Curse of the Cat People 1944

This review ties into my recent musings on sequels & reboots. Here is a sequel made 70 years ago that stands perfectly as its own film AND as an original continuation.

"Curse" was commissioned because Cat People was a massive low budget hit and producer Val Lewton saw a great opportunity to use the publicity of the first film to make something even more radical and personal. Its so far removed from the first Cat People in genre, structure, casting and message. Its the opposite of the carbon copy reboots we are subjected to now.

The original was an erotic thriller about "the were-cat" that kept its supernatural elements ambiguous. The sequel is a sentimental ghost story/character study about children that also keeps its supernatural elements ambiguous. Curse never contradicts or reduces or copies the original. The best way to look at it is an origin story told through another character. Both of these protagonists are damaged young women and while the first is an epic tragedy, the sequel is an epilogue that offers some redemption for our fallen heroine.

Ya know, factoring in Paul Schrader's remake from the 1980s, Cat People is the most artful and rewarding franchise in horror. All 3 films are delicious, respectful exercises in film poetry that redefine their expected place in canon. Its also one of the few franchises that has some basic aesthetic lineage throughout the films, probably because it takes a higher class of filmmaker to make them & we weren't bogged down in endless, exploitative entries.

Check this one out. Not your average horror film. Its flawlessly shot, lovingly produced, competently directed, etc etc. It fits in with The Godfather 2 & The Road Warrior as one of the most perfect sequels yet made. 

Leatherface 2017

I caught this last month and let it gel in my psyche a bit. The film was shot in 2015 and the anticipation was unbearable for me. I love the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as much as I love any film and I have issues with all of its sequels/side-quels/requels/reboots/remakes/pre-boots. Can you believe this is TCM 8? Sigh.

So its an atmospheric, sadistic, kitschy, pretentious type of horror movie. Thats actually not that unusual these days. I actually wished they kept the uber-modern "popcorn" Saw vibe of TC3D, but no go. Stylistically this is the film that the franchise needed a few movies back. Its got way more teeth & class than the influential but numb 2003 remake. And its actually a psychological thriller unlike half the damn movies. Most important, Leatherface has the most original Chainsaw plot since the original. All of the other films are light remakes with varying degrees of original execution. LF fails on that front. It could've worked commercially or artistically if it had a more unusual approach instead of the "let's be 1970s! lets be as faithful as possible!" thing.

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are a pair of remodernist fanboy directors from France. They make Alexandre Aja style gore films (a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox...), each a take off of some great horror director. They made a really crappy Tobe Hooper-inspired film called Among the Living, so they got this job. If you've seen their Argento-inspired film "Inside" or the... Argento-inspired "Livid", you know these guys are great stylists who have no concept of realism, logic or storytelling. But they can light the Hell out of a scene and squirt blood everywhere. Oddly, even with a semi-Hollywood budget, this is not the bloodbath or visual feast I expected. Bummer.

Redeeming it is the script by some Millennial screenwriting teacher. Its more of a deconstruction of modern teen horror, backwoods slashers and "Badlands" style hostage films. Yeah, its basically a poor man's Devil's Rejects, which wasn't a good film itself. At least this film isn't so gimmicky. Or its gimmicks are more interesting. This is a very nasty film. Lots of gross setpieces and inexplicably evil or stupid cartoon characters everywhere. Maybe its just the lifeless interpretation of the directors tho. Apparently the film was supposed to end with an elaborate massacre inspired by Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. So it was supposed to be campy. The whole thing would've worked if it didn't try to make a serious film out of such a tired and illogical premise. Again, this is hardly based on TCM. You get the impression it was an original script that had Leatherface & fam shoehorned in. That actually worked with a couple Hellraiser sequels and could've worked here if the writer were more original and the directors camped it up.

Fanboy note, the origin given is hilariously lame but also effective in the sincerity of its "14 year old at Hot Topic" angst. This is going to become a bonehead classic to the next generation of horror fans and thats serviceable. Tobe Hooper died the week that this thing debuted which is meaningful in some way. Maybe this is the last Massacre. Eh, I'm cool with that.

