Ladies Fashion with the Themyscira Volleyball Team

Oh, good grief. I mean, really: on the left we have the Amazons as they appeared in Wonder Woman and the image on the right is a publicity still for how the Amazons are appearing in Justice League.

Seriously, DC? You're actually doing this. You're replacing practical metal armour that is based on actual armour designs and replacing them with leather bikinis? This is something you were willing to spend extra money on?

I don't know where to start with this. Do I start with maintaining brand consistency with the super-popular movie these ladies just appeared in? Do I start with the fact that said super-popular movie made headlines with its practical and non-sexualised armour design?

Oh, good grief, the bikini Amazons are even draped over a car, it just gets worse. Can we just agree that it says something sad about the state of things that the image on the left is what happens when you have Amazons in a female-led production and the image on the right is what happens when you have them in a male-led one? Now, I'm a bloke and I'm a bloke who is interested in women (and lamps, he quoted pointlessly) and I have this to say:

Stop it. Just bloody stop this shit. Stop acting like putting women in practical costumes is something you only need to do for those “woman” films. This makes you look bad, it makes you look like sexist idiots. This is a step backwards.

Still, on a lighter note I was glad to hear that Warner's stupid, stupid decision not to sign Gal Gadot to a multi-movie deal has led to her trying to strongarm them into removing an infamous sexual harasser from the franchise. Best “its me or the dog” play ever given she's the only thing critics have anything positive to say about the entire franchise. 

Joss Whedon, Barbara Gordon and DC's trauma fetish

So apparently Joss Whedon wants to use his Batgirl movie to “explore the damage” that made her become a vigilante. I kind of wanted to set out a reasoned and calm counterpoint to this but it just sort of came out as a rant so here we go!

No. No no no no no. We do not need this. The DCEU does not need this. No one needs Barbara Gordon of all characters reduced to another showcase of trauma fetish like Batman has been stuck as for seven decades and counting.

You want the story of why Barbara put on the suit? Here's a quick run down of the best version there ever was: she was too shirt to be a cop. Her father was a cop and as a kid she wanted to be a cop, she saw it as the noblest form of public service and public service was what she wanted to do with her life. Unfortunately, she didn't meet the GCPD's physical requirements even though she was more than academically qualified.

Then one day she does to a costume party, a big political thing her father had been invited to, and she's sort of pissed with her dad over something and she wants to show him up a bit. Her big plan for needling her father? She makes her own Batman costume and she's going to turn up to this party, the daughter of the police commissioner dressed up as the police department's dirty little secret.

And then someone takes the party hostage and its just her in a Batman costume and she's really smart and has enough bsic self-defence to get by and she manages to rescue everyone but before she can tell her dad who she is everyone is taking pictures of “the Batgirl” and suddenly there's a new vigilante in Gotham. She sees her way into public service, a way to do right when the official channels of law and order don't want her, she decides she'll become the Batgirl for real. She tries things, screws up, takes advice here and there, meets Dick and starts the whole on-off relationship thing, and over time she earns enough respect from Batman that she becomes the first costume in Gotham he “allows” to operate in the city outside of his immediate operation (a cool tradition of the female Gotham heroes is that, Cass Cain aside, they tend to be independent operators outside of Bruce's strict control).

Its as simple as that. There's no great damage or trauma there. Barbara Gordon wanted to do good and the Bat allowed her to do that when doing it the socially acceptable way wasn't possible. That's Barbara's story. For that matter, its Kate Kane's story, too. Not every superhero needs to be wedded to GRAND SUFFERING and ETERNAL TRAUMA just because untreated mental illness is the only motivating factor that seems to work for DC's marketing people.

Its not like Barbara is without pain or eternal conflict. Depending on the version you're reading she blames herself for Jason Bard's shooting and the end of his GCPD career; the end of her relationship with Dick is a source of eternal mixed feelings; and, to be frank, being the daughter of the police commissioner and a vigilante is one hell of a line to walk and you're going to end up with issues. The thing is that this doesn't totally define her the way the death of his parents defines Bruce or her cashiering from the military defines Kate's journey to the costume. Even when she loses the use of her legs and becomes Oracle that trauma does not define her. Its ever-present, as it should be, but again it isn't her soul motivating factor.

