fought the Batman. And lost. Now he’s gone. And here she is. She was in love with the Batman. Or so they say. She betrayed her father for him. Or so they say. And in return, he broke her heart. Or so they say…”
GODDAMN, that is some exposition. When coupled with Batman Begins—which was supposed to be another continuity, I know, but is still the general audience’s only exposure to Ra’s Al Ghul—it just comes off as a really silly retcon. You can’t just have this gigantic conflict that informs and creates the entire plot of this movie and then just relegate it to something Maxwell Lord monologues while psychically giving Bruce a boner (not kidding).
Oh, we also get a flashback to Talia kissing Batman and then him rejecting her—even though the entire reason they can’t get together in the comics is her loyalty to Ra’s, so you’d think if she ever actually betrayed her father to Batman for good, he’d be busting out the engagement ring—in fact, him not doing that makes him look like an asshole on the level of Jason kicking Medea to the curb. What redeeming qualities does Batman have in this script, at all? His bad decisions pretty much lead to everything awful that happens.
After a quick reminder that Talia wants Batman’s bod—and how in the world is all this public knowledge, to the point that Bruce immediately says to Maxwell “the only way you could know this is by being a fucking supervillain, you fucking supervillain”?—we cut to Wonder Woman’s “conservatory,” where she’s submerging J’onn in water to keep him from burning up. Funny J’onn couldn’t think of that instead of trying to drive to wherever it was he was going.
Superman shows up and is apparently old friends with Wonder Woman, and Flash is in awe of him, another study note cribbed from Wally’s book. Although Barry actually makes comments about Wonder Woman and Superman fucking, since they’re standing close to each other, and because he is the worst.
Anyway, the Manhunter was set on fire by a sea creature that spit fire, which is all the justification this script needs to rope in Aquaman—or King Arthur, as he insists on going by, so any non-comic-book-reader has got to be wondering why Mrs. Pendragon’s little boy is ruling an underwater city with a hook hand.
Meanwhile, Maxwell is in his lair—and if all this paranoia, failed romance, and people burning alive isn’t cheery enough for you, now we see that Maxwell is staring at dead children.
“Walls lined with old TV’s. 1970’s era, black and white, early color. Consoles. Stacked to the ceiling. Hundreds of them.
And on each one a CHILD’S FACE. All BOYS. Anywhere from 6 to 13 years old. Flickering images. No sounds, but they’re all talking to the camera. Interview subjects. Some giggling. Some stoic. Some crying. And under each image, NUMBERS. 1971-1983… 1971-1979… 1971-1981… 1971-1977… And a single word: DECEASED.”
That is a lot of effort to put into remembering dead children. I mean, yeah, dead kids, but at a certain point, are you trying to memorialize people or are you trying to have sex on Girls?
Barry, because he is the worst, continues to hog the character development by being so in love with Iris, you guys. And we’re introduced to Wally West, a 17-year-old kid who also has super-speed. Which has got to make negative sense to the audience. Does everyone in Barry’s family have superpowers? If that’s the case, why doesn’t Iris help out? Anyway, Barry asks Wally to hack the internet for information on nanotechnology, since that’s what they think took out J’onn. And, you know, kids, computers, hacking, social media, blogs.
Batman commiserates over how it took him years to figure out J’onn’s weakness was fire—you’d think that would come up sooner in superheroing—and so does that mean he’s compromised? And Maxwell is watching him, going “no wai.” Talia stops by, trying to have some impact on the plot besides giving the cast a spare set of boobs, and is denied.
Wait, why is Maxwell Lord even here? A vengeful Talia al Ghul would make a much better antagonist, and it wouldn’t take all that much work to fit the OMAC scheme into her Earth First brand of villainy. She wants to take out the superheroes and uses Batman’s methods to do it for a little fuck-you. It works much better, could even play off of Batman Begins, and it gives us a much more tolerable level of Jay Baraka.
In Gotham, a motorcycle gang is about to kill some cops when Batman steps in (“World peace… why can’t Gotham get the message…?” he grouses hilariously. DUDE, YOU’VE LIVED THERE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.). Also, apparently Batman’s cape can withstand automatic weapons fire (okay) and a direct hit from a grenade launcher, so, yeah, we’ve pretty much given Batman superpowers at this point. (“Damn. This was a brand new cape…” Oh yeah, they’ve got Batman’s voice DOWN).
As Batman chases down the last of the ruffians, we cut to Superman chatting with pissy 90s Aquaman, who is really upset about people killing dolphins because DC decided that the best way to butch Aquaman up was to give him the politics of a thirteen-year-old girl. I don’t know, you’d think with the planet having achieved world peace, ecological stability wouldn’t be too far behind.
Oh, and instead of a hook, he has a water hand, which sounds really awkward. And also Aquaman has a thing for Wonder Woman, agreeing to go to the surface because she asked him to. Again, this is like watching the season premiere of a TV show that’s been running for years.
Back in Gotham, Batman corners the crook, but he’s activated by Maxwell Lord and attacks Batman as a superpowered robot, thus completely giving away the element of surprise. Maxwell is ready to kill him, but Talia reminds him that this wasn’t part of the deal, so yeah, she’s a goner. Maxwell calls it off with some reluctance—wait until you get to why he hates Batman so much, it’ll be hilarious—and that pointless scene is over.
Back at the Batcave, Batman figures out that Brother Eye is involved with OMAC when the system locks him out, saying “You don’t control it anymore.” Which conveys the exact same information as the entire action scene that preceded it, but hey, what’s screenwriting discipline when you’re writing a movie with seven main characters?
And now, forty pages into the script, we get another major character introduced—John Stewart, the Green Lantern, who is given no more introduction than using his power ring to visualize the park he’s designing. Who is he? What’s his deal? Why does he have a magic ring? What’s the extent of its powers? Who gave it to him? What are his goals? What’s his motivation? Who cares! Buy a Green Lantern toy!
Well, at least he’s not Hal Jordan, I’ll give him that.