*In retrospect, I'm quite fond of this modest low budget film. Mainly for its style and production, but also the hammy acting, the muddled occult references and a genuine obtuseness that shines compared to something like "Amityville: The Awakening". Leatherface is a mixed bag with some great parts and hopefully its enough to re-energize the franchise and get these directors some real work.

Blade Runner 2049 - 2017

Here we go.

Who knows how this film will age with me, but I wasn't a big fan when I saw it earlier in the month. I felt a bit insulted and exploited honestly.

I'm not going to talk about the massive fanboy hype or push to give the DP an Oscar nod before the premiere. I'm going to try and avoid the fact that its a copy structurally, thematically and technically of the 1982 classic. Fuck that. Thats the problem.

The first film has to be covered briefly. Here is a landmark achievement in screen storytelling that went against the Lucas/Spielberg grain (love those guys btw) to present a cold, existential, cynical picture of our future post-corporate apocalypse and technical enslavement. Or is it technical apocalypse and corporate enslavement? Anyway, underneath its bleak noir deconstructionism was a radical existential question about "what is a soul?" Are souls only human? Can a machine have one? Where's the spirituality in a world where man is a machine and machine is a man?

It answers this (at least in Ridley Scott's original cut) with the theory that souls are attained/created by anyone who earns one. There are men without and machines/animals/objects with. In Blade Runner, Deckard finds out that he is a replicant, not "a real boy" in Pinocchio fashion. His entire life has been a lie orchestrated by his creators to hide the fact he isn't real. But he accepts it; that his dreams are pre-programmed and that his free will is an illusion. His guardian angel sets him free and assures him that he has attained his eternal reward. This deterministic view upsets people. "Don't tell us humans are the same as robots!" It upset Warner Bros execs and Harrison Ford, so they re-edited the film so Deckard is not an unconscious machine but a really boring, flat human with no spiritual journey... who just falls in love with a machine woman by random whim. They essentially eliminated the poetry, tragedy and transcendent spiritual victory in a metaphor about enlightenment. It was reduced to a "future cop vs cyborg" movie. Yawn!

Flash forward to the Reboot Era. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a super success and 80s nostalgia is inescapable. So good ol' WB dusts off Blade Runner and create a franchise from this 80s commercial failure/critical touchstone. But Ridley Scott is only brought back as "executive producer", which means a humored consultant used for marketing. The directing job goes to Denis Villeneuve, director of many world cinema-influenced Hollywood thrillers and darling of new film criticism. I think they brought back one of the original screenwriters too. But this is the same WB that mangled Suicide Squad and ripped the nuts off Batman V Superman.

Watching BR2049 I couldn't resist the very spacious, digitally colored and expensively art-directed cinematography. The film is top notch eye candy. I have to say it fails to live up to the original Blade Runner in its lighting techniques, but almost no one would notice or care so I'll drop the point because visuals are not paramount to this film's impression on me.

Whereas Scott's film was so radically different from its class, Villeneuve's film is so radically the same: the same as the first Blade Runner and the same as every new "prestige" attempt at blockbuster cinema. Besides the effectively moody lighting, the sleek production design and frankly expected & redundant moments of replicants philosophizing "how human am I?", this is like Logan, Kong Island, Leatherface and the other 2017 genre films that are mimicking 70s/80s tropes and aesthetics. Sadly, none bring the originality, experimentation or storytelling craftsmanship of their influences.

We are in this moment where style equals substance to the wannabe cinephile because A. thats the easiest thing to identify about great older films on Criterion, and B. Bret Easton Ellis has incorrectly defined Hitchcock's theory of "Pure Cinema" to a generation of internet critics. What Hitchcock meant was film built around montage: the combination of shots to create a non-visual idea. Somehow Ellis has repeatedly defined Pure Cinema as the "visual over everything" and "aesthetics divorced from ideology". I understand how he could make this mistake. Hitchcock was more interested in visual narrative than audio or text. But he never meant visual storytelling as a singular expression. Thats just an easy cop-out calling card to identify Hitchcock. Hitch himself was sorry that he was known purely for his aesthetics by early critics. And to divorce aesthetics from ideology is to analyze half of the artwork & be a shallow critic. The aesthetics serve ideology. Cinema is intrinsically ideological, which is why its been used for propaganda since the beginning. This is why Bret hasn't become a success in filmmaking and his opinions on film are not taken too seriously. But he has a legion of fans, many pretentious, many alt-right, many ignorant on cinema. I think a lot of these people showed up to see 2049.

