The Flickering Myth Team react…
After a small teaser earlier in the week, the latest trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released to the wide world, and showed off what many have been expecting – Doomsday. Some have already critisied the trailer for being spoiler-heavy, but what did the writing staff of Flickering Myth think?
Eddy Gardiner: I feel like I just watched the film.
Rob James Kojder: I feel like I could summarize the entire plot, but it still looks great. Modern trailers spoil too much.
Luke Owen: I was totally on board for it… until Doomsday showed up. What an unnecessary addition to the movie. And if you are going to have him in the film, why spoil it in the trailer? Shouldn’t the film be about Batman fighting Superman? You know, like the title suggests?
Ricky Church: Remember though, the subtitle is Dawn of Justice. The film was always going to be about Batman and Superman coming together for a common goal. Its often worked that way in many of their first interactions in comics and television so its no surprise the movie would be following that format.
Chris Cooper: Visually it’s brilliant. But I’d expect nothing less from Snyder. I think the only thing that bothers me on that front is that Doomsday looks like an Abomination/Goomba/Lizard cross. The trailer does seem to give away a lot, but is any of what we’ve seen really surprising? Something has to make them come together! There could be plenty more to see yet. I do love Bruce’s reaction to seeing Lex. Superman telling Batman to stay down was cool too.
Villordsutch: This trailer stokes the coals even more for my hatred of both the film and Snyder. From the over the top Lex Luthor who screams, “Look! I’m a villain”, the addition of Doomsday showing that this film will actually stop being BvsS and become B&S&WWvsD then finally we see Batman with a sodding gun. A shambles of a trailer which will no doubt lead to a even bigger shambles of a WB superhero film that will pull in billions!
Ricky Church: I don’t think its a traditional gun. Batman has been shown to carry gun-looking armaments for a long while, recently in The Dark Knight Trilogy and the Arkham video games. This is probably just another of his infamous gadgets.
Villordsutch: I’m still expecting the pew-pew variety after seeing the new Bat-Mobile.
Chris Cooper: If you watched the Dark Knight Rises trailer without context you’d think Batman has a gun. But it was an EMP thing. In The Dark Knight he has a ‘gun’, but it shoots sticky bombs. This will just be another gadget. Batman isn’t above using weaponry. As long as he’s not shooting flames onto clowns from the back of the Batmobile I’m cool with it.
Gav Logan: I don’t know. I’m still highly excited for it, for the Batman v Superman parts, out of curiosity if nothing else. Would’ve liked to have seen a Doomsday tease rather than actually seeing him up close. I’m guessing he’ll appear towards the end to usher in the JL. Thought it was a decent trailer overall
Gary Collinson: Definitely didn’t excite me the way that the Comic-Con trailer did and gives way too much away. Still very much excited by the film, but I thought the the recent teaser of Superman unmasking Batman was more effective than this trailer. That being said, I’ve still watched it about nine times this morning.
Tom Jolliffe: First half of the trailer I thought looked pretty cool. The second half I spent groaning. It just looks like it will be a bit tiresome and all kinds of dumb. In all honesty this is probably a concept that works as an impressive fan short film rather than cramming it into a feature. Of course audiences will lap it up, particularly the teen market, but much as I hate to say it and to quote the great Danny Glover, “I’m too old for this shit.” And in addition I already dislike the way Eisenberg is playing Lex. I like him as an actor but he looks annoying here.
Gav Logan: Thank you Tom. I’ve never been his biggest fan but his performance here feels so overacted and desperate. Hope I’m wrong
Anghus Houvouras: This looks like an orgy of excess. The die has been cast.: DC is employing the kitchen sink theory. Finally this movie is all over the map. Each trailer seems to swing back and forth wildly like a pendelum from deadly grim to light and frothy. There wasn’t a singular moment for me that screamed ‘amaze-balls’, but this thing looks so schizophrenic that I’m fascinated. Like a psychiatrist trying to map the mind of a serial killer: its horrifying but I’m morbidly curious to find out what’s next.
Jessie Robertson: Only issue is the revealing of way too much, but come on, Wonder Woman coming to their rescue looked freaking amazing. And who cares if Luthor is over the top? Doesn’t mean his performance will be bad. This trailer gives more of an action film look but I think there’s still going to be depth in some of the larger issues brought up in the last trailer, could be wrong but lets see.
Ricky Church: I really don’t see how this trailer revealed “too much”. With the exception of Doomsday, nothing we didn’t already know was shown, and even then Doomsday has been a rumour for months. Speculation said it was either going to be him or Bizarro that would pop up. And really, Doomsday was either going to be revealed via a WTF trailer moment or as a leaked toy or screen image. I feel that would have been only a matter of time. And consider, we still haven’t seen Aquaman, Cyborg, Jena Malone or Scoot McNairy yet.
Gary Collinson: I thought it felt a lot like a DVD trailer, where they take you through the entire plot in chronological order. But you have a point on Doomsday, it would only be a matter of time before it leaked, and I imagine they want to use the character on merchandising and promotional material too.
Thomas Harris: *LOUD NOISES*
Ricky Church: While the Comic-Con trailer is still my favourite, I liked a lot of what I saw here. The Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent interaction is one of my favourite moments because its a well written scene with some great acting by Cavil and Affleck. Much of the core of the DC Universe is the friendship these two characters have, but it began with a very rocky relationship. I feel the film will explore their radical differences and similarities. The injection of humour seems like a deliberate move on Synder and WB’s part to quiet down the vocal minority who feel the film will be too dark. I don’t feel this is jarring in anyway to the previous trailers, its more showing how the various characters will interact with each other since that has been one aspect notably absent in the previous trailers. After all, the trailers for Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War have given a focus on the serious elements, but have humourous moments in the films themselves. The moments of levity in Batman v Superman seem like they will only enhance the budding relationships between people. My only area of concern is Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor who seems a little too eccentric for my liking. However, I think this could be his public persona since he appears and sounds much more collected at other points throughout the trailer.