By means of poison on the pencil John chews on and a mosquito robot—remember that the villains have access to all those later—Green Lantern and Aquaman are disabled with blindness and a sudden fear of water, respectively. Oh, you all know that Aquaman will die if he’s not exposed to water every hour, right? Sometimes that isn’t even canon, but now it is, and you’d better have done the background reading for this crowd-pleasing summer action movie or it won’t make any sense to you.
Anyway, the heroes try to find out who’s attacking them, with one of those annoying scenes where they talk about all the villains they dealt with off-screen in stories you wouldn’t be at all interested in seeing. Want an origin story and the first battle between a superhero and Lex Luthor, or Poison Ivy, or Mr. Freeze, or Dr. Psycho? Too bad, they’ve already been handily defeated. It wasn’t even worth showing. Sorry, it just bugs me.
Oh, and who’s the genius that thought Murmur might be behind the attacks? He’s a mute serial killer. And Solomon Grundy’s a zombie.
They eventually decide to decamp to the Fortress of Solitude. Barry goes to tell Iris and stops by Wally, who tells him he’s downloading some exposition now and it should be done in time for the act break. He also dresses in his own uniform and asks to help out, but Barry shuts him down. “Sorry, kid, I know you think a young man with superspeed would be useful in an emergency, but we have a guy dressed as a bat. It’s handled.” You’re the worst, Barry.
Oh, and for those who watch New Girl, I think I figured out what the Captain is.
“And he starts to VIBRATE. Right there, in her arms. She holds on tight, her eyes closed and… slowly…
HE PASSES THROUGH IRIS’ BODY. She GASPS… feeling him inside her, all of her, inside her very molecules.
And how he’s behind her. His arms wrapped tight, holding her. She catches her breath. Lets the vibrations drain from her whole body. She is glowing…
IRIS ALLEN
Don’t you ever tell anyone we do that…”
Remember, a superpowered sex scene came closer to being filmed than Wonder Woman in her own movie.
At the Fortress of Solitude, they find both the traditional Silver Age giant statues of Jor-El and Lara, as well as a scale-model replica of the Kent farm where Superman actually spends his time. And you thought a guy who spend all day surrounded by robot copies of himself couldn’t get any creepier…
Meanwhile, Batman’s Googling has determined that the OMAC used to be a government super-soldier program, as you do. But that’s all we get, because why should we know our villain’s goals or motivation just because the movie is half over? He decides to head for the Fortress in his Batjet, while Flash helpfully lets everyone know he’s going to die by not only being in a happy, committed relationship but talking about how there’s a “Speed Barrier” that’s “one way.”
Batman tells the heroes they’re not safe and admits to creating Brother Eye. Again, this is such a weird choice for the movie that’s supposed to introduce all these characters. “You know us!” Wonder Woman insists, but we haven’t seen any of their relationships beyond knowing that some of them are on speaking terms with each other. For a sequel, this would be fine, but all the drama of this movie is centered around Batman betraying a trust that we’ve never seen.
Superman, by the way, is having none of it.
“SUPERMAN
How could you be so stupid?!
BATMAN
I thought you were non-violent…
A FIST, attached to a slim, powerful forearm CONNECTS VICIOUSLY WITH BATMAN’S JAW. Sending him staggering out of SUPERMAN’S grasp. Down to one knee.
WONDER WOMAN
He is, but I’m not.”
Remember that for later.
Batman goes on to tell them about OMAC (“It owned me,” he states, because Batman is a leet gamer, you guys). Now I’m pretty sure this next part is impossible, as Flash gets a call on his cell phone from Iris—
“But it’s not IRIS…
ON HIS EAR. A micro-fiber TENDRIL snakes out of the phone and slides RIGHT INTO HIS HEAD. FOLLOW the METALLIC PROBE as it burrows deep inside his cranium. Past and around the EAR CANAL… down to the base of his skull.”
No, it doesn’t kill him, just makes him vibrate so fast that he falls through the planet a couple times until Wonder Woman catches him with her lasso. All well and good, but the writers do know that just because you have someone’s phone number, you can’t actually turn their phone into a nanotech assassination device, right?
As in Tower of Babel, Green Lantern patches himself into J’onn’s telepathy to operate on the nanobug in Flash, and they similarly treat Aquaman and Manhunter. After a lover’s spat with Superman, Batman heads back to the cave, ordering Alfred to look up his own profile on Brother Eye’s weakness database. As he shouldn’t have any profile, it should tell them who’s doing this, although why they’d put that information on Batman’s server instead of just keeping it private—oh, look at me, assuming Hollywood knows how computers work. Batman asks what it lists as his weakness and get ready for the funny.
“ALFRED
Love.
ON BATMAN… taking this in as—
IMAGES FLASH ACROSS HIS MIRROED VISOR… a series of MEMORIES. A series of WOMEN—seen in quick cuts—all in the arms of the Batman. All kissing him passionately.
WE SEE: Julie Madison… Silver St. Cloud… Vicky Vale… Catwoman… Poison Ivy…”
You know, I’m just now realizing it, but for an angry lone wolf of the night with no friends and a monomaniacal obsession with fighting crime—Batman gets a lot of tang.
We flashback to reveal that Talia slipped Bruce a nanotech mickey with a kiss, and that’s her whole involvement in this convoluted plot. I don’t know, why couldn’t Maxwell Lord have just gotten Bruce with a robot mosquito? You’re telling me Batman security-checks mosquitos? Any ol’ thing could’ve slipped it to him—even a sexy lamp, say.
But anyway, how about some character development? Just any old backstory on who these people are and why they do what they do. Like this scene between Wonder Woman and the Flash, who is eating Kryptoburgers to restore his metabolism.
“THE FLASH
Want some?
She shakes her head no.
THE FLASH
Guess that’s why you fit so nicely in the costume…
WONDER WOMAN
I’ve never understood the mortal male’s need to objectify the female…
THE FLASH
You ever look in the mirror? Hmm? ‘Cause if it’s a problem, you might want to add… a cape? To the costume? Or, I don’t know… pants?