One might almost call her very varied set of emotions and motivations... complex? As if she were, to coin a phrase DC seems to not be aware of, a “complex character”?

Just a thought. 

Batman: Bad Blood: the perfect pattern for Bafleck

Last night I watched Batman: Bad Blood, one of the straight-to-DVD DC animated features, and it is absolutely what DC-Warner should be planning to do with Ben Affleck as Batman (if Affleck still is Batman for the forseeable future).

To explain: the DCEU's angle on Batman is that he's an older gentleman who's been around for a while. The benefits of this are obvious: he has some experience; they don't have to run through his origin story again; and, if they don't want to waste time on an origin for the villain they don't have to, as with Joker and Harley in Suicide Squad. Mainly its just a way of getting around the fact that the audience can be relied upon to know the basics of Batman and his world by this point.

Bad Blood also has an older Batman and uses it as a driving force for the story.

In the first few minutes of the movie, Batman gets blown up and remains missing for about half the film. This means that the writers get to play with the idwa of Batman as a legacy. Now, obviously, this film is very much pitched at existing fans but seeing as how many Batman movies there have been its not out of line to expect audiences to be able to get behind this. Affleck is the sixth big screen Batman and, like James Bond, you have a pretty good idea of the character because of it.

So, we have a group of various bat-family characters filling the void. Alfred drags Nightwing back to Gotham so Dick can wear the Batman costume and keep the legend alive. Batwoman, who witnessed Batman getting blown up, represents the Batman legacy as inspiration (even if I do think this version of her original meetign with Batman casts her a bit too passively compared to the original comic telling). Damian represents the legacy of inheritance, which has deeper meaning later on in the plot. Then finally there's Luke Fox as Batwing, another son inheriting a role from his father but taking it in an entirely new direction. Even the villain of the piece is trying to exceed the achievements of their predecessor. Kate, too, has a plot revolving around her relationship to her family, in particular her father Jacob. There's a lot of history being explored here, perfect territory for a version of Batman mythos meant to contain a lot of unseen previous adventures.

There are issues. The main villain has a pre-existing relationship to Batman that isn't very well explained, at least not for a general audience. Similarly, the relationship between Bruce and Damian doesn't get much exposition beyond the simple fact that they're father and son.

Then there's Kate. I imagine most of the issues I have with this portrayal is the creators hitting up against the film's PG-13 age rating. The scene where she “flirts” with Montoya is punishing to watch, though it isn't as if the rest of the film shies away from the fact that Kate is a lesbian the dialogue just doesn't work at all. Surprisingly (or not) Dick fairs somewhat better in the flirt stakes, having a phone conversation with Starfire (during a fight with Blockbuster, no less) that repeatedly comes within one cut-off word of being literal phone sex.

I'm also none too clear on why Damian starts the film in a monastery but I think from some other dialogue that there's another film that precedes this one in continuity.

Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned this is the standard Affleck's solo debut has to beat now. After Wonder Woman I am more hopeful than I was that it has a chance but this sets a high bar, at least as far as central concept goes. 

Wonder Woman: spoilers on, I have feelings to discuss

This post is a mess. I just sat down and wrote about everything I could think of about this brilliant, brilliant movie. As such, he aware there are a lot of wild, unrestrained spoilers here. There might not be any sort of coherent structure but there are spoilers.

Batman and Wonder Woman: OTP 4EVA

Okay, not really, my OTP in the DC Universe will always be Tim and Steph (its generational) but I love that this whole film is a flashback brought on by Bruce sending Diana a photo her her Steve and the WWI gang. Being Bruce, of course, this sweet gesture is delivered by armoured car in a secure briefcase carried by armed guards because Bruce is the most extra person who ever lived.

I despise the pairing of Diana and Clark with a fiery passion but I have always had something of a soft spot for a bit of Bruce/Diana. I know this is probably not meant to be taken as a romantic gesture because this is Batman on film and he is TRAUMATIZED and CAN NEVER KNOW LOVE and MAAAAARTHA but I can live in hope.

Weeping Manly Tears

I admit it, the No Man's Land section brought a tear to my eye. Every last second of that scene is just liquid empowerment. Its a huge moment not only for Diana but for Steve and the rest of their ragtag little group. Everything from her climbing the trench ladder to demolishing the sniper nest is amazingly directed.