Tom Beasley: The Comic-Con trailer had me all kinds of excited for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but this trailer has allowed all of my prior cynicism to come rushing back. It looks like the same orgy of noise, bluster and grime that Man of Steel was, learning no lessons from the success of Marvel. We just learnt almost the whole plot without really a single shred of character. Compare this entire clip to the potent friendship line in the Captain America: Civil War trailer. That’s the difference between DC and Marvel’s cinematic approach in a nutshell.
Ricky Church: I kind of disagree. The interaction between Clark and Bruce says a lot about each one’s state of mind towards their respective alter-egos and it shows Cavil and Affleck have some great chemistry together. Marvel has also had the benefit of 12 movies to build up to Civil War, two of those showing the developing friendship between Cap and Iron Man (technically three if you count Cap’s relationship with Howard Stark). There’s already two films that build off their friendship, making Tony’s line in Civil War that much more emotional. With Batman v Superman, this is not only the first time Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman have met each other, but only the second DC film in their cinematic universe (or Expanded Universe, whatever you want to call it). There may not be as much of an emotional payoff to seeing Batman and Superman fight each other, but I think the payoff will come when they join together to become the World’s Finest team.
Scott J. Davis: Still so excited for the film,but I feel like I’ve seen it through the trailer. Doomsday reveal was unnessary, as was the “team” unveil – I know it’s coming, so let me see it first on the big screen. Good, not great. But digging Eisenberg’s Luthor a lot, and Affleck looks fantastic.
Tai Freligh: There was a lot to like for me. I enjoyed seeing Clark and Bruce interacting. I liked seeing the Trinity come together to fight. I also like the humor. We knew that Batman and Superman would fight and then team up and we also knew that something of a bigger threat than Lex would bring the Trinity together (and that it probably was Doomsday after we saw Lex had Zod’s body). I think there is a lot more we don’t know about the plot. How does Wonder Woman come into the story and do Batman and Superman know her civilian identity? How does Aquaman come into the picture and how do the cameos from Cyborg and Flash happen? What is the bigger threat that forces the creation of the Justice League (which is the next movie)? Was that Parademons? Is Darkseid coming? Personally, I’m excited for the movie and whatever they decide to reveal over the next four months’ marketing plans.
Mark Clark: I am, have been, and always will be a DC boy. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Marvel Universe, but for sheer epic characters you can’t really beat the DC Trinity, so this entire Justice League project is manna from heaven, and the latest trailer for Batman V Superman does nothing to diminish that. Frankly, just seeing forthright Clark and hard-bitten Bruce in conversation would have been enough. Add in some pleasantly playful mischief from Eisenberg as Lex Luthor and it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. Well, almost all. Inevitably there’s the not exactly big reveal of Doomsday, and the mix of same old rubbery CGI, and a face seemingly stolen from a Lord Of The Rings troll was a tad disappointing. The humour in Wonder Woman’s intro was a nice touch but there’s a whole other argument about whether a film titled Batman v Superman should be, well, just that. Overall, my excitement is still at the top of the dial, and it would probably take something catastrophic to shift it, but we all know about the best laid plans of mice and (Super)men.
Jake Peffer: With each new trailer I become more and more split. On the one hand it’s nice to see more of Affleck and Eisenberg, both of whom I think are going to be the highlights of the movie. But elsewhere this was a poorly edited trailer that seemed all over the place which I’m hoping the movie itself isn’t. Still not sold on Wonder Woman since they continue to just randomly throw her into these trailers, but it was nice to see Doomsday pop up briefly. In the end it’s just a trailer and we won’t know how the movie actually is until it comes out but so far I’m about half way excited.
James Garcia: This is easily the most anticipated film of my entire life, and the trailer only further cemented by excitement for the movie! I do think that the actual editing was a bit spotty, but I loved all of the footage. I’m happy that Snyder is ditching the “grounded,” muted cinematography of Man of Steel and is going back to his more stylistic roots. I think the previous trailers were more for the big fans of the property, while this one felt like it was geared more to the general audience (hence the big Doomsday reveal), which could explain why it’s so broad and shows so much. I don’t care though, I’m just so excited that this movie is actually happening, that DC is putting Wonder Woman front and center in front of the two title characters, and that the DC universe is kicking off in such a big way. 7-year old me would be SO jealous right now!
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A fairly split reaction to the trailer, but there are more leaning towards the negative than the positive. What did you make of the trailer?
SEE ALSO: Follow all of our DC Extended Universe coverage here
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set for release on March 25th 2016 and sees Zack Snyder directing a cast that includes returning Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill (Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), Laurence Fishburne (Perry White), Harry Lennix (General Swanwick) and Christina Wren (Carrie Farris) alongside Ben Affleck (Argo) as Batman, Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious 6) as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) as Aquaman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, Jesse Eisenberg (Now You See Me) as Lex Luthor, Jeremy Irons (The Borgias) as Alfred Pennyworth and Jena Malone (Sucker Punch), Holly Hunter (The Piano), Tao Okamoto (The Wolverine) as Mercy Graves and Callan Mulvey (300: Rise of an Empire) and Scoot McNairy (Argo).