WONDER WOMAN has to smile.”
Of course she does. What’s more feminist than telling a woman she has to wear different clothes if she doesn’t want to be sexually harassed?
Back in Maxwell’s lair, Batman confronts Talia with her betrayal and—phrasing.
“TALIA
I remember many kisses, Mr. Wayne. The kiss that revealed your secrets, that opened up your Cave”
AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH!
That troubling mental image aside, Talia tells Bruce that she wants revenge for her father’s death and Bruce not wanting to smooch her. Bruce, is of course, a giant dick about how he seduced her and killed her father (???) then broke things off with her. But oh, don’t worry, just in case you thought Talia had some agency, even as a villainess, it turns out that she was completely psychic’d into it by Maxwell Lord.
Maxwell shows up with the Guards! Guards! to reveal his evil plot at last. He’s the last of the children who were experimented on by the US government to create a super-soldier—you’d think that’d be a bigger deal—and so now he’s out for revenge against the people who made him a freak and killed so many children. No, wait, that’s not it. No, he’s… huh?
“MAXWELL LORD
Do you know your Evolutionary Theory, Bruce? I’m sure you must. Nature’s relentless push toward perfection?
BATMAN
What are you doing, Max?
MAXWELL LORD
What I was born to do. I’m completing the OMAC Project.”
Wait, how did he find out that Batman was Bruce Wayne to get Talia to seduce him to gain access to Brother Eye to tie it into his OMAC Project to… oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed. But seriously, how is this not supposed to come off as a bald-faced rip-off of the X-Men movies?
This is where Lex Luthor would work a lot better, since his xenophobic mindset would be basically Batman’s taken to the logical extreme. If Batman thinks people can’t be trusted with superpowers and must be monitored, Luthor thinks they can’t be trusted at all and so the only logical choice is to launch a preemptive strike to end them all before they can turn against humanity.
Okay, so Maxwell’s used Bruce’s birthday party to slip his nanomachines to all the movers and shakers of the world—which would be one thing if he were just controlling them, but since he publically turns them into giant kill-bots, wouldn’t that work just as well with a bunch of hockey players or something?
Maxwell sics the OMACs on Batman to make him scream and attract the Justice League-to-be. Superman and Wonder Woman show up, beating down the OMACs with ease (“They’re like gnats to [Superman]” the script says, so great villains there) before Maxwell gets into Superman’s head and makes him think Wonder Woman tortured and killed Lois Lane.
This, by the way, is the only reference to Lois in the entire story.
So we get a replay of the Sacrifice story arc’s climax, with Wonder Woman fighting a mind-controlled Superman. Three problems.
1. Okay, there’s a good match-up there. I think most of canon would agree that Superman is the most powerful superhero, but Wonder Woman (though slightly less powerful) is a super-experienced warrior—it’s like a black belt going against a yellow belt who can bench-press three hundred pounds. However, here the rest of the League gets in on the act, so Wondy needs the help of Batman and Aquaman and Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter to hold Superman off. Girl power!
Before, Superman jobbed to Wonder Woman to give her some much-needed respect in the public eye. Here, Superman is being given a blowjob (only the ENTIRE JUSTICE LEAGUE can stop him!) for no reason.
2. Wonder Woman isn’t the one to kill Maxwell Lord, it’s Batman, who already has this juicy (yet pointless) Talia plot. So Wondy basically has nothing to do in this whole movie besides punch stuff.
3. This isn’t even the climax. Killing Maxwell just uploads his consciousness into Brother Eye for the REAL final battle.
Oh, and we finally find out why Maxwell Lord is so pissed. “The truth is, you weren’t there. None of you. Not one of you was there. You weren’t there for Tom Parnell or Karl Bader of Glenn Burke […] They were children! And they were dying! And you weren’t there!”
Now I’m really confused, because were any of these heroes even active then? I’m assumed that this is a relatively ‘young’ DC universe, like maybe heroes started showing up five years ago or less, time to make a few friendships but not yet codify into a League. And the experiments went on from 1971 onward. Was, say, Green Lantern even born then? And this is the entire basis of the villain’s plot!
Let’s say Superman was twenty years old in 1970—old enough to be Supes and for Maxwell to reasonably blame him for not getting involved. This was written in 2008. Superman would be NEARLY SIXTY. That’s basic math.
Oh, and here’s some great writing. As you’d expect, Maxwell tells Wonder Woman the only way to stop him is to kill him, but JUST NOW we find out that Wondy has taken a solemn vow not to kill. Which has never come up before. She even explicitly identified herself as “violent” in an earlier scene. This is the worst kind of “as you know, Bob” imaginable. It’s giving the audience the circumstances that inform the climax IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CLIMAX.
“MAXWELL LORD
But you won’t, will you? You won’t because you made a vow. A solemn pledge never to kill. Never to take a human life.”
Thanks for reminding her, Maxwell, she might literally have forgotten.
Anyway, Batman kills him and sounds really smug about it, given the one-liners he’s popping.
MAXWELL LORD
Where were you? Where were any of you when I needed you?
[..]
BATMAN
Right here…
KRRKKK! MAXWELL’S NECK BREAKS. […]
BATMAN
What one man can do, Max… […]
SUPERMAN
[…]It’s unacceptable.
BATMAN
Accept it. It’s done.
[…]WONDER WOMAN
It wasn’t you, Kal… It wasn’t you…
SUPERMAN looks up at BATMAN. The truth rushing in.
SUPERMAN
Then… you were right…
He lowers his head in shame.”
I have no fucking clue, people. They’re literally taking the story straight from the comics and garbling it in translation. And of course, when Batman kills someone, Superman is literally ashamed for doubting him. Of fucking course.
But just because there was a huge action sequence ending in the villain’s death, don’t think it’s over. Talia is infected by the OMAC system, transformed into a super-OMAC (I wonder how many people would see this as a rip-off of Superman 3) that speaks with Maxwell Lord’s voice. So now, in addition to all his other woes, he’s probably got some gender identity issues thrown into the mix. Poor dude.
