Batman v Superman Shrugs Off Reviews, Heads For $180 Million Weekend

[Megalith]

Despite the overwhelmingly negative response from critics, it looks like WB’s big bet may actually pay off. I thought the film was incredibly flawed, but I can’t get that opening scene and music out of my head.

“Batman v Superman” is coming into the market with minimal support from most critics, many of whom point to what they see as a jumbled story line as Warner Bros. attempts to set up an array of DC movies with new characters such as Wonder Woman and Aquaman. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is at 30%.

 

[StryderxX]

Since the movie cost $250 million to make it better have some long legs...

 

[heatlesssun]

Going to go see it this evening. Kind of figured that it wouldn't be well reviewed.

 

[Derangel]

Going to go see it this evening. Kind of figured that it wouldn't be well reviewed.

Yeah. It really is a movie that seems to ruffle a lot of critics feathers. It's by no means a perfect movie but no where near the level of scorn it's getting. RT's usefulness was always a bit dubious, but now days it's a freaking joke.

 

[BHenry]

The IMDB rating is opposite of the Rotten Tomatoes rating which is funny.

 

[Etherton]

Saw it Thursday evening. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either and Ben Affleck held his own as Batman. The movie overall suffered from story setup IMO - felt fragmented.

 

[shspvr]

The problem with moive critics is they are clueless

 

[Shmee]

It is a jumble. There are parts that are really good, and there are parts that are terrible, but I was the happiest guy on the planet when Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman finally joined forces.

 

[griffinhart]

Critics hate it, movie goers like it. I saw it Thursday, I enjoyed it a lot. Once complaint I have read goes on about the batman origin being played out again. While true, It's a part of the opening credits sequence and over by the end of the opening credits. If someone is going in wanting to hate it, they probably will find reasons to hate it. Most will enjoy it.

 

[Derangel]

Saw it Thursday evening. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either and Ben Affleck held his own as Batman. The movie overall suffered from story setup IMO - felt fragmented.

Yeah, they crammed way way too much into the movie. For the most part the references were okay but there were a few moments where it was taken waaaay too far. Especially that one part with Batman. Cool sequence but I have never been pulled out of a movie so completely before.

 

[ep0x73]

I'd like to know why Superman is VS batman in the first place, they are on the same team in the DC universe.
In theory Superman is an alien, batman is human so by rights he would get his ass handed to him easily.
I suppose the premise of the movie to me does not make any sense.
Am I missing something?

 

[Damar]

The problem with moive critics is they are clueless

If Deadpool can get an 84%..... there's no reason this shouldn't have done at least as well if they didn't bungle the story up, which is apparently what they did, trying to cram 4-5 movies worth of material into one. I'm still going to go see it, but I had low expectations since the start, because DC cant seem to slow down long enough to think things through before they rush something out the door trying to catch up to Marvel/Disney, which is the worst way to go at it imho.

 

[Etherton]

Am I missing something?

Seen the movie? It does explain it.

 

[griffinhart]

It is a jumble. There are parts that are really good, and there are parts that are terrible, but I was the happiest guy on the planet when Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman finally joined forces.

There are a few parts that were over cliché, but being a comic book movie, It doesn't bother me at all. It does seem they randomly shuffled in the Justice League teases in, but as I loved seeing them, I forgive it that as well. Wonder Woman's part in this movie makes me quite excited for the stand alone movie. I was only marginally interested in it before.

I think one of the biggest hurtles that any Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman based movie has are expectations. They are some of the most iconic characters in Pop Culture. Every generation knows who they are. All but the oldest people (90+) grew up with these characters. If they don't fall in line with everyone's favorite version of these characters (and there are many) criticism is laid extra heavy, deserved or not.

 

[ep0x73]

Nah, have not seen the movie and probably won't.
Is this based on comic cannon or just something some studio whipped up?

 

[Derangel]

I'd like to know why Superman is VS batman in the first place, they are on the same team in the DC universe.
In theory Superman is an alien, batman is human so by rights he would get his ass handed to him easily.
I suppose the premise of the movie to me does not make any sense.
Am I missing something?

It's not that hard to understand. Did you see Man of Steel? Did you see the BILLIONS of dollars in damage Superman and Zod caused? The tens of thousands of people killed in their fight? That was the first time the world was exposed to a meta-human with that level of power. Given that the world is trying to be more realistic, not everyone was exactly thrilled. The movie goes into pretty good detail about what drives Batman to do what he does, but even just looking at what happened in Man of Steel should give a little explanation.

