Tag Archives: Gal Gadot
Vids I Dig 660: Filmento: Why the ‘Snyder Cut’ Worked Where Josstice League Failed
Vids I Dig 655: MauLer: ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’: An Unbridled Rampage
Vids I Dig 654: The Critical Drinker: ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ – Worth The Wait?
Film Review: Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Release Date: March 18th, 2021
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Chris Terrio, Zack Snyder, Will Beall
Based on: Characters from DC Comics
Music by: Tom Holkenborg
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Jesse Eisenberg, Joe Manganiello (uncredited), Willem Dafoe, Amber Heard, Joe Morton, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Russell Crowe, Marc McClure, Carla Gugino (voice), Billy Crudup (uncredited)
DC Entertainment, The Stone Quarry, Atlas Entertainment, Warner Bros., HBO Max, 242 Minutes
Review:
“How do you know your team’s strong enough? If you can’t bring down the charging bull, then don’t wave the red cape at it.” – Alfred Pennyworth
For years, fans of Zack Snyder demanded that Warner Bros. release The Snyder Cut of 2017’s Justice League movie. For those who have read my review of it, you already know about how much I disliked that terrible film, which was taken over and finished by Joss Whedon after Snyder left the production due to a family emergency.
Needless to say, I never wanted this movie. However, it’s release seems like a real victory for fans in a time when they’re being labeled “toxic” by Hollywood and the media outlets that suck the shit straight out of the big studios’ assholes. So despite my feelings on the theatrical version of this movie, I am happy for the fans that demanded this version of it.
That being said, this is, indeed, a much better version of the film. Granted, it’s four fucking hours long, which is way too long. This probably should’ve been cut into two parts or released as an episodic miniseries. There’s just so much material but honestly, a lot of what’s here is also unnecessary. There are so many slow motion scenes that those parts really put an exclamation point on how dragged out this movie is.
It’s also got its fair share of cringe.
The biggest instance of cringe that pops into my mind is the scene that introduces Wonder Woman. She fights some terrorists with hostages but they do this weird thing where they speed up and slow down the film for dramatic effect. It’s weird, hokey and shitty. Also, she blocks every bullet fired from a machine gun with her bracelets like she has the speed and accuracy of the Flash. They’ve basically made her a female Superman with bracelets and a lasso and it’s just sort of confusing. I get that she fits this mold in the comics but in this already established film canon, it’s like her powers have increased to that of a literal god in a very short span of time compared to the length of her life. But I can also look beyond it and sort of accept it within the framework of this movie, which wasn’t supposed to exist.
Regarding other cringe, there’s the dialogue, which often times is horrendous.
There’s also Ezra Miller, who brings down the entire production every time he shows up on screen and tries to be cute and funny but just comes off like that asshole millennial barista that thinks he’s smarter than you but you can see the cat food stains on his shirt from last night’s dinner. Ezra Miller as The Flash may be the worst casting decision in the history of mainstream superhero films.
There is some good with this picture, though.
For one, every time I see Ben Affleck as Batman, he grows on me. Affleck deserves his own Batman movie but he never got one and was instead wasted in multiple shitty DCEU movies. He could be three solo Batman pictures deep now but we’ve got to see him parade around with Ezra Miller and other superheroes that appear lame in his really cool orbit.
I also thought that Steppenwolf, the film’s primary villain was much, much better in this. He feels like a real character with a real story arc. In the theatrical version, he came across as some generic miniboss whose dungeon you could skip in Skyrim. Plus, he looks so much fucking cooler in this version.
Additionally, this film gives me what I’ve always wanted to see and that’s Darkseid on the big screen. Granted, this wasn’t released in theaters so the “big screen” was a combination of a 50 inch television and my tablet screen.
There are also some great new action sequences. I kind of liked the big battle between Steppenwolf and the Amazons, as well as the big war between Darkseid, his minions and the armies of Greek gods, Amazons and Atlanteans. It was a flashback scene but it was still damn cool. Especially, the Green Lantern stuff they added in. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the intro to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I also liked that Cyborg was much more developed and didn’t just seem like a last minute addition added in to pad out the team.
The first act of the film is the worst and I felt like it moved too slow and didn’t really make me care about the movie too much. The second act, however, switched into high gear and that’s where it grabbed me as well as it could and I started to feel like I was finally getting a better, more fleshed out and worthwhile movie.
I also generally liked the third act but I thought a lot of the epilogue was unnecessary and didn’t need to be in the film. It also spends a lot of time establishing future storylines but it’s very damn likely that this will never get a sequel, as Warner Bros. were really determined not to allow this version of the film to be completed in the first place, as they want Zack Snyder to just go away now.
For those who don’t know, it was their parent company, AT&T, that forced their hand, as they needed something huge to help drive potential subscribers to their new HBO Max streaming service. This is also why this probably didn’t get a proper theatrical release.
In the end, this was still far from great and it was too damn long. However, I’d say that it’s the best DC Comics related film that Snyder has done apart from Watchmen.
Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: Zack Snyder’s other DCEU films.