Anyway, he’s infected a whole lotta people with OMAC juice via his Planet Krypton restaurants, so they all turn into OMACs and go to kick superhero ass. Then Talia dies—seriously, what was at all the point of her character? Did we really need yet another cast member?
“WONDER WOMAN
We’re the priority targets. They’ll come here first.
SUPERMAN
There’s no time to clear the city, so watch your collaterals. They can hit us, but we protect the population. At all costs.”
Uhhh… here’s an idea. Why don’t you go somewhere deserted and let the OMACs come to you? Hell, head over the ocean where Aquaman will have a homefield advantage. I know that this is an issue in every superhero movie, but here, they explicitly bring it up.
Anyway, the rest of the thing is a huge action sequence, with Barry Allen transforming into Maxwell Lord’s new vessel but don’t worry, Wally’s there to rep the Flash family. It does seem like a pretty perfunctory setpiece, with the other Leaguers fighting random OMACs while Superman and Batman take out the Flash-Lord one. Not really any of the tactics or cooperation that the Avengers displayed to stop the Chitauri, except for J’onn psychic’ing Barry to wake him up.
Again, compare to Avengers, where you had the heroes at first fighting to contain the Chitauri, then going after Loki, then having to stop New York from being nuked, then having to close the portal. Good, good writing. This is the same basic thing—we have to blow up the thing to stop all the bad guys!—but it’s just that one objective, with no other developments. And that’s THREE “we have to stop the bad guy without killing our possessed friend” scenarios in a row. Shame, I really could’ve gone for Wonder Woman ordering everyone to work together to disable Brother Eye.
Naturally, Barry sacrifices himself to destroy the OMAC swarm by going into the Speed Force, passing the torch to Wally, and how can I complain about that? Funeral, rebuilding, peace (hilariously, a newspaper headline reads “WORLD PEACE RESUMES”). The guys agree to form a superhero club, with Batman reluctantly joining—seriously, why do they want this paranoid murderer working with them?—and the story ends on Starro attacking and the Justice League (never named) going to confront it.
So that about sums it up for me—I liked the very comic booky nature of it, with robots and the Fortress of Solitude and a giant alien starfish at the end—but at the same time, it showed no real understanding of the characters or the very storylines it was adapting. And I love when comic book movies merge similar storylines into something greater than the sum of its parts. The dark future in Days of Future Past being the Age of Apocalypse? Yeah, that’ll work for me. But it just doesn’t work for this movie, tearing down relationships when it’s supposed to be establishing them.
We start off with Wonder Woman talking about “Justice. Truth. Peace” just to piss off everyone that still likes America (seriously, when will DC Comics get that it will always sound awkward to change Truth, Justice, and the American Way to anything else?). The Justice League—at least some of them—are attending a funeral in all-black costumes, which must make the merchandising people happy. “Buy Funeral Wonder Woman with Super-Grieving Action!”
The whole gang’s at this funeral except for Batman—WHERE COULD HE BE?--making this pretty much the most egregious schmuck bait ever. Say what you will about X-Men: The Last Stand, but at least they didn’t pretend they were ever going to kill off Hugh Jackman.
Flashback to two days ago (“THE WORLD IS AT PEACE”) and we see Barry Allen and Iris Allen… ugh. Sorry, but I think science has conclusively proven that everyone who likes Barry Allen more than Wally West touches themselves while thinking about their siblings. He’s just such a nothing character, and Wally West has so much more going on. At least his storyline here isn’t quite so offensive, but they still pretty much give him Wally’s “dorky jokester” characterization from JLU. And there’s no mention of him wearing a bowtie, so really, what’s the point?
Anyway, they go to “Planet Krypton,” a superhero theme restaurant named after the site of the mass extinction that isolated Superman forever. Isn’t that a little like a Native American restaurant named “Trail of Tears”? Anyway, they’re sooooo in love, Barry sees Wonder Woman talking on TV about the usual peace malarkey and thinks she’s hot, then we see that something called ‘Brother Eye’ is keeping tabs on him. Brother Eye, of course, is a creation of Batman, who is described as sitting at his computer with his feet up. Yeah, can’t picture it.
I gotta wonder how this would play coming off The Dark Knight, where Batman specifically rejected this kind of surveillance state thing. I know, I know, different Batmen. The storyline here combines the Brother Eye plot with the Tower of Babel plot, so Bats isn’t just cataloging the future Leaguers’ weaknesses, but monitoring them. Couple problems with that:
The Tower of Babel plot worked because Batman was on a team with the others, so there was a betrayal. Here, they don’t know him from Adam. There’s no betrayal beyond “hey, haven’t you heard about what great guys we are? How can you take precautions against us not being great guys?” Yeah, tell it to Lex Luthor and his ninety percent approval rating.
Second, the Brother Eye plot was more extreme than Tower of Babel (which was just Batman having contingency plans in case a superhero went rogue), but it sprung from more extreme reasons—Batman knowing that the League had brain-washed him. Yeah, you could argue that was dumb, but by removing that dumbness, you take out what it justified. So given all the shit Batman pulls in this script, I can’t imagine him ending up as a Superfriend. Imagine being friends with someone if, the first time you met, you learned that he was stalking you, taking pictures of your kids, and planning to kill you.
Anyway, Batman changes into a tux to attend his surprise birthday party (a tad too reminiscent of Batman Begins?) where we meet our villain for the evening, Maxwell Lord, a charismatic millionaire whose charm and good looks hide the most sinister, the most evil, the most ruthless…
Oh, he was going to be played by Jay Baruchel? No wonder even DC knew to shitcan this thing.
Anyway, mark me down as having the usual misgivings to Maxwell Lord being a Big Bad. It’s just a slap in the face to a large segment of DC’s readers and, since his backstory is entirely manufactured for the film, they could’ve used any evil millionaire or telepath for this character. Lex Luthor alone, with a little work, could be a much more convincing antagonist.
