Movie Moments XXIX: June 2020 (DCEU edition)

What I’ve discovered after this run is that these movies are all actually pretty fun if you want to think about character and world-building, but the “plot,” such as it is, generally makes very little sense.

Wonder Woman, 01 June 2020, Blu-ray

• I will forever be grateful that they didn’t cast a milky-pale woman to be Diana, for the record.
• Everything about the Themyscira scenes are perfect. And the costumes! They’re made practical even while they seem skimpy. All those tunics look functional, and there isn’t any point when we’re looking at someone’s body simply for the sake of it. (I would absolutely wear any outfit we see Hippolyta wearing. I’d look ridiculous, probably, but it would be worth it. Those heavy skirts slashed so you can still ride and kick in them? WANT.) Everybody with long hair has it braided back in some way so it doesn’t get in their eyes! Seriously, everybody on that island looks like they could do some serious damage, given the need. And the fight choreography! Ah!
• While Antiope and Hippolyta argued about whether Diana should be trained to fight, or even be told she’s the godkiller, is an important one. That said, their choice to not explain to her about, like, the problematic nature of humanity is a way, way worse thing to do to her. Her insistence about killing Ares is played for jokes at first, but through the movie, we start to see how it keeps her from understanding, well. Everything.
• Steve does not leer at anyone, even Diana, which is great. I mean, he saw most of the Amazons as they wiped out a bunch of German soldiers, so that first impression overrode any immediate bro impulses, I guess. It puts a balance to Steve spending most of the journey teaching Diana the ways of heteronormativity.
• I am so fascinated by Maru. What’s her story? What makes someone think, “Yes, war chemistry is going to be my speciality.” What was her dissertation topic?
• Diana tanking in No Man’s Land still makes me cry. Even though her hair being loose is ridiculous. Wonder Woman is the ultimate tank.
• Re: Diana’s laser-focus on Ares, note the white dudes, Steve and Charlie, are the ones that think she’s nuts. Sameer and Chief are just like, Who are we to question, after all the things we’ve seen?
• I want to call BS on Steve being in love with Diana, but between the boat from Themyscira and the journey to Belgium, they technically had a lot of time to hang out and get to know each other.

Man of Steel, 02 June 2020, DVD via public library

• This movie takes the incorrect stance that I care about Krypton’s problems, like, at all. (Why are all Kryptonians dicks, aside from the House of El? What’s that about?) If all we know about the planet is that it’s going to explode soon, there’s really no reason for us to be invested in its splintering or survival. Throwing together dragons, baby-growing seaweed, and Etch-a-sketch holograms does not an actual planet make.
• I do like how Clark goes asea and beardy because, I dunno, why not? And I salute whoever had the idea to introduce us to this Clark as he’s shirtless and on fire.
• Given that Superman is generally portrayed as having inherent goodness, I kiiiiind of understand the impulse to grittify him. It’s dumb, but I get it. More effective is the choice to show that, yeah, Clark’s childhood was mildly traumatic rather than idyllic is a clever one--because choosing to be selfless again and again and again would be a struggle. If Clark is supposed to be the Everyman or whatever, let’s see him experience some actual human problems.
• Lois having not-black hair still freaks me out.
• I really, really, really hate that Hologram Jor-el charges Clark to be an example and leader of humanity. Because to hell with you, Jor-el, maybe you don’t know a lot about the people on a planet you’ve never actually visited or explored. And again, the whole “it’s your destiny” schtick undermines the idea of Clark just striving to be a decent human.
• Lois pretty handily tracking Clark down all the way to the Kent farm is delightful and makes her seem like a journalist who deserves her storied Pulitzer. (But also, how does nobody else figure this out?)
• Jonathan deciding to go save the dog from a frickin’ TORNADO and then letting it take him instead of letting Clark super-speed his way out there using his IMPENETRABLE body continues to be aggravatingly ridiculous. Like, “scientist from Alien” levels of nonsense. Jonathan, you dumbass.
• The church scene is like a messianic hammer to the head. And yeah, keep reminding us that Clark’s 33 years old. I WONDER WHAT PARALLEL THEY ARE DRAWING.
• Blah blah blah Codex blah blah blah Zod. What’s up with the goatee, my man?
• How is Clark supposed to be “a bridge between two peoples,” Jor-el, if EVERYONE ON KRYPTON IS DEAD?
• We really need to talk about how Smallville is now a smoking crater after Zod came through. Come ON, Clark. Get out of civilian areas! Everyone you know is dead now! Run to the corn fields, people of Smallville! You’ve got Kryptonians and the Air Force to dodge! And same goes for Metropolis, I’m pretty sure?
• Smallville, for the record, looks like it was designed by someone who actually has visited small Midwestern towns, which is nice.
• ”The fact that you have a sense of morality, and we do not, means we have an evolutionary advantage.” That...is not how morality works. (Or evolution, for that matter.) You have different morals, wherein you prioritize, uh, eugenics and shit as the “right/good.” But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any morals. I demand precision in all taunts during superpower battles!
• Remember when folks were aghast that Superman killed Zod, and then Snyder said it was so that Superman could learn that murder was not the way? That was some worrisome nonsense, right there. (But legit: It seems like Zod could have been imprisoned, with a little creativity. He wasn’t, like, Kilgrave or something.)
• How did Clark get a job at the Planet? Perry, you need to call ALL of his references--that resume is filled with lies!