If Deadpool can get an 84%..... there's no reason this shouldn't have done at least as well if they didn't bungle the story up, which is apparently what they did, trying to cram 4-5 movies worth of material into one. I'm still going to go see it, but I had low expectations since the start, because DC cant seem to slow down long enough to think things through before they rush something out the door trying to catch up to Marvel/Disney, which is the worst way to go at it imho.

Yes and no. Almost everything focused on the actual plot of the movie is pretty well done. There are some issues and some serious pacing problems but that stuff works well. Forcing in a lot of the universe building stuff is where it gets a little dicey. I feel like WB had no real choice but to try and get the universe off to a big leap right out of the gate, but it did hurt the movie. There are points where the movie outright stops to explain and show things that have absolutely no barring on the plot or any of the characters. I understand why they didn't but the movie would be long enough without the random detours to make it even longer.

Nah, have not seen the movie and probably won't.
Is this based on comic cannon or just something some studio whipped up?

Yes and no. Like any comic book movie they take from different sources to create their own thing. The version of Batman they use is based, fairly closely from what I remember, on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Their version of Lex, however, is rather unique. At least I don't recall ever seeing a Lex like this before. He is both more akin to the comic book version yet also completely different. I could see him growing up into the comic book Lex, though.

 

[griffinhart]

Nah, have not seen the movie and probably won't.
Is this based on comic cannon or just something some studio whipped up?

In the DC Universe, Everything is cannon. It's all a part of the Multi-Verse. That said, the movie is a bit of mix of creative license and cannon. There are a lot of story elements that are directly taken from notable DC comic series. There is a ton of imagery and ideas borrowed from others. Primarily, the story is a combination of two very specific series. I'll not mention them for spoiler reasons.

Honestly, I think the most valid complaint about the movie is that the previews essentially revealed all of the primary plot line. There are still a couple of surprises, but if you are familiar with the source material, you won't be shocked.

 

[griffinhart]

Yes and no. Like any comic book movie they take from different sources to create their own thing. The version of Batman they use is based, fairly closely from what I remember, on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Their version of Lex, however, is rather unique. At least I don't recall ever seeing a Lex like this before. He is both more akin to the comic book version yet also completely different. I could see him growing up into the comic book Lex, though.

I liked and disliked this Lex. His motivations are right. Power hungry with a strong feeling that Superman is a threat. He's ruthless, he's downright scary at times. But, at the end, after he has been dealt with, he's a bit to crazy.

 

[Derangel]

I liked and disliked this Lex. His motivations are right. Power hungry with a strong feeling that Superman is a threat. He's ruthless, he's downright scary at times. But, at the end, after he has been dealt with, he's a bit to crazy.

I have a feeling some of that crazy at the end of due to being influenced by a certain equation.

 

[d8lock]

Plan on going to see this. RT is the last thing I use to gauge how well a movie is.

 

[SuperSubZero]

I'd like to know why Superman is VS batman in the first place, they are on the same team in the DC universe.

When Batman has a fight, some stuff gets damaged but due to the fact that he can only do so much damage, and whoever he's fighting tends to only do so much damage(*), his fights are just fights. Replace a few windows and floors and get on with life.

When Superman has a fight, there tends to be mass-scale destruction, with cities getting leveled and potential massive loss of life. Superman is capable of doing tons of damage, and his opponents tend to be on his level, which amplifies the devastation.

Batman doesn't like that there's a man-sized disaster film on the loose, even if he promises to be a good guy.

*- Batman is a hypocrite as his fights do sometimes do significant damage but he doesn't count that.

 

[FrgMstr]

Saw it with the kids and wife last night. LOVED IT, would see again. Very much worth the watch at a theater. If you are a comic book purist and think that movies should tow that line, you will likely have issues. It is far from perfect, some of the writing could be better done, but from an entertainment perspective, I felt like I got my $10 worth for sure.

 

[griffinhart]

It was easily the worst movie I've seen in a long while. Terrible cringe worthy dialogue, Batman and Superman don't care about killing people, constant bombardment of unnecessary music to create emotion, constant replay of Batman's origin to remind us that Bruce Wayne's parents died, the opening scene had the mom getting shot in the face and then right after showing her face is fine, youtube videos to show off upcoming characters, and many more terrible things. Overall the only redeeming thing from the movie is the Sad Affleck video.