So Max—I mean, ‘someone’—hijacks the Brother Eye system the moment Batman has left… lucky for him Batman didn’t run back to get his drink or anything and see the big “COMPUTER NOW EVIL” message on the big screen. The system targets Martian Manhunter and I’m sorry, but here we come to another problem of the whole enterprise.
Remember how Avengers did such a great job of reintroducing the characters, so even if you hadn’t seen the Captain America movie, you’d get what his deal is? Well, this script doesn’t do that. It’s acting like a sequel to a bunch of solo movies that were never made. Martian Manhunter’s first scene is literally him dressed as a police detective, pulling up to check-out something, and then getting flamed. Nothing to explain his character, to introduce him to the audience, or even to explain his very odd powers. The writers are banking on all these characters being iconic, but c’mon, if you went to a man on the street and asked him who the Martian Manhunter was, let alone if he was vulnerable to fire, you’d get lynched.
And yeah, it doesn’t take all that much to set-up the Flash—he’s really fast—but cramming in so many characters just because they’re the traditional line-up means that none of them stand out. Unlike Avengers, there’s no interesting pairings or dynamics to explore. You could take out any number of characters and it would just make for a leaner, meatier story.
Anyway, it turns out that Maxwell owns the Planet Krypton chain and is doing free catering for Bruce’s party, with all the Kryptoburgers you can eat (“I don’t eat food with names, Max,” Bruce says… doesn’t all food have names?). After that weird digression, back to Barry Allen, who Iris is telling “Wonder Woman’s a bit of a blowhard, don’t you think? And how come she gets all the credit for World Peace?”
I don’t even know where to begin, there. First off, the villain’s eventual plan is one of those “peace through superior evil” deals, so why is he bothering with that if the world IS at peace (with even Batman commenting on how street crime in Gotham is at such a low as to BORE him)? Second—Wonder Woman? A blowhard? Isn’t that like accusing (insert topical pop star reference here) of being too modest and free of Autotune? But hey, if the only contact between two females in this movie is one of them calling another a bitch from afar…
Suddenly, we get one of those extremely topical news reports, where we find out that J’onn, while on fire, has gotten into his car, started it up, accelerated to 90mph, and NOW loses control to hit a fuel depot at Denver International Airport, turning one guy on fire into a national disaster. Good going, Manhunter. Now we know why the League kept you around for so long.
The Flash hurries to Denver, where he puts out the fire and runs into Wonder Woman, where—I’m sorry, really—we hit another issue with the script. It’s really unclear what relationship all these people have to each other. They all seem friendly, and say they’ve wanted to form a team for a while, but Flash is just now meeting Wonder Woman, while other people have these long-time friendships that they make reference to. And this isn’t even the most outrageous example of the backstory being unnecessarily complicated. When you compare it to the Avengers all meeting up for the first time, it makes this story seem like a much smaller deal. More “oh, we finally got around to being in the same room at the same time” than “THE WORLD NEEDS ALL ITS CHAMPIONS FOR THE FIRST TIME!”
As Wondy and Flash try to save the flaming Manhunter, Bruce is still at the party, running into Talia Al Ghul, who is described as “exotic” and “from some other country, some other world, almost” with “dark, almond eyes.” So no wonder they tried to get Australian super-blonde Teresa Palmer to play her.
And get this: we have Maxwell Lord explain her and Batman’s entire backstory to Bruce. “That, my friend, is Talia al Ghul. Daughter of Ra’s. The Demon Head. You must remember…? It’s legend, almost. Ra’s fought the Batman. And lost. Now he’s gone. And here she is. She was in love with the Batman. Or so they say. She betrayed her father for him. Or so they say. And in return, he broke her heart. Or so they say…”
GODDAMN, that is some exposition. When coupled with Batman Begins—which was supposed to be another continuity, I know, but is still the general audience’s only exposure to Ra’s Al Ghul—it just comes off as a really silly retcon. You can’t just have this gigantic conflict that informs and creates the entire plot of this movie and then just relegate it to something Maxwell Lord monologues while psychically giving Bruce a boner (not kidding).
Oh, we also get a flashback to Talia kissing Batman and then him rejecting her—even though the entire reason they can’t get together in the comics is her loyalty to Ra’s, so you’d think if she ever actually betrayed her father to Batman for good, he’d be busting out the engagement ring—in fact, him not doing that makes him look like an asshole on the level of Jason kicking Medea to the curb. What redeeming qualities does Batman have in this script, at all? His bad decisions pretty much lead to everything awful that happens.
After a quick reminder that Talia wants Batman’s bod—and how in the world is all this public knowledge, to the point that Bruce immediately says to Maxwell “the only way you could know this is by being a fucking supervillain, you fucking supervillain”?—we cut to Wonder Woman’s “conservatory,” where she’s submerging J’onn in water to keep him from burning up. Funny J’onn couldn’t think of that instead of trying to drive to wherever it was he was going.
Superman shows up and is apparently old friends with Wonder Woman, and Flash is in awe of him, another study note cribbed from Wally’s book. Although Barry actually makes comments about Wonder Woman and Superman fucking, since they’re standing close to each other, and because he is the worst.
Anyway, the Manhunter was set on fire by a sea creature that spit fire, which is all the justification this script needs to rope in Aquaman—or King Arthur, as he insists on going by, so any non-comic-book-reader has got to be wondering why Mrs. Pendragon’s little boy is ruling an underwater city with a hook hand.
Meanwhile, Maxwell is in his lair—and if all this paranoia, failed romance, and people burning alive isn’t cheery enough for you, now we see that Maxwell is staring at dead children.
“Walls lined with old TV’s. 1970’s era, black and white, early color. Consoles. Stacked to the ceiling. Hundreds of them.
And on each one a CHILD’S FACE. All BOYS. Anywhere from 6 to 13 years old. Flickering images. No sounds, but they’re all talking to the camera. Interview subjects. Some giggling. Some stoic. Some crying. And under each image, NUMBERS. 1971-1983… 1971-1979… 1971-1981… 1971-1977… And a single word: DECEASED.”
