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DC: Destined to Collapse

“Batman v Superman” will be followed next year by the “Justice League” film and solo films for each member (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Owen Johnson
Connector Staff

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article that detailed my displeasure with the Marvel cinematic universe. Let me just say that I owe Marvel a huge apology for that. My opinion on them has not changed, but I have to admit they are at least doing a cinematic universe in the best way possible.

The DC Comics cinematic universe is only two movies in and it’s already a disaster. “Man of Steel” left people feeling uneasy about the future of the franchise and “Batman v Superman” was one of the worst superhero movies ever made. Yes, it was worse than both “Batman & Robin” and “Catwoman.”

Just think about that. A movie that got a lot of bad press should have been a learning opportunity for the creative team behind the movie. What do they do? Poorly address the issues and make a movie that is even worse.

Now, in all fairness, I don’t know how the rest of the movies are going to turn out. Maybe they’ll be great, but I’m not holding my breath, and here’s why: the layout of their movies alone is a poorly thought out mess. The next movie they are doing is “Suicide Squad,” which should have been later in the cinematic timeline after most of these villains had been established in other movies. Coming next is “Wonder Woman,” and then “Justice League Part One” which will feature at least six heroes. “Batman v Superman” could barely establish Batman when the main focus was on two heroes, but now there’s going to be a movie that has at least three new heroes to establish while also maintaining interest on the three pre-established ones.

Even if, by some miracle, the team at DC cracks down and actually works to make a good movie, they have still dug themselves into a rut that is almost impossible to escape. DC’s three biggest heroes, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, all have little to no personality and or are completely unlikable characters who just mope around for two and a half hours when they star in a movie. So, it doesn’t really matter what they do for the stories of the movies at this point. No matter how exciting and interesting they make it there will be disconnect because there is no reason to care about these characters.

It is possible that the next round of established characters would be more interesting. However, the issue would still stand that the three most popular ones who draw in big audiences are still boring flat lines. If those three fail at bringing in audiences now that it’s obvious how miscalculated those characters have been, is there any real hope of getting people to see the lesser heroes of Aquaman or Cyborg? My guess is no.

The even bigger problem is that DC has put out two critically panned and very much hated movies that people were looking forward to. If DC can’t even manage to impress people with movies they’ve actually been asking for, how are they expected to churn in a profit when movies like “Aquaman” and “Cyborg” come out that don’t have as much interest towards them.   

I also have a retraction to make from my review of “Batman v Superman” from last week. I originally praised one aspect of the movie, but have come to realize that I only liked the idea of that aspect and not how it was handled. Because of that, I must rescind that praise and instead declare that there wasn’t a single redeemable aspect of the movie except Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, and Laurence Fishburne.

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