Vids I Dig 589: Filmento: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’: The Wish That Destroyed a Movie
Vids I Dig 547: Midnight’s Edge: ‘Wonder Woman ’84’ On HBO Max Is Another Nail In Theaters’ Coffin
Film Review: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Also known as: Wonder Woman 2 (informal title), WW84 (promotional title)
Release Date: December 16th, 2020 (several international markets)
Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, David Callaham
Based on: Wonder Woman by William Moulton Marston
Music by: Hans Zimmer
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lynda Carter (cameo)
Atlas Entertainment, DC Entertainment, DC Comics, Warner Bros., 151 Minutes
Review:
“I don’t wanna be like anyone. I want to be an apex predator. You’ve always had everything while people like me have had nothing. Well now it’s my turn. Get used to it.” – Barbara Minerva
I really liked the first Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman movie. However, I always felt like my initial reaction was a bit overblown, as it had the same sort of long-term effect that the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies tend to give me. You see, I leave the theater really satisfied but then, as time passes, I don’t have much urge to ever rewatch them again.
I let my high rating for 2017’s Wonder Woman stand because it was my initial reaction to seeing the film for the first time. And I also thought that I’d give the sequels their fair shot at doing the same. I thought about revisiting the first movie before seeing its long-awaited and long-delayed follow-up . However, I just couldn’t muster up the interest.
Having now seen Wonder Woman 1984, I feel a bit harsher towards the first movie, as it kind of exposes some of the flaws it had a bit more. The reason being, this film shares those flaws but also shows that Jenkins couldn’t correct them and in fact, doubled down on them because she either didn’t know they were there or because she doesn’t listen to actual criticism.
The biggest of those flaws is the action. In the first film, it was wonky and not very great except for a few dynamic shots. In this movie, you open with some Amazonian Olympic games, followed by a quick action montage to reintroduce us to the film’s hero. Then you have to wait an hour and twenty minutes before you get to the first legit action sequence, which is terrible, ignores all the laws of physics and has certain things happen just for plot convenience. You then get another sequence in the White House and then one more big final fight. That’s it for a two and a half hour movie about a comic book superhero.
I actually have to say that the opening sequence of the child Diana competing against adult Amazons in their version of American Ninja Warrior was, believe it or not, my favorite thing in the film. This takes up the first ten-to-fifteen minutes of the movie and then it’s all downhill from there.
This is followed up by reintroducing us to Gal Gadot, as the adult Diana a.k.a. Wonder Woman. This is a cheesy, slapstick-y introduction that wedges in so much blatant ’80s iconography it looks like Stranger Things buttfucking The Goldbergs while sucking on Ready Player One‘s tits and reaching around to fingerbang Hot Tub Time Machine. The whole sequence is awful, lowest common denominator, try hard bullshit where the director doesn’t know what she’s doing but she’s trying to cover that up by throwing Trapper Keepers in your face.
Over an hour later we get the next action scene. This is actually the first straight up, real action scene. However, it is quick, dumb and ended with Diana lassoing a goddamned missile, riding it down the street to scoop up two kids and then crashing and rolling on the street in a way that would have killed them. But whatever.
The White House fight was actually fairly decent and the only action sequence that was. But for a high point in regards to the action, it was dull and just a paint-by-numbers affair.
The final fight sees Diana then fight Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah, who at this point has turned into an actual humanoid cheetah. The character’s CGI is deplorable. I mean, it’s really damn bad. It was hard to watch this scene, as it played like late ’90s Sci-Fi Channel cringe.
At the same time, I did feel the emotion of the conflict, as Diana cared about the woman Cheetah used to be but even then, the visuals were so shit that it ruined the connection that this confrontation needed to have with the audience. The baffling bad CGI was just distracting and pulled you right out of the film.
After that, we have to see Wonder Woman finally confront Maxwell Lord, who has essentially turned himself into a genie that is trying to grant the wishes of everyone on the planet. This whole storyline was dumb as hell, made little-to-no sense and I never really understood the villain’s true motivation other than he was a loser that craved power. It was said that this character was supposed to represent Donald Trump and be a critique of his presidency and personality. Frankly, after seeing this movie, that doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense. Also, in the end, he reverses everything and reunites with his son. Was he off the hook? Did he serve jail time? I guess none of that is important because this movie is stupid.
So between the action scenes, we have long drawn out dramatic stuff. Most of it is boring but we see Diana and Steve, her love from the first film, reunite. However, Steve came back from a wish Diana made early in the story. So, the writing was on the wall from the get go that Steve was going to have to die to beat the villain.
Moving on, the cinematography was bland and basic. It felt tonally at odds with the first picture and didn’t really feel like it had any ties to any of the other Justice League or DCEU movies. Maybe Jenkins is trying to ignore all that and just do her own thing. I don’t blame her for that, actually.
Before wrapping this up, I should also mention that there’s a pointless cameo by Lynda Carter but I do like seeing her. I just wish she would have had something more to do than catch a pole from falling on a baby.
So that’s it. This wasn’t worth the wait and really, I don’t care about a third film or anything coming out of the DCEU, anyway.
It’s Christmas, back to drinking whiskey and smoking meat.
Rating: 5/10
Pairs well with: its predecessor, as well as Aquaman and other DCEU films.
Vids I Dig 516: Midnight’s Edge: ‘Cleopatra’ and the Gal Gadot Casting Backlash
Vids I Dig 203: Filmento: Why ‘Captain Marvel’ Failed Where ‘Wonder Woman’ Worked
From Filmento’s YouTube description: Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel didn’t seem to enthrall everyone. It was a functional film, but comparing it to DC’s first female led comic-book film of Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel seemed to be pretty forgettable. In today’s episode of One Versus One, let’s find out what core differences there are between these two female superhero movies, and why Captain Marvel became forgettable while Wonder Woman despite its flaws is memorable. It’s Marvel vs DC, Captain Marvel vs Wonder Woman. Here’s how not to adapt a movie.
Talking Pulp 
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