That is a lot of effort to put into remembering dead children. I mean, yeah, dead kids, but at a certain point, are you trying to memorialize people or are you trying to have sex on Girls?
Barry, because he is the worst, continues to hog the character development by being so in love with Iris, you guys. And we’re introduced to Wally West, a 17-year-old kid who also has super-speed. Which has got to make negative sense to the audience. Does everyone in Barry’s family have superpowers? If that’s the case, why doesn’t Iris help out? Anyway, Barry asks Wally to hack the internet for information on nanotechnology, since that’s what they think took out J’onn. And, you know, kids, computers, hacking, social media, blogs.
Batman commiserates over how it took him years to figure out J’onn’s weakness was fire—you’d think that would come up sooner in superheroing—and so does that mean he’s compromised? And Maxwell is watching him, going “no wai.” Talia stops by, trying to have some impact on the plot besides giving the cast a spare set of boobs, and is denied.
Wait, why is Maxwell Lord even here? A vengeful Talia al Ghul would make a much better antagonist, and it wouldn’t take all that much work to fit the OMAC scheme into her Earth First brand of villainy. She wants to take out the superheroes and uses Batman’s methods to do it for a little fuck-you. It works much better, could even play off of Batman Begins, and it gives us a much more tolerable level of Jay Baraka.
In Gotham, a motorcycle gang is about to kill some cops when Batman steps in (“World peace… why can’t Gotham get the message…?” he grouses hilariously. DUDE, YOU’VE LIVED THERE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.). Also, apparently Batman’s cape can withstand automatic weapons fire (okay) and a direct hit from a grenade launcher, so, yeah, we’ve pretty much given Batman superpowers at this point. (“Damn. This was a brand new cape…” Oh yeah, they’ve got Batman’s voice DOWN).
As Batman chases down the last of the ruffians, we cut to Superman chatting with pissy 90s Aquaman, who is really upset about people killing dolphins because DC decided that the best way to butch Aquaman up was to give him the politics of a thirteen-year-old girl. I don’t know, you’d think with the planet having achieved world peace, ecological stability wouldn’t be too far behind.
Oh, and instead of a hook, he has a water hand, which sounds really awkward. And also Aquaman has a thing for Wonder Woman, agreeing to go to the surface because she asked him to. Again, this is like watching the season premiere of a TV show that’s been running for years.
Back in Gotham, Batman corners the crook, but he’s activated by Maxwell Lord and attacks Batman as a superpowered robot, thus completely giving away the element of surprise. Maxwell is ready to kill him, but Talia reminds him that this wasn’t part of the deal, so yeah, she’s a goner. Maxwell calls it off with some reluctance—wait until you get to why he hates Batman so much, it’ll be hilarious—and that pointless scene is over.
Back at the Batcave, Batman figures out that Brother Eye is involved with OMAC when the system locks him out, saying “You don’t control it anymore.” Which conveys the exact same information as the entire action scene that preceded it, but hey, what’s screenwriting discipline when you’re writing a movie with seven main characters?
And now, forty pages into the script, we get another major character introduced—John Stewart, the Green Lantern, who is given no more introduction than using his power ring to visualize the park he’s designing. Who is he? What’s his deal? Why does he have a magic ring? What’s the extent of its powers? Who gave it to him? What are his goals? What’s his motivation? Who cares! Buy a Green Lantern toy!
Well, at least he’s not Hal Jordan, I’ll give him that.
By means of poison on the pencil John chews on and a mosquito robot—remember that the villains have access to all those later—Green Lantern and Aquaman are disabled with blindness and a sudden fear of water, respectively. Oh, you all know that Aquaman will die if he’s not exposed to water every hour, right? Sometimes that isn’t even canon, but now it is, and you’d better have done the background reading for this crowd-pleasing summer action movie or it won’t make any sense to you.
Anyway, the heroes try to find out who’s attacking them, with one of those annoying scenes where they talk about all the villains they dealt with off-screen in stories you wouldn’t be at all interested in seeing. Want an origin story and the first battle between a superhero and Lex Luthor, or Poison Ivy, or Mr. Freeze, or Dr. Psycho? Too bad, they’ve already been handily defeated. It wasn’t even worth showing. Sorry, it just bugs me.
Oh, and who’s the genius that thought Murmur might be behind the attacks? He’s a mute serial killer. And Solomon Grundy’s a zombie.
They eventually decide to decamp to the Fortress of Solitude. Barry goes to tell Iris and stops by Wally, who tells him he’s downloading some exposition now and it should be done in time for the act break. He also dresses in his own uniform and asks to help out, but Barry shuts him down. “Sorry, kid, I know you think a young man with superspeed would be useful in an emergency, but we have a guy dressed as a bat. It’s handled.” You’re the worst, Barry.
Oh, and for those who watch New Girl, I think I figured out what the Captain is.
“And he starts to VIBRATE. Right there, in her arms. She holds on tight, her eyes closed and… slowly…
HE PASSES THROUGH IRIS’ BODY. She GASPS… feeling him inside her, all of her, inside her very molecules.
And how he’s behind her. His arms wrapped tight, holding her. She catches her breath. Lets the vibrations drain from her whole body. She is glowing…
IRIS ALLEN
Don’t you ever tell anyone we do that…”
Remember, a superpowered sex scene came closer to being filmed than Wonder Woman in her own movie.
At the Fortress of Solitude, they find both the traditional Silver Age giant statues of Jor-El and Lara, as well as a scale-model replica of the Kent farm where Superman actually spends his time. And you thought a guy who spend all day surrounded by robot copies of himself couldn’t get any creepier…
Meanwhile, Batman’s Googling has determined that the OMAC used to be a government super-soldier program, as you do. But that’s all we get, because why should we know our villain’s goals or motivation just because the movie is half over? He decides to head for the Fortress in his Batjet, while Flash helpfully lets everyone know he’s going to die by not only being in a happy, committed relationship but talking about how there’s a “Speed Barrier” that’s “one way.”