Now if we go by Ellis' standards, Blade Runner 2049 is a near-masterpiece. Lingering "dead time" shots of gorgeous but hollow visuals, creepily pampered actor faces in technicolor lights, every movement measured for a maximum textual impact. Its one of the widest visual palettes I've ever seen on a big screen. But there's nothing else under the hood. Its like a very gorgeous date who has nothing original to say but he/she took a philosophy class once. The original '82 masterpiece is like a date with a heroin chic model fluent in 12 languages who wants to argue about Foucault. Basically its a comparison between Sean Young and the 12-year-old-looking-20something who plays the hologram girlfriend. Style is nothing without substance.

2049 is a beginner's course on Blade Runner. It tries to boil down, paint by numbers & commercialize the original and like a pop star's mp3 cover of a David Bowie anthem on vinyl... it loses a lot in translation. It tries so hard to be taken seriously. It wants you to feel so much apathy, disillusion & wanderlust. "Damn, its hard being a Millennial!!!" But it doesn't illustrate any of this well. Essentially we should relate to this story as a sequel because there's another generation who gets it. Thats all. Just like Disney's Star Wars, the respect for the original text somehow grants a reward- except, nah. 2049 doesn't re-interpet the original worth a damn. It doesn't return to Philip K Dick's original novel for anything. Its a cash grab looking for hipster cool points only. And this is most of Ryan Gosling and Denis Villeneuve's history.

Best & worst of all, it retroactively canonizes Warner's shit version of the story where Deckard is just a man. Or does it? Deckard is neither, so 2049 is trying to be a sequel to both films, which is a cool touch, but also the only logical choice for a sequel to a film with 3 official versions. But either way you look at it, Deckard's return is very flat and wasted. The decades long ambiguity of whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant is expanded to... "is he the father of the first half-replicant or first full replicant child?" Neither is that interesting.

The only way you can arrive at 2049 surpassing Blade Runner is if you are talking about the awful Theatrical Version. This is the most pretentious, boring, frustrating action film I've ever seen. And thats not a knock. I love Godard, "The Brown Bunny" and the lesser films of Bergman, Kubrick & Tarkovsky. But 2049 is still a crappy story underneath. No amount of shoegazing actors or post-ironic sexism will change that. And its sad because Blade Runner avoided all of that. It was a genuinely spiritual, psychological, romantic, feminist, speculative and socially relevant work of commercial art. This is just a lifeless replicant that needs to be retired.

*Always wanted to write a cheesy critic closing line like that :)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 - 1986

Hey! I took a few months off to watch a ton of films on Amazon Prime and focus on the new Twin Peaks. I'm reinvigorated at least when it comes to reviewing but I'm not really in a movie-watching mood lately, but I found time to revisit Tobe Hooper's infamous sequel for the lunatics over at Cannon. The film has always been a sore spot for me because I can never shake my initial negative opinion of it, but I warmed up big time on my last watch.

TCM2 wasn't the commercial or artistic success Cannon and Hooper wanted but its grown into one of the biggest cult horror sequels in these last 30 years. Horror fans have a great nostalgia for those campy, excessive, yuppie-inspired horror films of the 80s. There are some real gems like Night of the Demons and Return of the Living Dead, but I find a lot of them to be overrated and inferior to the 70s films that inspired them. TCM2 is probably the most grand, ambitious and genuinely bizarre, but it lacks the entertainment value of the others. That would be ok if it wasn't so entertained with itself and full of flat moments. But something so chaotic is also full of redeeming bits and was probably doomed to be hit-and-miss, right? Wrong. In fact, Hooper clearly patterned this spoof of his gritty arthouse-meets-grindhouse classic after the films of his Poltergeist collaborater Steven Spielberg. Hooper was one of the earliest to embrace Spielberg's aesthetic of overly-directed, free-for-all camp thrills and he retains a lot of his own weird style, but there is only one Spielberg (as 40 years of constant imitation in the mainstream has shown us).