Superman doesn't kill in this movie, well, one kill, and it is entirely consistent with the comic. Batman's killing in this movie is no worse than any other batman movie to date. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVIG7YvdjM I do prefer the Animated series, find another way Batman, but to pan a movie for this given the movie history of the last 35 years of Batman, is ridiculous. At least he doesn't directly kill anyone like Tim Burton's Batman did.

 

[raz-0]

Since the movie cost $250 million to make it better have some long legs...

If it actually pans out to $180 million for the weekend, it's probably fine. It did $40 million oversees, and if it experiences even slightly worse falloff than most, It's looking at ~$460 million. Which is probably half of what they want to see, but enough to likely break even after cable, video, etc.

 

[anthrex]

Superman doesn't kill in this movie, well, one kill, and it is entirely consistent with the comic. Batman's killing in this movie is no worse than any other batman movie to date. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVIG7YvdjM I do prefer the Animated series, find another way Batman, but to pan a movie for this given the movie history of the last 35 years of Batman, is ridiculous. At least he doesn't directly kill anyone like Tim Burton's Batman did.

I understand that Batman has killed before, but since this one seems to beat us over the head with his origin they don't really give us any good motivation for why he does or why he is so callous now. Superman's winking kill of the terrorist at the beginning showed his callousness as well. I think these kills especially don't work when related to how Batman and the government were criticizing him. Also, Batman in this seems to be fooled pretty easily and relied way too much on Alfred as opposed to being on of the smartest people in his universe. His terrible stealthiness at Lex's place was laughable as well. The Animated Series was obviously my favorite non-comic book representation, but in the comics he would always battle with his conscious which made him much more interesting than generic action hero who kills because it is easier.

 

[griffinhart]

I understand that Batman has killed before, but since this one seems to beat us over the head with his origin they don't really give us any good motivation for why he does or why he is so callous now. Superman's winking kill of the terrorist at the beginning showed his callousness as well. I think these kills especially don't work when related to how Batman and the government were criticizing him. Also, Batman in this seems to be fooled pretty easily and relied way too much on Alfred as opposed to being on of the smartest people in his universe. His terrible stealthiness at Lex's place was laughable as well. The Animated Series was obviously my favorite non-comic book representation, but in the comics he would always battle with his conscious which made him much more interesting than generic action hero who kills because it is easier.

Beat us over the head with his Origin? You mean the scene that is done within the opening credits? If it was a 20 minute retelling maybe I would agree, but not something that is over by the end of the opening credits. I will give you that they don't fully explain why he is so callous. But, it is touched on during the conversation with Bruce and Alfred. It's also hinted at with the shot of Robin's suit.

This is a post "A Death in the Family" batman.

 

[PeaKr]

Meh, looking forward to the killing joke with Conroy and Hamill.

 

[Osirus]

Reviews aren't surprising. Man of Steel was terrible and this one only looks worse.

 

[Derangel]

They repeat it opening scene 2 more times in the movie just in case we forgot the beginning of the movie because the movie was losing boring and too long and thus we might've forgotten. That was Robins suit? It has no real identifiers and that scene last <5 seconds. Bruce and Alfred's conversation did mention it, but since it was so quickly glossed over by the both of them it left no meaning in relation to the theme of how the movie started (but obviously failed to touch upon). I also forgot the numerous hilarious slow motion shots of Bruce walking through fields.

They repeat MOMENTS of the opening scene during the movie. Don't act like they retell the entire thing multiple times.

 

[Snowdog]

The IMDB rating is opposite of the Rotten Tomatoes rating which is funny.

Metacritic, RT and IMDB all do the same thing. They have Fan/Critic scores. Metacritic and RT put critic scores first, IMDB puts fan score first.

Comic book fanboys, created a bunch of IMDB accounts to pump up the fan score, when I checked IMDB a couple of days ago, BvS had the highest percent of perfect 10 scores of any movie rated on IMDB, More than Shawshank, Godfather, Dark Knight, LOTR:ROTK, etc...

The fan scores are no better than an internet poll, easily flooded with fake accounts.

If you want a reliable number that is different than the Critics, look at the IMDB "top 1000 voters" score, near the bottom of the page:
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - User ratings

This can't be gamed by fake accounts since you have to vote for a lot of movies to get counted in that category.

Currently the IMDB "Top 1000" voters score is 5.4.

 

[anthrex]

They repeat MOMENTS of the opening scene during the movie. Don't act like they retell the entire thing multiple times.

