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Finally watched Wonder Woman yesterday.

Well, it's definitely the best of the DC stable so far. Sadly, that's not saying much.

Plot was perfectly fine. Supporting actors were good. Gal Gadot however was as wooden as a very wooden thing made out of a wood by Gepetto, except without anyone bringing her to life. Her little speech during the final boss fight? Well, she says words. But it's not acting.

I also found her fight scenes oddly distracting. The whole 'stop dead at every blow' didn't work for me, and when she was up against Poor Stooges, it looked really fake.

I can absolutely see why others think highly of it, but the lead's lack of acting chops, and the dodgy effects ruined the spell for me.

That's not filling me with encouragement for the Justice League, anymore than the amateur looking posters.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Finally watched Wonder Woman yesterday.

Well, it's definitely the best of the DC stable so far. Sadly, that's not saying much.

Plot was perfectly fine. Supporting actors were good. Gal Gadot however was as wooden as a very wooden thing made out of a wood by Gepetto, except without anyone bringing her to life. Her little speech during the final boss fight? Well, she says words. But it's not acting.

I also found her fight scenes oddly distracting. The whole 'stop dead at every blow' didn't work for me, and when she was up against Poor Stooges, it looked really fake.

I can absolutely see why others think highly of it, but the lead's lack of acting chops, and the dodgy effects ruined the spell for me.

That's not filling me with encouragement for the Justice League, anymore than the amateur looking posters.

Did we watch the same movie? WW was awesome!

And amateur looking posters....?

I must say, that in itself is a *very* minority opinion.

The posters are heavily inspired by the work of Alex Ross, who is widely considered to be one of, if not the, greatest artists in comics.



His work in the graphic novel of "Kingdom Come" is seen as one of the all time greats in comics and the Justice League artwork pays homage to that perfectly.

I'm still wanting to know - in a non-spoiler way if that's possible - if Superman will be returning to life in this movie and helping out the League.

I mean, all signs point to 'yes, of course' BUT...it is amazing that they've marketed this movie so far without much Superman at all!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Finally watched Wonder Woman yesterday.

Well, it's definitely the best of the DC stable so far.

Gal Gadot however was as wooden as a very wooden thing made out of a wood by Gepetto, except without anyone bringing her to life.

I've not yet seen it. Is WW "better" than the MCU Hulk movie? The Ang Lee Hulk movie?

Gal Gadot is very pretty, looks "Amazon", but to expect her to be a RDJ or Batflec is unfair, I think.

I think that's all the fallout from the Doomsday trailer in BVS kinda giving the whole plot away.

The film is just over 2 weeks away now and we're still wondering if a breathing Superman is in it. - That's some pretty good going. And, of course, there's no official signs (EG actors) of a Green Lantern either, whether that's Hal or Abin Sur, or someone else. Just a reference that they exist 'somewhere' in the universe...


The fact that Henry Cavill *is* in the film, as holograms, or in a dream sequence is really clever, as independent reports / lines of him being seen on the sets in costume, can just be explained by that...

Yes, WW is better than Ang Lee's HULK.

It's an actual good Superhero Movie - for real!

Which is probably why the JUSTICE LEAGUE had to have some reshoots before release...

 Compel wrote:
I think that's all the fallout from the Doomsday trailer in BVS kinda giving the whole plot away.

The film is just over 2 weeks away now and we're still wondering if a breathing Superman is in it. - That's some pretty good going. And, of course, there's no official signs (EG actors) of a Green Lantern either, whether that's Hal or Abin Sur, or someone else. Just a reference that they exist 'somewhere' in the universe...


The fact that Henry Cavill *is* in the film, as holograms, or in a dream sequence is really clever, as independent reports / lines of him being seen on the sets in costume, can just be explained by that...

They've been amazingly cagey so far, agreed!

And I think a bunch of people (in China!) have already seen the film, and no one has spoiled it/leaked it yet!

I liked MoS and BvS, for all their flaws.

I'm a bit concerned though, that if we don't get HC's Superman back in this film, we might not see him again!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Finally watched Wonder Woman yesterday.

Well, it's definitely the best of the DC stable so far. Sadly, that's not saying much.

Plot was perfectly fine. Supporting actors were good. Gal Gadot however was as wooden as a very wooden thing made out of a wood by Gepetto, except without anyone bringing her to life. Her little speech during the final boss fight? Well, she says words. But it's not acting.

I also found her fight scenes oddly distracting. The whole 'stop dead at every blow' didn't work for me, and when she was up against Poor Stooges, it looked really fake.

I can absolutely see why others think highly of it, but the lead's lack of acting chops, and the dodgy effects ruined the spell for me.

That's not filling me with encouragement for the Justice League, anymore than the amateur looking posters.

Well, you can like or not like the film, but I haven't talked to a single person or read a single review bashing Gadot's performance like you just did. Not one. It was consistently rated between solid and great even among those who gave the film middling reviews. I think there were ample reasons to doubt her chops heading in, but her performance erased those doubts for apparently everyone but you. *shrug*

One can go into a showing of Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Godfather, Wizard of Oz, etc. and absolutely hate it if one hate already made up your mind to hate it. Perhaps you should just skip JL, since you've already admitted that you know how you'll feel about it?