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 03 June 2020, streamed via Amazon
The title of this movie is needlessly complicated.

• How many times must we watch Bruce Wayne’s parents die?
• I dig the choice to contrast Bruce’s outlook with Clark’s--Affleck is, the internet tells me, ten years older than Cavill. Clark is still pretty optimistic, despite past trauma. Bruce, on the other hand, is feeling worn out. (Forty-something isn’t old unless you have to spend most of your time doing parkour.) But yeah, the driving conflict of this movie doesn’t work unless Batman’s already 20-some years into his work, while Superman’s only just started. Bruce has already been an idealist (of a sort), and he knows it ends with Robins getting dead.
• Every dress Diana wears in this film is perfect. They’re all gorgeously slinky, and the gold bands used as accents on most all of them are a nice nod to her Greek origins. She even wears lightning bolt-ish earrings in one scene! ALSO, how fascinating is her evolution from the WWI movie to this one? Pure of heart warrior to smooth as silk operator, man. (I cannot wait to watch the 1984 movie, y’all.)
• Why is Bruce goddamn Wayne having prophetic dreams of wasp aliens? (I’m assuming that was somewhat separate from the Speed Force vision.) Also, why is he wearing a trench coat and goggles? YOUR COSTUME IS ALREADY A TRENCH AND GOGGLES, SIR.
• ”Oh. Buddy,” I said aloud as Batman attempted to ram into Superman with the Batmobile.
• ”You know what’s the oldest lie in America, Senator? It’s that power can be innocent.” AND THEN YOU LET MERCY DIE. LEX, YOU BASTARD.
• The fight is the least interesting part of this movie, mostly because decades of fan debate have largely settled that Batman always wins this one. (The Martha thing remains, and shall always remain, incredibly stupid.)
• Seriously, firing missiles at Doomsday in the middle of the city? And they only waited, like, ten minutes before they launched nuclear missiles. WTF is with the military in this universe?
• Diana’s vicious grin whilst fighting Doomsday tells us everything we need to know about Diana, really.
• How weird must it have been at Clark’s funeral, with Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince just, like, hanging out in the back row?

Suicide Squad, 04 June 2020, Blu-ray

• Seriously, if I never again saw any movie feature the goddamn Joker, it’d be too soon. There are zero things interesting about “violent sociopath who wants to look unpredictable.”
• Man, you can’t articulate the Big Bad conflict BEFORE you have the “getting the band together” sequence! That robs us of all sense of investment in the protagonists! You have a Big Bad attack in the cold open, but it remains a mystery until the second act! COME ON. You’re doing this all out of order! (And to balance the complexities of the protag team, they seriously needed a way simpler antagonist. It’s too much, guys!)
• They made the soundtrack before they wrote the movie, right? That’s the only thing that explains any of this.
• They loaded this all up with burly dudes, but don’t nobody care about anybody except Harley Quinn and Amanda Waller. Deadshot is only acceptable because it’s Will Smith.
• Yeah, yeah, we KNOW Margot Robbie has a fine ass, y’all, we don’t need to have it in frame whenever possible.
• I hate the Joker, as we all know, but that scene of him rescuing Harley in the helicopter was pretty gorgeous, I thought. (And the dive into the chemical vat, come to think of it.)
• The character interactions would have rung a little more true if they’d either had two fewer in the crew, or about fifteen more minutes of team interactions sans fighting. Like, Harley arguing with pretty much anybody is fascinating, and Deadshot and Diablo had bits of interesting parallels.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, 05 June 2020, Blu-ray