Batman tells the heroes they’re not safe and admits to creating Brother Eye. Again, this is such a weird choice for the movie that’s supposed to introduce all these characters. “You know us!” Wonder Woman insists, but we haven’t seen any of their relationships beyond knowing that some of them are on speaking terms with each other. For a sequel, this would be fine, but all the drama of this movie is centered around Batman betraying a trust that we’ve never seen.
Superman, by the way, is having none of it.
“SUPERMAN
How could you be so stupid?!
BATMAN
I thought you were non-violent…
A FIST, attached to a slim, powerful forearm CONNECTS VICIOUSLY WITH BATMAN’S JAW. Sending him staggering out of SUPERMAN’S grasp. Down to one knee.
WONDER WOMAN
He is, but I’m not.”
Remember that for later.
Batman goes on to tell them about OMAC (“It owned me,” he states, because Batman is a leet gamer, you guys). Now I’m pretty sure this next part is impossible, as Flash gets a call on his cell phone from Iris—
“But it’s not IRIS…
ON HIS EAR. A micro-fiber TENDRIL snakes out of the phone and slides RIGHT INTO HIS HEAD. FOLLOW the METALLIC PROBE as it burrows deep inside his cranium. Past and around the EAR CANAL… down to the base of his skull.”
No, it doesn’t kill him, just makes him vibrate so fast that he falls through the planet a couple times until Wonder Woman catches him with her lasso. All well and good, but the writers do know that just because you have someone’s phone number, you can’t actually turn their phone into a nanotech assassination device, right?
As in Tower of Babel, Green Lantern patches himself into J’onn’s telepathy to operate on the nanobug in Flash, and they similarly treat Aquaman and Manhunter. After a lover’s spat with Superman, Batman heads back to the cave, ordering Alfred to look up his own profile on Brother Eye’s weakness database. As he shouldn’t have any profile, it should tell them who’s doing this, although why they’d put that information on Batman’s server instead of just keeping it private—oh, look at me, assuming Hollywood knows how computers work. Batman asks what it lists as his weakness and get ready for the funny.
“ALFRED
Love.
ON BATMAN… taking this in as—
IMAGES FLASH ACROSS HIS MIRROED VISOR… a series of MEMORIES. A series of WOMEN—seen in quick cuts—all in the arms of the Batman. All kissing him passionately.
WE SEE: Julie Madison… Silver St. Cloud… Vicky Vale… Catwoman… Poison Ivy…”
You know, I’m just now realizing it, but for an angry lone wolf of the night with no friends and a monomaniacal obsession with fighting crime—Batman gets a lot of tang.
We flashback to reveal that Talia slipped Bruce a nanotech mickey with a kiss, and that’s her whole involvement in this convoluted plot. I don’t know, why couldn’t Maxwell Lord have just gotten Bruce with a robot mosquito? You’re telling me Batman security-checks mosquitos? Any ol’ thing could’ve slipped it to him—even a sexy lamp, say.
But anyway, how about some character development? Just any old backstory on who these people are and why they do what they do. Like this scene between Wonder Woman and the Flash, who is eating Kryptoburgers to restore his metabolism.
“THE FLASH
Want some?
She shakes her head no.
THE FLASH
Guess that’s why you fit so nicely in the costume…
WONDER WOMAN
I’ve never understood the mortal male’s need to objectify the female…
THE FLASH
You ever look in the mirror? Hmm? ‘Cause if it’s a problem, you might want to add… a cape? To the costume? Or, I don’t know… pants?
WONDER WOMAN has to smile.”
Of course she does. What’s more feminist than telling a woman she has to wear different clothes if she doesn’t want to be sexually harassed?
Back in Maxwell’s lair, Batman confronts Talia with her betrayal and—phrasing.
“TALIA
I remember many kisses, Mr. Wayne. The kiss that revealed your secrets, that opened up your Cave”
AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH!
That troubling mental image aside, Talia tells Bruce that she wants revenge for her father’s death and Bruce not wanting to smooch her. Bruce, is of course, a giant dick about how he seduced her and killed her father (???) then broke things off with her. But oh, don’t worry, just in case you thought Talia had some agency, even as a villainess, it turns out that she was completely psychic’d into it by Maxwell Lord.
Maxwell shows up with the Guards! Guards! to reveal his evil plot at last. He’s the last of the children who were experimented on by the US government to create a super-soldier—you’d think that’d be a bigger deal—and so now he’s out for revenge against the people who made him a freak and killed so many children. No, wait, that’s not it. No, he’s… huh?
“MAXWELL LORD
Do you know your Evolutionary Theory, Bruce? I’m sure you must. Nature’s relentless push toward perfection?
BATMAN
What are you doing, Max?
MAXWELL LORD
What I was born to do. I’m completing the OMAC Project.”
Wait, how did he find out that Batman was Bruce Wayne to get Talia to seduce him to gain access to Brother Eye to tie it into his OMAC Project to… oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed. But seriously, how is this not supposed to come off as a bald-faced rip-off of the X-Men movies?
This is where Lex Luthor would work a lot better, since his xenophobic mindset would be basically Batman’s taken to the logical extreme. If Batman thinks people can’t be trusted with superpowers and must be monitored, Luthor thinks they can’t be trusted at all and so the only logical choice is to launch a preemptive strike to end them all before they can turn against humanity.
Okay, so Maxwell’s used Bruce’s birthday party to slip his nanomachines to all the movers and shakers of the world—which would be one thing if he were just controlling them, but since he publically turns them into giant kill-bots, wouldn’t that work just as well with a bunch of hockey players or something?
Maxwell sics the OMACs on Batman to make him scream and attract the Justice League-to-be. Superman and Wonder Woman show up, beating down the OMACs with ease (“They’re like gnats to [Superman]” the script says, so great villains there) before Maxwell gets into Superman’s head and makes him think Wonder Woman tortured and killed Lois Lane.
This, by the way, is the only reference to Lois in the entire story.
So we get a replay of the Sacrifice story arc’s climax, with Wonder Woman fighting a mind-controlled Superman. Three problems.