Diana in battle is probably the best thing to point to when someone asks how much having a female director on this film makes a difference. She's always shot in ways that keep her properly centred in the shot and accentuates her actions: the sweep of her sword, the direction of a leap, and so on. There are no scenes shot to give us a good angle on her breasts or her backside. There have been something like five Marvel movies with Black Widow in them and every damn fight scene, I swear...

27 countries

There are certain realities of the First World War that just get... well, whitewashed is a pretty appropriate word. When Steve is explaining the war to the Amazons he makes a specific point of how twenty-seven countries are involved in the conflict. I don't know about you, but wheb I learned about this in school the list was pretty much abbreviated to the UK, Germany, France, Russia and the United States.

There's a scene early in the film with a massive crowd of British soldiers about to take ship for France and in amongst them are Indian soldiers in turbans. There's also a substantial set piece set in the Ottoman theatre, instead of everything being about the Trenches as in just about every other WWI movie I've ever seen.

How cool is Steve Trevor?

The scene where we're introduced to the Lasso Of Truth is a great set piece for establishing Steve Trevor's character. In this version of events, the lasso is something that can be resisted but it causes pain. Steve manages to bite back the truth several times before blurting out that he's a spy. It shows us how strong a personality Steve is and, frankly, why he's worthy of Diana's attention (and, yes, that's the way it works because its her name on the film and he's the love interest).

The conversation about sleeping together on the boat is comedy gold, as well. Too much of Steve and Diana's funny scenes later are cringe comedy where he tries to force her to fit in with a patriarchal world and... I understand why those scenes exist and I like the bit with the glasses but I've never liked the cringe thing.

Oh, and I love the bath scene. I love that for once the guy is naked (and it is no chore looking at Chris Pine shirtless).

I adore Etta Candy

Probably the biggest departure from source material (other than the change of World War) is Etta Candy, here reimagined as an English suffragette with a dry sense of humour. I adore her and I wish there had been more room for her but Lucy Davis squeezes every moment of comedy from her scenes.

Allan Heinberg Returns

Allan Heinberg wrote the screenplay and, for those unaware, Heinberg is a very good screenwriter who sometimes moonlights as a very slow comics writer. He created the Young Avengers for Marvel where he made a twenty-four issue masterplan last six years. He was also writer on the post-Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman which stalled after four issues with a fifth being released something like a year later as an annual. For all that, those five issues were a bold statement of intent for a revitalised new direction... that totally stalled out because a year's worth of guest writers had to leave their options open as to what they were actually following up on.

Still, he had a fine sense of what Wonder Woman was about and I'm glad we finally drew some dividends from that.

BTW, Philippus is in it

I don't think she's named in any dialogue but IMDB tells me that the Amazon played by Ann Ogbomo is Philippus. So, if you were worried Queen Hippolyta might get too lonely with her sister dead and her daughter out in Man's World, well...

Part of me wishes Ares wasn't there

I can't help it. I like David Thewlis and what he does with the role and I acknowledge that there had to be someone about the place at Diana's power level for a final confrontation but...

I prefered the idea that there was no great supernatural conspiracy at work in the end, that the Great War really was just a mess of people being stubborn and shit at each other. That war genuinely was one of the greatest human tragedies in history and part of me feels that that could stand on its own. I'm not sure I'd call it disrepectful, exactly, but there is a part of me that questions the taste.

That having been said, it was a good idea to set the story just before Armistice Day. What Diana is foiling is explicitly the last ditch attempt of a German general to keep the war going when the end was all but a done deal. That means that Diana isn't ending the war all by herself which I think genuinely would have been disrespectful.

*****

Now, I don't doubt I'll have more to say about this movie in time, at the very least I'm likely to see it again with some friends some time next week, but that seems a decent amount to be getting on with. 

Thoughts on Wonder Woman (NON-SPOILER VERSION)

This was a good movie, maybe even a legitimately great one but I'm writing this about three hours after leaving the cinema so I'll let the euphoria fade before making that judgement.

On Sunday I wrote about how I thought Wonder Woman's success vindicated the DCEU approach. The drive towards more auteur-driven superhero movies and a greater variety of creative visions really pays off here. Well, it pays off for me, at any rate, I know there are plenty of people who felt it paid off in Suicide Squad or BvS or Man of Steel and ain't no problem with that. With an approach like this, mileage varies a lot.