If we're taking bets on how JL will be reviewed by critics, put my money down on reviews being a little north of those of MoS. My bet is that it'll be crowdpleasing enough to make it to 'solid' territory, but too troubled with its history and development to make it to a truly good or great level.

 gorgon wrote:


If we're taking bets on how JL will be reviewed by critics, put my money down on reviews being a little north of those of MoS. My bet is that it'll be crowdpleasing enough to make it to 'solid' territory, but too troubled with its history and development to make it to a truly good or great level.

Definitely sounds about right.

I'm already reading articles about how it is 'troubling' that the review embargo goes right up until the day or so before release, and how this will mean it won't be well reviewed, and that it will not score high via RT as a result.

 gorgon wrote:
If we're taking bets on how JL will be reviewed by critics, put my money down on reviews being a little north of those of MoS. My bet is that it'll be crowdpleasing enough to make it to 'solid' territory, but too troubled with its history and development to make it to a truly good or great level.

Warner has a reviews embargo until Tuesday, less than 48 hours before the Thursday Midnight showings. That's not a sign of confidence. That's a tacit admission that the film is not good. It'll be reviewed better than BvS, but worse than MoS, and far worse than T:R.

 Alpharius wrote:
I'm still wanting to know - in a non-spoiler way if that's possible - if Superman will be returning to life in this movie and helping out the League.

I mean, all signs point to 'yes, of course' BUT...it is amazing that they've marketed this movie so far without much Superman at all!

Well, considering Supes or his logo has been in a fair amount of the marketing and most of the promotional items and toys -- and Henry Cavill has been traveling around doing the press tours -- yes, you can take that to the bank.





There's some buzz going around about spoilers in the third act. Superman's return would seem to be the worst-kept secret ever, so it's probably something more than that. There was speculation about a surprise appearance by Hal Jordan, but that doesn't seem likely to me. *shrug* Jason Momoa also revealed that there's a end of credits scene, which IMO is a tactic WB should have been using all along to world-build while keeping it out of the movie proper (BvS, I'm looking at you).

Assuming JL gets reasonable reviews, I think we could hear an announcement about a proper MoS sequel in the near future too. Apparently Matthew Vaughn had talks with WB, and I'm guessing others did too. George Miller was also a name floating around, and he's already in the WB stable.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
If we're taking bets on how JL will be reviewed by critics, put my money down on reviews being a little north of those of MoS. My bet is that it'll be crowdpleasing enough to make it to 'solid' territory, but too troubled with its history and development to make it to a truly good or great level.

Warner has a reviews embargo until Tuesday, less than 48 hours before the Thursday Midnight showings. That's not a sign of confidence. That's a tacit admission that the film is not good. It'll be reviewed better than BvS, but worse than MoS, and far worse than T:R.

To be fair, the two bolded items are different things. It doesn't mean that they know it's a bad film; it means they aren't confident about reviews. WW had the same embargo until it became clear that reviews were going to be glowing. And they've been surprised before with MoS, which they thought was going to be a smash hit with critics and audiences. With BvS and SS...those I think they kinda knew.

There was also some Twitter talk going around from those who attended screenings that the third act has some big surprises. It is *possible* that's a factor as well. We'll see.

OK, I see the hair that you're splitting, but if Warner knew they had a good movie, they'd have confidence not to cut the embargo so tight.

With BvS and SS, it's almost impossible to not know those were bad films and have any credibility about working in Hollywood. Granted nobody wants to be the person who points out that the Emprah has no clothes... But come on, everybody obviously knew those were terrible movies. The only good thing is that they lowered the bar so much that WW and JL were guaranteed to look like masterpieces by comparison.

Turns out, 40 hours is one of the shortest windows to date. Estimate RT score is 33%...
http://mashable.com/2017/11/07/justice-league-embargo-critics-reviews-rotten-tomatoes/

I don't put a lot of stock - or concern - in that at all.

I mean, sure, I'm probably wrong, but I think it is more that WB has been 'burned' before by reviews and doesn't want it impacting that all too important opening weekend number.

We'll see.

They've put out some clunkers, to be sure, but I do also feel that they have actually been unfairly reviewed as well at times.

I'm expecting that I'll enjoy JL - early buzz out of China was very postivie, after all!

We'll know next weekend, right?

Hell yeah!

I have to travel for work the next week, so I'll definitely be seeing it opening weekend, but probably not until Sunday.

 Alpharius wrote:
Definitely sounds about right.

I'm already reading articles about how it is 'troubling' that the review embargo goes right up until the day or so before release, and how this will mean it won't be well reviewed, and that it will not score high via RT as a result.

We'll see. Overall, I haven't been a fan of the DC movies so far, but I'll just wait and see. If the reviews seem good, I'll go see it. Worst case scenario, I'll do something else instead of watching the movie, it's no skin off my back. Speculation either way doesn't seem very useful.

In threads like this, I always get a vibe from some posts that they're actively hoping for a movie to be bad, just so they get to be right on the internet.

