March 24--I worry about a lot of things: Family, friends, money, health, the future. Let's focus. Today I'm a critic worrying that we're so addled by real-world terrors, we're having a harder time distinguishing a well-made action fantasy from a hack job.
We relish terrorism in the movies so we can forget about it in real life, and enjoy watching big men in tights fight our battles for us. But we're sadists deep down, or else right there on the surface. The history of comic book superheroes in the movies contains a stealth desire to see invincible (or nearly) men of action roughed up, confronted with evil they cannot vanquish easily, or driven underground by popular opinion that isn't going their way.
This is how we arrived at "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," director Zack Snyder's double-headed exercise in punishment (not counting the most interesting new head, Gal Gadot's barely there Wonder Woman, who gets her own movie next year). Like so much violent escapism offering precious little escape in recent years, this one comes to market in the immediate, shaky aftermath of the latest real-world terrorist attacks. At the Tuesday London "Batman v Superman" premiere, Warner Bros. canceled the red carpet due to heightened security concerns following the Belgium bombings that killed dozens and injured hundreds more.
At the London premiere, Snyder said: "There is no way to express the sorry that we feel. Can we take a moment?" A moment of silence followed.
Then the Leicester Square throngs went inside and watched a movie about a cold, cruel world, and the stark, no-brainer necessity and allure of brutality, justified or no.
"Batman v Superman" takes plenty of moments to pay lip service to the fallen among its character roster, and secondarily, the unseen masses. But at heart, it's hypocritical. Its premise depends on the grim novelty of seeing a man in black and a man in blue and red punching, kicking, electrocuting and whipping each other around like yo-yos, their eyes (when not emitting the glare of fire) full of End Times rage.
How a director chooses to stage, film and edit action says a lot about how that director sees the world around him. It's job one in a commercial movie such as this. Yet so many big hits of recent years were directed by people who don't know where to put the camera, or for how long. Guy Ritchie comes to mind; his two "Sherlock Holmes" outings, which have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide as a pair, have the rollicking aura of a good time, and they have entertaining performers in the drivers' seats, and they're plushly appointed. Millions liked them, based on the evidence. But they trash the Holmes legacy, and they make blurry, frantic hash of the very notion of action filmmaking.
"Batman v Superman" begins where "Man of Steel" (2013, also directed by Snyder) ended, with the apocalyptic argument between Superman and General Zod. They destroy half of Metropolis in order to save the planet. Thousands die in the process; for a few minutes there, the new movie appears to be critiquing the previous one's blithe disregard for a Death Star-level body count. Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, wants Superman to be held accountable for his actions. Cue the next round of collateral damage!
In 2009 Snyder made "Sucker Punch," a seriously incoherent and skeezy male fantasy disguised as female empowerment that snuck by with a PG-13. Later he directed "Watchmen," which got an R, and probably deserved an NC-17. In their own particular arenas of viscera and slaughter, I enjoyed parts of "300" and Snyder's debut feature, the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead." Since then he has become a very rich and progressively worse visual artist, who equates the threat of pain with suspense and intense suffering with seriousness. In "Batman v Superman" we wait, in the rain, at night, mostly, for Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill to beat the living hell out of each other for what seems like an hour and a half.
Everyone has their limits with these movies. When director Christopher Nolan came out with his second "Batman" film, "The Dark Knight," many (particularly in New York, not too many years after 9/11) felt the movie went too far, cut too close to the bone, relished the morbidity and anguish of the malignant chaos too luxuriantly.
Partly because of the brilliance of Heath Ledger's Joker, I didn't feel that way. I did, however, have a bad reaction to the most flamboyantly twisted set-up in "The Dark Knight Rises": the bombing of the football stadium, just after a young boy's angelic rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." That film also featured the (literal) back-breaking of Batman, at the hands of Bane. For many fans this was the "whoa, cool" moment, upping the stakes to a new level. The entirety of "Batman v Superman" is a near-death experience for the major players, and the climactic mutual pummeling of the frenemies-in-the-making goes on for an eternity, in erratic, hand-held close-ups, so we can feel the pain without quite seeing it. Snyder directs like a gamer who's lost track of the time.
This week, like the weeks we've dealt with fatal multiplex shootings and other fruits of this nation's gun laws, it's hard to watch the worst of what's on screen in "Batman v Superman." In the hands of directors who acknowledge the terrors of the real world inside their imaginative visions, violence can be horrible, thrilling, contradictory, alive. Snyder may yet reckon with what's missing from his work. There'd be zero financial incentive for him to do so. But he might end up making a really good movie someday, and we'd all be better for it.
mjphillips@tribpub.com
