I Feel Like a Cult Leader (Batman, Superman, and Like Raccoons I Guess)

   Cliché. It's something I've been thinking about today, like, what does that even mean?, being cliché. Is the dance party end credits sequence at the end of Zootopia cliché? It's been done before, but is it cliché? If so, does that cheapen the rest of the movie? I say nay, though of course, Zootopia can do no wrong in my eyes. There's so much in Zootopia that's already been done before, but I don't think that any of it comes across as cliché, because Zootopia takes everything on its own terms, treats everything like it's absolutely fresh, and it is thus fresh.

   I've got a whole essay written on how that could be, saved on my AlphaSmart, but that's for another time-- it goes off on crazy tangents, and this discussion is already a tangent to what I really want to get to (suffice it to say that, Zootopia is a mainstream offering to a genre that there's an entire fandom structured around, which has been exploring these issues for decades, and along comes this film that, though treading much the same ground, uses its own idiom for everything, which idiom blows my mind.)

   Topic at hand, though... Let's go about this chronologically. I try to attend the temple here once a month at least, and I'm pretty sure I did that this month already now that I think about it, but I can't quite recall; maybe it isn't  that big a deal that I couldn't make it today. I tried to go first thing in the morning (not needing to attend either of my two Tuesday-Thursday classes this morning, which means that my last classes in those two, classes, was on Tuesday;) trued to go first thing but right as I was all prepared and ready to head out the door and everything (but before I was actually out of the door, this time!), I realized that I didn't have my temple recommend on me. Which is kind of important thing to have? I keep it in my wallet, but I never have my wallet on me, and I actually in fact seem to have misplaced it... somewhere around here...

   It's about an hour later. I'd prayed to be able to locate the thing a couple of times, but I still could not. Prayer number three here goes something like, "hey God, why can't I find my recommend? it is thy will I attend the temple today, right?" and God says, "nope, what you should do today is totally go to see Batman v Superman; Dawn of Justice," although he doesn't phrase it like that, but I interpret it that way. And so that's what I did today, was do that.

   I feel like some kind of cult leader, now, not for claiming communication with God, but for the, Dawn of Justice, thing: I'm a prophet of Zootopia, caught with my pants down, and calling for my followers to make up for my own hypocrisy in some way, by saying: it is not my fault, I was tempted into it oh my children, and it is only inspiring me to greater righteousness; you must now balance out my viewing of Batman v Superman with more viewings of Zootopia. (Which you should totally do; ohhh my gooodness is that a great film.)

   I went in with, I don't know, like, what if this is actually good, what if this is better than Zootopia, seeing now that the dance party ending is apparently cliché, among other things, enough to shake some people's enjoyment of the entire film. Like, I don't think it's cliché, of course, but that doesn't stop me from being able to see with perfect clarity anyone's point in thinking that... So I had mixed feelings at first, until I realized, what would Gazelle do? She'd keep on making those new mistakes, she'd keep on making them every day, those new mistakes... If Zootopia is telling me not to be afraid of, going to see a movie that's not Zootopia (not to mention what God says,) then it must be, not turning my back on it, or anything.

   God saying, hey go catch some Dawn of Justice action, though, that's probably just my own interpolation of what he said. I hope that's the case. If it were not, then that would mean that God's got a horrible taste in movies, and I've always liked to think that he's got a really pretty good taste in movies (Czech New Wave and all that). Not that I can't see why audiences liked it-- it's just that, CURSE YOU ABILITY TO SEE BOTH SIDES OF AN ISSUE, I can also totally see why critics didn't. And methinks the critics are winning out.

   Dang it but I didn't want to delve into it, since that's what the rest of the internet is doing as well, and wouldn't you like a nice helping of discussion regarding Zootopia? But I joined the internet in counting down to DKR back in 2012, I can join the internet in talking about DoJ now. Because, cliché ain't cliché if you act oblivious enough, or whatever the heck my point was back at the beginning of this. And there ain't nobody more oblivious tha--, well, actually, I can think of scores of people more oblivious than I am, so, well whatever.

You know what we could use right now? Public domain pics of raccoons.
Oh, here's one now.

   So I'm siding with the critics. Not that it was terrible. I liked it, except the parts where I didn't. Which was... While I was watching it, I thought it was alright, let's put it like that. It just gets easier to hate the longer after you've seen it you are, and, I'm trying desperately not to explode the the rhetoric re: lack of quality up to rather-be-whacked-with-a-sink proportions, here, though that does become increasingly easy as I get more distance on the film. Superman was done right, at least, and Batman was also done right, with guns and brands and branding!, even Wonder Woman was done right (though ??? on whether that would hold up over a whole solo project.) Some of it was great! A lot of it was great! But all of it was directed by Zack Snyder!...

