Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Terrible film. Terrible, terrible film.
I hate it when films have such great potential for being emotional, character driven action films . . . only to decide to forgo any actual emotion beats to make sure they hit all the action beats.
Here's a film about Superman discovering that he's not the last, living person from his planet . . . only to have his worst enemy convince her to turn against him.
But the emotion in this movie is as flat as the animation. Superman leanrs he has a cousin, and he says with no emotion at all: "Uh, I think she's my cousin."
His cousin gets kidnapped by his greatest enemy, after slaughtering a number of people from Wonder Woman's island? No emotion, just, "Uh, let's go get her."
His cousin is turned evil? No emotion, just a flat line reading of, "Uh, you don't have to do this."
Meanwhile, at the beginning, Supergirl wants to learn what it means to be an earthgirl . . . so Superman takes her to the mall and we get a pretty woman montage. Yup, that's what it means to be an earthgirl!
Batman is Batman, and does Batman stuff. Wonder Woman is Wonder Woman, and does Wonder Woman stuff. Superman is Superman, and does Superman stuff. But it all feels so flat. So dry. So lifeless. I want to see character development. I want to see emotional moments with action based emotional payoffs . . . not action moments with action payoffs. I want emotion, not going through the motions.
The fight scenes are impressive. Even more impressive? If they had taken the time to actually let the characters be true to the emotional elements of the plot instead of just crafting brilliant, brutal fight scenes.
~ Ben
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