• Whoa, watching this back-to-back with Suicide Squad makes me desperately want to know what happened with Harley and the Joker in the interim. (The originating fact of Harley is that she was trapped in an abusive relationship, but all the scenes they had in Suicide Squad were arguably romantic ones.) Like, uh, why break up now?
• It’s pretty awesome that the real villain of this movie is the patriarchy. (As dedicated as McGregor and Messina are to their roles, they have zero personality traits besides “angry asshole” and “likes cutting people.”)
• Another basic fact of Harley Quinn: She’s 100% boss when she’s broken free of the Joker. Also, blowing up a chemical plant as a symbolic fuck-you is possibly the most I’ve ever loved any version of Harley. And her absolute pwnage of the police station? *fans self*
• I do not know nearly enough about Renee Montoya (but Montoya/Ellen Yee is stannable). I dig socially awkward Huntress. Cassandra the baby crime lord is adorable. Black Canary as a chaotic neutral mob moll is wonderful.
• Oh god, I am in desperate need of a breakfast sandwich, y’all. I’m getting up early tomorrow to hit Wendy’s. (Their new menu is pretty dope.)
• Shout-out to Elle Jay Basco’s work as Cassandra. Elle Jay Basco, niece of Dante Basco, best known as RUF-I-OOOOOOOOO, superhero to all 90s Filipino kids.
• It’s easy to brush off Harley because she’s voluntarily spacey and loves sparkles, but girlfriend’s got a PhD and isn’t afraid to put it to work. Her 45-second analysis of the symbology of harlequins should make any literary critic sit up and pay attention.
• There is no panning up on anybody’s body, and no shots that ensure we stare at anybody’s ass. If we notice these women are sexy, it’s because they happen to be, not because we’re forced to see they are. (Canary, y’all. Dang.) And they don’t fetishize violence, either--we don’t see Roman torturing Harley, nor do we have to stare at that poor woman who Roman strips in the middle of the club. (There’s a difference between fetishizing and reveling in.)
• There’s something interesting to be said about Montoya and Huntress being traditional Strong Female Characters--ballsy, uber-competent in violence, clothed in sleek basic black, and disdainful of men. Contrasting them with Harley and Canary, our fourth-wavers, as well as fleet-fingered Cassandra, gives us a pretty nice range of HBICs.
• Harley carrying a tampon in her pocket is right up there with Harley offering Canary a hair tie during a fist fight.

Justice League, 06 June 2020, streamed via Google Play

• In the DCEU, there’s this weird ellison regarding metahumans. The way Superman--and the “death” of Superman--is spoken about would have us believe that his appearance completely upended the way humanity views itself. Except there have been metahumans for centuries, according to every other portion of the narrative. Heck, Batman’s been at it for at least 20 years, and he’s got a handful of metas for villains himself. (Not world-destroying, certainly, but still.) So, while the driving force of this movie--put a team together in order to defeat fear wasps or whatever--kind of makes sense, if we want to get technical, there are, like, dozens of folks who could have done the job. (Also, if the Big Bad’s existence goes back to the Themyscira and Atlanta alliance, claiming the attack is a result of Superman’s absence is convenient, but not wholly true.)
• I bet all Bruce’s time in the gym is punctuated by angry mutters about having to wrangle a bunch of overpowered champions with the foresight of toddlers. (Diana thinks this as well, but she’s too dignified to mutter. But does she hit a Milanese trattoria close to midnight and trade stories with all the nonnas about the foibles of men? Yes. Yes, she does.)
• Cyborg got done dirty by the DCEU marketing machine.
• The women of Themyscira seem to have become much less practical in terms of hair and armor since last we saw them. (Were those leather bikinis?) And UGH, we are subjected to shots of Diana’s ass, because LAURA MULVEY WAS RIGHT.
• Let’s just never speak of Steppenwolf and the Mother Boxes ever again.
• ”What are your superpowers again?” “I’m rich.” Wouldn’t you kill for scenes of Barry talking to Bruce on the drive to the airport? And then on the plane? And then upon landing? And then on the drive through Gotham?
• Aquaman drinking whiskey from the bottle at the shorebreak in the middle of a storm set to the White Stripes’ “Icky Thump” with tattoos on full display establishes that I, specifically, am the target audience for this movie.
• Clark was buried in a suit, and then emerged from the goop...shirtless and shoeless?
• The moment when Barry realizes Clark can track him at full speed is a pretty excellent little moment. Also terrifying, when you remember Barry only, as he said, pushes people and runs away--all the force when he’s fighting comes from the build-up of kinetic energy. If Superman catches him while he’s already at full speed? I would anticipate a full squish.
• I bet Bruce and Deadshot would go head-to-head in a Mathlete competition.
• I would also like a few scenes of Barry driving Arthur nuts on their flight to Russia and back.