Hell, even DC's habit (much older than the DCEU) of reinventing the wheel at the drop of a hat works here. Shoving Diana into the action of the First World War rather than the Second was a fantastic idea. There's so much more drama to be made out of having her interact with the “bad” world war, the one that was just a bunch of alliances and pacts getting in each other's way until the worst conflict in human history happened. Surprisingly, there's a lot more attention paid here to the period detail than many serious films about the period: one of the film's major set pieces takes place in the German occupied Ottoman Empire; Indian soldiers in turbans appear several times; even the most sympathetic characters (besides Diana, that is) are moved to callousness by the hopelessness of the conflict; and, some actual thought goes into placing the story at a point in the war where we don't see Wonder Woman rather insensitively winning a war that in reality cost millions of lives whilst still giving her a good reason to be involved (more on that tomorrow).

As to Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot is great in the role even though it took a while for her line delivery to really click with me. I've not seen her in anything before (I decided to skip BvS somewhere between learning about the peach tea and “Martha!” scenes) but once you're used to the voice it really works. Chris Pine is perfectly cast as Steve Trevor and its clear Pine has a good sense of what Trevor is there for, never getting in the way of Gadot's performance.

Lucy Davis' Etta Candy is, sadly, not as prominent a role as the trailers might have led people to believe but that's more than made up for a brilliant trio of companions Diana and Steve pick up along the way played by Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock as Sameer, Charlie and The Chief and, yes, there is a perfectly good reason for a Native American to be hanging around that even provides a great moment for Diana's education in how Man's World works.

Patty Jenkins' directing is top notch, by the way. Every fight scene is fantastic, busy with action on multiple levels and sheer power granted to Diana in those scenes is, whilst ultimately nothing special in the genre as a whole, something we're just not used to seeing a female superhero doing. Jenkins has an enviable sense of space with Paradise Island being all open spaces and clear skies whilst the London sections are full of crowded spaces indoors and out.

Most of all, though, at no point does the action stop to stare at Gal Gadot's body. Now, it would be a braver man than me who could claim that the camera doesn't linger on her, she's a stunning woman and the star of the movie, but what the camera conspicuously does not do is linger on her breasts or backside, nor is she ever blocked into a shot in such a way to emphasis body at the cost of moving her face out of shot. There have been something like five MCU movies with Black Widow in them and ever damn fight scene, I swear...

So, yes, this is a really good movie. I'm not sure I'm sold enough on the character to see Justice League just on the strength of her being in it but I'm more than on board for any sequels or spin-offs to this movie DC might want to greenlight in the future. 

How Wonder Woman totally vindicates Batman v. Superman

With Wonder Woman getting good reviews all over the place (except from Fox News who seem offended that the title character isn't American because reasons) and Batman v. Superman getting a post-mortem bashing in the process, I just wanted to throw out a ray of hope for people who liked BvS:

Wonder Woman's success totally vindicates the creative vision of BvS.

Seriously. I'm not kidding. I'm not being mean. This isn't going to end with me praising BvS with faint damnation. It also, to be frank, doesn't end with me changing my own poor opinion of BvS but I seriously believe this whole situation works out for everyone in a way a lot of people aren't considering.

First of all, if you liked BvS (and Man Of Steel and Suicide Squad) then nothing can change that, that's how you feel. Furthermore, those films did well so you can rest assured that you are a commercially viable audience and DC isn't going to stop making films like that any time soon. The creative visions of Zack Snyder and David Ayer will continue to be present in their films.

And there it is!

See, since DC got into the shared cinematic universe game one of the big distinctions they tried to make between their operation and Marvel's was that they wanted to give their directors more creative control. Now, I don't hold that all Marvel films are directed exactly the same or have a totally unified aesthetic but there is an obvious effort to present a similar tone and production design so that when characters from different ends of the MCU meet it doesn't look weird.

Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman has a very different feel to the other three existing DCEU movies but Suicide Squad also has a different feel to the two Snyder-led efforts, just not as pronounced. It was, perhaps, a mistake to lead with two films by the same director and then follow up with a third from a new director whose style was not quite as distinct from Snyder's as it could have been but this does all show that DC is willing to pursue very different creative visions even with characters who are going to meet up.