1. Okay, there’s a good match-up there. I think most of canon would agree that Superman is the most powerful superhero, but Wonder Woman (though slightly less powerful) is a super-experienced warrior—it’s like a black belt going against a yellow belt who can bench-press three hundred pounds. However, here the rest of the League gets in on the act, so Wondy needs the help of Batman and Aquaman and Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter to hold Superman off. Girl power!
Before, Superman jobbed to Wonder Woman to give her some much-needed respect in the public eye. Here, Superman is being given a blowjob (only the ENTIRE JUSTICE LEAGUE can stop him!) for no reason.
2. Wonder Woman isn’t the one to kill Maxwell Lord, it’s Batman, who already has this juicy (yet pointless) Talia plot. So Wondy basically has nothing to do in this whole movie besides punch stuff.
3. This isn’t even the climax. Killing Maxwell just uploads his consciousness into Brother Eye for the REAL final battle.
Oh, and we finally find out why Maxwell Lord is so pissed. “The truth is, you weren’t there. None of you. Not one of you was there. You weren’t there for Tom Parnell or Karl Bader of Glenn Burke […] They were children! And they were dying! And you weren’t there!”
Now I’m really confused, because were any of these heroes even active then? I’m assumed that this is a relatively ‘young’ DC universe, like maybe heroes started showing up five years ago or less, time to make a few friendships but not yet codify into a League. And the experiments went on from 1971 onward. Was, say, Green Lantern even born then? And this is the entire basis of the villain’s plot!
Let’s say Superman was twenty years old in 1970—old enough to be Supes and for Maxwell to reasonably blame him for not getting involved. This was written in 2008. Superman would be NEARLY SIXTY. That’s basic math.
Oh, and here’s some great writing. As you’d expect, Maxwell tells Wonder Woman the only way to stop him is to kill him, but JUST NOW we find out that Wondy has taken a solemn vow not to kill. Which has never come up before. She even explicitly identified herself as “violent” in an earlier scene. This is the worst kind of “as you know, Bob” imaginable. It’s giving the audience the circumstances that inform the climax IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CLIMAX.
“MAXWELL LORD
But you won’t, will you? You won’t because you made a vow. A solemn pledge never to kill. Never to take a human life.”
Thanks for reminding her, Maxwell, she might literally have forgotten.
Anyway, Batman kills him and sounds really smug about it, given the one-liners he’s popping.
MAXWELL LORD
Where were you? Where were any of you when I needed you?
[..]
BATMAN
Right here…
KRRKKK! MAXWELL’S NECK BREAKS. […]
BATMAN
What one man can do, Max… […]
SUPERMAN
[…]It’s unacceptable.
BATMAN
Accept it. It’s done.
[…]WONDER WOMAN
It wasn’t you, Kal… It wasn’t you…
SUPERMAN looks up at BATMAN. The truth rushing in.
SUPERMAN
Then… you were right…
He lowers his head in shame.”
I have no fucking clue, people. They’re literally taking the story straight from the comics and garbling it in translation. And of course, when Batman kills someone, Superman is literally ashamed for doubting him. Of fucking course.
But just because there was a huge action sequence ending in the villain’s death, don’t think it’s over. Talia is infected by the OMAC system, transformed into a super-OMAC (I wonder how many people would see this as a rip-off of Superman 3) that speaks with Maxwell Lord’s voice. So now, in addition to all his other woes, he’s probably got some gender identity issues thrown into the mix. Poor dude.
Anyway, he’s infected a whole lotta people with OMAC juice via his Planet Krypton restaurants, so they all turn into OMACs and go to kick superhero ass. Then Talia dies—seriously, what was at all the point of her character? Did we really need yet another cast member?
“WONDER WOMAN
We’re the priority targets. They’ll come here first.
SUPERMAN
There’s no time to clear the city, so watch your collaterals. They can hit us, but we protect the population. At all costs.”
Uhhh… here’s an idea. Why don’t you go somewhere deserted and let the OMACs come to you? Hell, head over the ocean where Aquaman will have a homefield advantage. I know that this is an issue in every superhero movie, but here, they explicitly bring it up.
Anyway, the rest of the thing is a huge action sequence, with Barry Allen transforming into Maxwell Lord’s new vessel but don’t worry, Wally’s there to rep the Flash family. It does seem like a pretty perfunctory setpiece, with the other Leaguers fighting random OMACs while Superman and Batman take out the Flash-Lord one. Not really any of the tactics or cooperation that the Avengers displayed to stop the Chitauri, except for J’onn psychic’ing Barry to wake him up.
Again, compare to Avengers, where you had the heroes at first fighting to contain the Chitauri, then going after Loki, then having to stop New York from being nuked, then having to close the portal. Good, good writing. This is the same basic thing—we have to blow up the thing to stop all the bad guys!—but it’s just that one objective, with no other developments. And that’s THREE “we have to stop the bad guy without killing our possessed friend” scenarios in a row. Shame, I really could’ve gone for Wonder Woman ordering everyone to work together to disable Brother Eye.
Naturally, Barry sacrifices himself to destroy the OMAC swarm by going into the Speed Force, passing the torch to Wally, and how can I complain about that? Funeral, rebuilding, peace (hilariously, a newspaper headline reads “WORLD PEACE RESUMES”). The guys agree to form a superhero club, with Batman reluctantly joining—seriously, why do they want this paranoid murderer working with them?—and the story ends on Starro attacking and the Justice League (never named) going to confront it.
So that about sums it up for me—I liked the very comic booky nature of it, with robots and the Fortress of Solitude and a giant alien starfish at the end—but at the same time, it showed no real understanding of the characters or the very storylines it was adapting. And I love when comic book movies merge similar storylines into something greater than the sum of its parts. The dark future in Days of Future Past being the Age of Apocalypse? Yeah, that’ll work for me. But it just doesn’t work for this movie, tearing down relationships when it’s supposed to be establishing them.
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Dr iwajowa cured me fro hiv posittive to negative
Date: 2013-10-14 07:40 am (UTC)