   That man's some kind of genius; I've got no idea how he does it. How do you manage to have not only really jittery nausea-inducing I-can't-tell-what-the-heck-is-going-on camerawork, and the feeling that nothing has any real weight? Look anywhere else captured by a camera, in films, on TV, wherever, and you can see that gravity is a thing. Zack Snyder has the magical ability to turn that off, just by being the one behind the lense.

   Which, Superman and Batman being done right, a whole lot of themes being explored with the DC universe being a whole lot more "ideal"-based of the two major comic book publishers, makes Zack Snyder actually the perfect director for this kind of thing.

   If only his action scenes actually made any sense! Like, not only from A) a directing standpoint, being able to comprehend any of the goings-on on screen, but also from B) a story standpoint, none of the action actually advancing the plot forward, and a lot of it seeming to work against that.

   There's this big long car chase middle-ish in the film, where Batman is driving the Batmobile after a truck carrying Kryptonite, or at least I think that's what's happening because refer back to point A, but he fails and meets face-to-face with the Man of Steel (who thinks Bats is a dangerous vigilante, which, well yeah) and the Dark Knight (being no great fan of Superman either) delivers this completely unjustified (from an emotional standpoint) Dark Knight Returns reference, and, and, I think that was the point of the chase scene, so that it could end in Supes blocking the Batmobile with his body and tell Batman that the Bat persona should be buried, because, we saw at the beginning of the scene how Batman shot one of those blinky obviously-a-tracking-device tracking devices at the truck, and we see him track the device to LexCorp soon after, so it doesn't even make any sense that Batman would be chasing the truck.

   The Batmobile came this close to knocking the tracking device off in the car chase, so you get the sense that he's really working against his own interests there, to engage in a confusing and poorly directed action set piece like that...

   I mentioned earlier, not earlier in this post but in an earlier post, how this movie probably wouldn't be as bad as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was, and, hey I was right, but, TMNT, the greatest sequence of that movie, and one of the greater sequences of cinema in general, is the scene with the truck skidding down the surface of the mountain for, whatever reason it had. This scene was so much unlike any of the other action scenes because you could actually tell what the heck was going on, and the geography between characters, and everything. Really lucid filmmaking-- almost 100% comprised of single-takes, long tracking shots, that kind of thing, so much easier to do in a computer, with the rest of the film being all, cut so quickly you can't register anything, kind of deal. But this scene was great. And I hate to say it, or I would if it weren't really such an amazing scene you guys, but, I think that maybe Dawn of Justice could have stood to be a little more like TMNT. (Except... Doomsday totally looks exactly like a Ninja Turtle, so... TMNT-iness is good in some aspects (really just to be like that one scene,) bad in others.)

And hey here's another one!

   Even films with a style of a lot of quick cuts, it would seem, can have big awesome "oners." There's that the one in the Knightmare, of course, which does what oners do best in drawing attention to itself, though there's one or two of those in this movie that don't draw attention to themselves (and I notice them because I've been watching videos about that exact kind of thing lately, so my attention was drawn to, how unobtrusive the directing was?) Lois Lane is talking to Silas, in the men's room, and he looks up and sees her in the mirror and they're talking and the camera goes from his reflection to her reflection to her real-life face, and, that may not sound very impressive but it was surprisingly competent. And, sexist, borderline transphobic (the dialogue, of course, not the camera work. I mean, it is about Lois being in the men's room, like, what the heck...) Seriously, though, speaking of such issues! Martha Kent at one point tells Lois, "hi," which means that the film totally passes the Bechdel-- no, wait, she's just initiating a conversation about Clark, friiig. Well, film, you got two-thirds of the way there...

   Another great thing about Zack Snyder directing is the absolutely random attempts at heightened drama. Like when Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed (which, yes, we get to watch, again, but I guess it kind of makes sense because (though by far from an origin story for Batman) this is this universe's introduction to him-- but seriously, Bruce's parents' deaths, again?) when they're killed, the camera zooms straight up to an EECU of Thomas's mouth as he whispers Martha's name, and, where have I dang seen that before?

   That's dang where! I lol'd. Hear that Zack, turns out your moment of pathos as actually a moment of bathos, how does that make you feel?

   And speaking of smashing snowglobes! The building explodes, everyone dies, and only then does the jar of not-peach-tea hit the ground! Then cut to: a horse rearing in the smoke! Electric guitars scream, and Zack Snyder steps out onto the screen and delivers "the horns." I'm only making one of those three things up!

   I'm, making Ben Affleck cry now, probably. No offense against you, man. You were awesome. No offense even against Zack Snyder; you're rich enough probably, you didn't need the income from my ticket but I bought one anyway.

Just playing to the rule of three, here. B'awwww.

   So, yeah. No. I don't regret going to go see it, not in the least. I just regret investing any money or time in doing so, is all...