Aquaman, 07 June 2020, Blu-ray

• I do have a deep and abiding love for battle queen Atlanna. I would dig an entire movie of Atlantis palace intrigue with her at the center.
• Arthur leaving that dude to die in the submarine, even though he could have easily saved him, is pretty cold. Which makes him unsympathetic at first? Though it technically doesn’t deviate from his character in Justice League--he didn’t display any innate compassion there, either. (TOM RAISED YOU BETTER THAN THIS, ARTHUR.) But, like, I am legit having trouble finding the thread where he’s supposedly becoming a better person. Even when he admits he shouldn’t have let the dude die, it’s because the consequences led to Mera being in danger. *facepalm*
• The battle-seahorses are possibly my favorite.
• ”Ocean Master.” I can’t, guys.
• I mean, there’s something pretty satisfying seeing the ocean sending trash back to those that generated it. Honestly, it seems like something that should happen on the regular.
• There is no clear explanation about how Arthur and Mera get in and out of the Sahara Desert and it continues to drive me nuts. How did they have money to take a cargo plane? How did they get through hundreds of kilometers of desert to reach Sicily? WTF?
• ”They’re like little baby oceans!” What a poet you are, Arthur.
• It’s fun to pick apart how Arthur’s character was shaped. Brought up by Tom, who seems a humble and decent guy. Knowing his mother was trapped (in a sense) and then killed by Atlantis. The kids around making fun of him or being afraid of him, while Vulko keeps reminding him he’s royalty with talents beyond normal humans. And he sees any responsibility he might have is to clan (at one point Tom mentions working on his ta moko--Maori tattoos) but not kingdom (because obligation robbed him of his mother). What you end up with a dude filled with out-sized confidence, but without any real understanding of how to make real connections and a complete disinterest in doing anything just because someone claims he should.
• So Arthur can speak Russian and Italian, and also knows military history pretty well. I want to know so much more about his education.
• The camerawork for the Sicily battle was great--the long shots to show how they were traversing different parts of the town were gorgeous. And that one soldier just bashing his way through buildings? Dang.
• Look, Atlanna killed a bunch of Trench and then used their hides and bones to craft her armor. Arthur’s talents at kicking ass clearly did not come from his father’s side. Meanwhile, they did their best, but there just isn’t a way to make Aquaman’s traditional costume look intimidating.
• It’s pretty funny that the key to getting Atlan’s trident isn’t so much a mystical birthright, but rather that talking to sea creatures runs in the family. (Also, it’s both creepy and cool that Atlan’s body was still there with the trident.)
• I dig that Atlanna’s return makes clear why Orm is such an angry power-monger: His father essentially murdered his mother because she liked to hang out on land. And from what Mera said, Atlanna was the one in charge of all the lessons in diplomacy, so.
• They did their darndest to sell us Arthur/Mera, but how can anything compare to Tom waiting for Atlanna to return every day at dawn?

Shazam!, 08 June 2020, streamed via HBO Now

• Whenever you see a family arguing whilst driving in a sedan circa the 1970s, you can be sure there’s about to be a life-altering car accident.
• If you can roll with the combined goofiness AND dignity of our first Shazam wizard, you’ll do just fine with this film. If you can’t, just stop watching.
• Billy’s ongoing search to find his mother is so old-school! Literally going to every address to see if his mom is there? Just post a thing to Twitter, kid. The world has changed.
• I love this United Colors of Benetton foster family, y’all. They ooze sincerity and it’s delightful. I mean, I would guess it’s pretty unrealistic (how are NONE of these kids severely maladjusted), but it’s also nice to think that hey, sometimes people don’t suck. (Nicely balanced with his mom’s reaction when he finally finds her. Yowch.)
• Like, none of these people were sufficiently pure of heart? Why drag them into the cavern in the first place? How were they chosen? I have questions about the Shazam search algorithm.
• The weirdest thing about this movie is that it presumes everything that’s happened in previous DCEU films happened, but not a single person seems out of their mind about, say, the Steppenwolf nonsense. (Sorry, I know I said we wouldn’t speak of it.) If Shazam! is a street-level view of this world, then we should be seeing folks like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and Matt Murdock. (Funny to think that the MCU has bright main films and dark street-level action, while DCEU is kind of the opposite.)
• I would dig an exploration of the Council of Wizards and its slow decline, as well as the cavern of doors.
• ”The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury.” Uh, most of those guys were assholes, my dude. Then again, I guess this movie does focus on two teenage boys, who are inherently assholes anyway.
• The demon attack scenes feel like an entirely different movie. Like, a supernatural horror movie. It’s both tonally off and completely unnecessary. BUT ALSO, how much do I not care about that whole part of this movie? Seriously, there must have been a darker script out there, and then someone decided to make it more family friendly.
• I would also love a movie of just these six kids figuring out how to be superheroes. (Without considering, of course, the Narnia problem: How do folks who have functioned as adults and done, y’know, adult things, go back to being children again?) Anyway, Shazam Eugene shouted “Hadouken” when he blasted one of the monsters, so he is now everything to me.
• Oh man, Clark 100% gave Billy a very long talk about responsibility before he agreed to visit the school, right? No way he didn’t.

I enjoyed this run way more than I thought I would! It’s pretty fun to try to make the characters consistent over multiple movies. And MAN, I hope we get Wonder Woman 1984 soon.

And next up: Terminators!