We already know Batman is damaged by his parents death that is kind of obvious. It's unnecessary and treats the audience like idiots and each time they repeat it doesn't add anything it should have relied on the actor to relay emotion.

 

[Derangel]

We already know Batman is damaged by his parents death that is kind of obvious. It's unnecessary and treats the audience like idiots and each time they repeat it doesn't add anything it should have relied on the actor to relay emotion.

I like how they showed it in the opening. It wasn't needed, but it made for an effective opening. The flashbacks to it were not needed, but it's a movie trope at this point. It's trying to force the emotions on viewers instead of relying on the actor. Funny thing is, Afleck's expressions and the way he acted with the rest of his body sold those emotions and thoughts a lot better than the flashbacks did.

One thing though: I don't actually think his mother was shot in the face. When they showed that again I was paying more attention to the angle of the gun (because, dear god, the movie didn't need any more detours at that point) and I think she might have been shot in the neck.

 

[MrSteel74]

If it actually pans out to $180 million for the weekend, it's probably fine. It did $40 million oversees, and if it experiences even slightly worse falloff than most, It's looking at ~$460 million. Which is probably half of what they want to see, but enough to likely break even after cable, video, etc.

I read an article a day or two ago that suggested in order for the movie to be deemed a success it will have to pull in $1 billion in ticket sales.

 

[Trimlock]

Typical Snyder movie, one of the greatest at opening up a movie but seriously sucks for everything else. His endings are ok, he gets close to making a big impact but falls short.

Movie was ok, not terrible, I liked Affleck as Batman, actually I liked him better than Christian Bale.

 

[SeymourGore]

Can somebody confirm whether or not Batman shoots up a bunch of guys execution-style with a gun? I heard that, and refused to see the movie - it's very much against the character. Even Frank Miller's Batman at his darkest isn't that bad. Unless the bullets are rubber.

 

[Ocellaris]

If it actually pans out to $180 million for the weekend, it's probably fine. It did $40 million oversees, and if it experiences even slightly worse falloff than most, It's looking at ~$460 million. Which is probably half of what they want to see, but enough to likely break even after cable, video, etc.

It needs to hit $800 million box office to break even:

Why ‘Batman v Superman’ Is Still a High-Stakes Bet

 

[Megalith]

Batman says "Do you bleed?" then shoots Lex in the back of the head.

 

[anthrex]

I like how they showed it in the opening. It wasn't needed, but it made for an effective opening. The flashbacks to it were not needed, but it's a movie trope at this point. It's trying to force the emotions on viewers instead of relying on the actor. Funny thing is, Afleck's expressions and the way he acted with the rest of his body sold those emotions and thoughts a lot better than the flashbacks did.

One thing though: I don't actually think his mother was shot in the face. When they showed that again I was paying more attention to the angle of the gun (because, dear god, the movie didn't need any more detours at that point) and I think she might have been shot in the neck.

The first one was fine. I just think the constant jump back between him and the past really took the air out of his acting. To me the angle was upward pulling the necklace backward and towards the midpoint of her face. I don't think you'd have enough room to shoot at the neck if it was pointed perpendicular to the neck. The only reason I thought about this so much is because of the long slow motion nature of the scene and then the re-visitations.

 

[Ducman69]

If Deadpool can get an 84%..... there's no reason this shouldn't have done at least as well if they didn't bungle the story up, which is apparently what they did, trying to cram 4-5 movies worth of material into one. I'm still going to go see it, but I had low expectations since the start, because DC cant seem to slow down long enough to think things through before they rush something out the door trying to catch up to Marvel/Disney, which is the worst way to go at it imho.

Usually if the critics hate it, its not because it doesn't offer fanservice or enough action sequences to keep the less cerebral among us entertained, but because it has no staying power as a story, with bad acting and/or a lack of a coherent plot with poor dialog and the like.

The only possible exception is when a movie is political, then critics can love and hate it based on an agenda rather than the merits of the film, which is why some horrific political movies that are boring as all holy hell get the thumbs up while others that are actually awesome get the thumbs down because it goes against their beliefs. Since batman vs superman surely doesn't fall into the realm of polarizing politics, its safe to say its just a crappy movie.

I'll wait for bluray.

 

[FLECOM]

critics hate it because it was a terrible movie... I watched it opening night and spent the entire time going "what?!"

I feel bad for Ben, he could have been a good batman if it wasn't for terrible writing and directing