Long story short: everybody wins. If you liked the Snyder (and closely allied Ayer) approach, that isn't going away even if Warner takes the success of Wonder Woman to heart. Justice League and Gotham City Sirens will continue that approach because that's what their directors were employed to create: Zack Snyder's Justice League and David Ayer's Gotham City Sirens. Then down the line we get Joss Whedon's Batgirl and Matt Reeves' The Batman.

Now, the down side of this is that unlike Marvel the audience of any one film in the franchise will not go into any of the others with the reassurance they're going to like what they watch. For my part, though, I'm more than willing to take that risk for a more varied approach to these properties. 

Why Logan works and Batman v. Superman didn't

(NO SPOILERS HERE. I'll probably put up a review at the end of the week but this is just a short, general terms discussion of things that are absolutely clear from the trailers and advertising).

Logan is a good film. Actually, its a bloody excellent film but the problem is that what makes it work is basically impossible to copy. Its not the 18 rating (in the US, over here it passed as a 15), though it certainly helps that Wolverine can finally use his claws on people as well as props.

No, what makes this film work is that Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart have been playing these characters for nearly twenty years. Watching these two living in a Mexican shack as broken old men has an emotional resonance that just telling Ben Affleck not to shave and trying to pass him off as an older Batman couldn't hope to.

This is actually a pretty big problem for DC: they keep trying to deconstruct things they never properly constructed in the first place. They tried to do the big blow out fight between Batman and Superman with a Batman we've never met before and a Superman we barely know; they've commissioned a Nightwing movie without doing any work on the idea of what Robin is so we can't appreciate what it is in this world for Dick to have moved on from the role; we were expected to care about Wonder Woman over a year before we got her origin story.

Not that I think DC are the only ones scheming away trying to work out how to make their own Logan. You can bet your arse that some misguided soul at Sony is trying to wrestle Spider-Man: Reign into a pitch document, an idea that might just have worked if Tobey Maguire was still in the role but there's not enough make-up on Earth to turn Tom Holland into Old Man Peter Parker so we'd end up with yet another live action Spider-Man.

So let's... not, okay? Let's allow a unique film based on unique circumstances no one could have planned to remain the singular little gem it is and move on to good ideas.

Please?

Wonder Woman's astonishing movie villain revealed!

(Fair warning, this post discusses the recent announcement-ish of the villain for the Wonder Woman movie.

If you want to remain entirely unspoiled, turn away now.)

Its bloody Ares.

Let's be clear: as unimpressed as I am by the very obvious, very dull choice of villain I am still interested in this movie. There are plenty of good ideas: putting Wonder Woman in the ultimate “man's folly” of the First World War; having a Suffragette Etta Candy; filming in something approaching colour... these are all things that interest me. However...

Setting aside the questionable taste of having a comicbook God Of War turn up in very real human tragedy of the Trenches (and likely being somehow responsible), isn't it just a bit obvious? A bit generic?

I mean, I get that there isn't a deep bench here. Wonder Woman's rogues gallery is a mess... as is her supporting cast... and her status quo... look, every creative team for 75+ years has felt the need to reinvent the wheel to the extent that the big Rebirth hook for her title is Greg Rucka hyperventilating into a paper bag trying to rationalise it all. And honestly? That gave me hope for this film.

You see, there's no Wonder Woman equivalent of The Dark Knight Returns or The Death Of Superman. No story that DC fandom has obsessively made the basis for the character.

Wonder Woman, funnily enough considering her real world origins, is not tied down to any one dominant interpretation and that was born out when they decided to shift her origins back a World War and play with the idea of her meeting the Suffragettes.

And then they decide Ares will be the villain. The God Of War versus the warrior princess...

… yeah. It is a pretty standard go to for the genre. Again, I get that there isn't a deep bench here. Doctor Psycho and Egg-Fu are all kinds of problematic; guys like Angle Man and the Cavalier are a bit low rent; and, otherwise, its mainly just more classical gods.

But still, isn't Cheetah meant to be the iconic villain these days? Circe's there if you want a supernatural threat; Veronica Cale offers a lot of interesting angles; and, Giganta offers interesting visuals.

But, no, Ares.

Ugh...