There's that element (!) to things, to be sure.

I'm fairly certain that I'll be entertained, and I'm 100% certain that I'll be seeing it in theaters!

And at that... I just realised I had a chunk of flexitime built up...

Midnight showing... Hmm...

I really wish I could see this opening day, last time I was looking forward to a forward to a film this much was probably The Force Awakens.... Sadly, I have a 3-hour lecture that afternoon. First thing the day after though, I'm there!

Somewhat tangentially relevant to this thread, Kevin Feige (MCU head honcho, for those not in the know) had this to say about the Marvel vs DC thing today:
http://www.slashfilm.com/mcu-vs-dceu/

“I think it’s ridiculous. I think movies are awesome and people should go out and support awesome movies, and I go support those movies and I thought Wonder Woman was awesome…I can’t wait to see what Geoff Johns and Joss [Whedon] and the gang has done with Justice League. I guess people like rivalries, I guess? I don’t know. But I’m seeing Geoff Johns in a couple weeks for dinner. We went to this [Richard] Donner event together. Dick’s Superman is still the best archetype of superhero films. So yeah, just go see cool movies. What are you fighting about?”

“There’s not really a rivalry. A rivalry is much more amongst the press, I think. Geoff Johns [at DC] is a very good friend of mine. We grew up together in the business…So, I applaud all the successes he has. And I really just look at it as a fan. When the movies perform well and are well-received, it’s good for us – which is why I’m always rooting for them.”

Words to heed, I think...

Amen to that - and Exalted!

Yeah, good superhero films will lift all boats. Bad ones may lower all boats. It's important to note that plenty in the general audience don't really know the difference between DC films, Marvel films, Sony films with Marvel characters, Fox films with Marvel characters, etc.

I'll be at JL on Thursday night, but I'm keeping my expectations well under control. What I've heard of the soundtrack has an Avengers vibe in that indistinct heroic manner, and in accordance with that (and Whedon's heavy involvement) I'm expecting the film to be a simple brain candy flick that tries not to offend. LOL. It's an IMAX viewing, so the visuals should be good.

Honestly, I think WB mostly wants to get past JL and onto the upcoming solo films they have more faith in.

If JL can be a fun, one-dimensional action movie that does well enough commercially and critically for DC to get back to more director-driven, unique entries without the fear of one poorly received movie crippling the franchise, then that's a massive win for both them and the audience. And to be honest, I think it will. On one hand, it's enough 'Avengers But With Different Folks' to please casual moviegoers, but it seems to be drawing heavily enough from some significant comic moments and arcs to appeal to more familiar DC fans.

 gorgon wrote:
Yeah, good superhero films will lift all boats. Bad ones may lower all boats. It's important to note that plenty in the general audience don't really know the difference between DC films, Marvel films, Sony films with Marvel characters, Fox films with Marvel characters, etc.

I'll be at JL on Thursday night, but I'm keeping my expectations well under control. What I've heard of the soundtrack has an Avengers vibe in that indistinct heroic manner, and in accordance with that (and Whedon's heavy involvement) I'm expecting the film to be a simple brain candy flick that tries not to offend. LOL. It's an IMAX viewing, so the visuals should be good.

Honestly, I think WB mostly wants to get past JL and onto the upcoming solo films they have more faith in.

Or a Justice League more in line with the post-WW expectations, without having to spend too much time/money/effort to de-Snyder it?

I still want another solo Superman movie!

 Alpharius wrote:
Or a Justice League more in line with the post-WW expectations, without having to spend too much time/money/effort to de-Snyder it?

I still want another solo Superman movie!

Both of those issues rest squarely on the shoulders of Warner's movie execs, not Snyder. It's pretty obvious that Snyder was going to do a Superman Trilogy (Intro, Death, and Rebirth) that Warner changed into an "unfilmable" JL-lite for the 2nd movie.

Update - social media embargo is lifting tomorrow. Full review embargo still in place until Tuesday.

A Reddit group is tracking the social media reactions, and so far...definitely not bad. Mostly positive, with only one guy gakking on it so far. Seems like lots of praise for Gadot, Miller, and Momoa.

So it's not WW-level acclaim, but much, much better reactions than what BvS received.

Social media is dominated by True Fans - recall that the social media Buzz by DC's fans was overwhelmingly positive for both SS and BvS. The idea that DC's fans were going to dump over JL is basically zero.

What they're tracking are the comments of known reviewers and movie bloggers who attended critics' screenings, not average moviegoers who wouldn't have had a chance to see the film yet anyway.

Oh, OK. That might be somewhat helpful, then.

Most of the 'heavy hitting' professional critics probably won't chime in until the full review embargo lifts next week. So we'll see. WB isn't exactly out of the woods yet.

But so far there's a distinct lack of the WTF reactions that BvS got. There have also been repeated references to some surprises and the post-credit scene(s?). Those have me pretty curious, I have to admit.


Here's an article from Rotten Tomatoes on the buzz so far...

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/justice-league-buzz-its-not-perfect-but-its-fun-and-entertaining/