When
Wonder Woman was release this summer
it was greeted with acclaim from both fans and critics. Wonder Woman currently has 92% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes and was also praised for its lighter tone. Andrew Barker’s review in Variety stated: “Never
prone to stewing in solitude, and taking more notes from Richard Donner than
from Christopher Nolan, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder
Woman provides a welcome respite from DC’s house style of grim
darkness-boisterous, earnest, sometimes sloppy, yet consistently; entertaining-with
star Gal Gadot proving and inspired choice for this avatar of truth, justice,
and the Amazonian way.”
Despite
all this praise, outside of Wonder Woman and a few of her supporting characters,
nobody really cares about any of the characters in the DC Film Universe. This problem is going to hobble DC films for
the foreseeable future. Rotten Tomatoes
rated Man of Steel (2013) at 55%, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at
27% and Suicide Squad at 25%. The criticisms from fans and critics for all
three films were similar. On his Hollywood
Babble-On podcast, film director and lifelong comic book fan Kevin Smith
criticized Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice and its director Zack Snyder by sayings: “…there seems to be a
fundamental lack of understanding of what those characters are about. It’s almost like didn’t read a bunch of
comics, he read one comic once, and it was The
Dark Knight Returns, and his favorite part was the last part where Batman
and Superman fight.” Ironically enough,
the most consistent praise that was heaped upon the film was Gal Gadot’s
portrayal of Wonder Woman.
When
dealing with characters like Superman, Zack Snyder doesn’t seem to understand
that particular character is the way he is.
Superman is Superman not because of his god like powers. He ultimately chooses to help humanity because
deep down he’s as human as the rest of us.
Superman is supposed to be the ultimate symbol of humanity at its best
and what we should aspire to be. None of
Snyder’s films have captured that.
Another
problem DC has brought upon themselves is that they are introducing Cyborg, The
Flash, and Aquaman all at once in the Justice League movie without giving any
of these characters a chance to develop in their own solo films first. Marvel on the other hand gave nearly all of
their characters at least one solo film to let the audience get to know them
before bringing them all together for the Avengers.
Marvel
is so successful because fans care about Marvel’s characters. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has dominated
Hollywood for nearly ten years despite the fact that they don’t have the rights
to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four (Marvel Studios only recently acquired the
rights to Spider-Man). Marvel has been
able to take characters like Iron Man who was relatively unknown to mainstream
public and make him just as iconic as Superman and Batman. The Guardians of the Galaxy are another
example of this. Marvel managed to make
a talking raccoon and make him a stat.
Marvel is able to do this because they make their character relatable no
matter how over the top they may seem.
Overall,
while DC has managed to score a major hit with Wonder Woman no one else is really emotionally invested in their
characters. Superman and Batman have
been repeatedly criticized as being boring and other characters haven’t even
been introduced yet. Unless the Justice
League film does a great job of fleshing all of these characters out DC is only
going to continue to encounter this problem with every movie they make that
doesn’t have Wonder Woman in it.
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