There's a disappointing cynicism to Hooper's return to the intellectual property that made him. Coming off the major failures of Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars, TCM2 was a safe but desperate risk for Hooper. He didn't have much interest in making it, as he was originally the producer only and again his 80s career was an attempt at big budget commercialism. TCM2 at times feels more like The Goonies or Raiders of the Lost Ark than anything horror, which is why its so unique and beloved by 80s kids. But thats not what it should've been. It has the tone and style down, but it lacks the carefully crafted script and direction that made those films immense crowd-pleasers.

TCM2 is essentially a spoof of TCM1 that subverts every expectation, which is cool but it doesn't have much intelligence behind its jokes. It recreates so many moments from the original and makes cute in-jokes that only movie buffs would get, but these payoffs are often lazy and too nerdy for their own good. Characters often echo events from the first film and mock them to point out its misunderstood ironic humor. So the film ends up an epilogue or winking deconstruction of TCM, what Young Frankenstein was to the James Whale classic. But it would've been smarter to meet it halfway like Bride of Frankenstein by creating a narrative we can take somewhat seriously. To its credit, TCM2 is modeled on Bride as Leatherface falls in love and the fate of the villains is answered, but its so drastically different in tone and logic that you can't place this film in the chronology of the original, which is why we've suffered through endless sequels when TCM2 could've wrapped it up perfectly.

The story takes a backseat to the jokes which are more conceptually clever than well-executed. Themes from the original are underlined but not expanded. I guess Hooper wanted to de-mystify and kill the characters, not invest anything else in them. I think it was a big mistake. It works somewhat, but there isn't enough horror to support the humor as the humor served the horror in Part 1. But the film has plenty of great ideas. Leatherface's sexual crisis is fun and could've been poignant and Dennis Hopper is the film's highlight as a stereotypical Western hero out for revenge. But nothing comes of this stuff besides a cheap laugh or two because Hooper loads the film with excessive FX, sounds, colorful lighting and stuff that distracts and bogs down rather than intensifies mood. He's trying to be Richard Donner and Zemeckis, but he totally misses the method behind their cinema. I actually think the film would've been a brilliant classic if Hopper and the female lead were the slapstick-y focus of the action, given more sympathy and motivation, leaving Leatherface and his family as the dead-pan, sincere monsters to be mocked. The humor is just way off.

But you gotta admire the inventiveness and weirdness that Tobe Hooper brings to this thing. TCM2 is highly stylized as a cool little time capsule of late 80s Austin, TX culture and the polished but "foreign" Cannon production style. Its full of gore, a terrible musical score, oddball extras, way too much 80s neon and plenty of lame 80s dad humor. In my review of Dan Aykroyd's ill-fated "Nothing But Trouble", I mentioned the similarities to TCM2 and Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. You get to witness the transition from gritty exploitative art to big, mass appeal pop entertainment. These films don't work as either but are interesting hybrids that are grandfathers of the scatter-brained, trying-to-sell-out genre fanboy epics Hollywood has been making in the 2010s. TCM2 is more admirable than those because its such a coke-fueled bad experiment that would never be greenlit today. And its at least a sequl that stands apart from the original and other sequels of its genre. Tobe Hooper probably helped inspire Evil Dead 2 and I think its the better sequel, although it doesn't have half the fame. TCM2 gets my respect but is it a great sequel? I still can't tell.

Evil Dead 2 1987

Here's a beloved film that was seminal to my film-viewing as a teenager. It captured my imagination because this was an adventure/comedy in the Spielberg/Lucas vein but filled with gore, monsters and spooky settings. And it was so much more fun and flashy than the original Evil Dead. But its not one of those films that I revist often and this last viewing revealed that its not as great as I and others remember. It sucks when nostalgia wears off.

I went back to this movie because there is internet debate on whether the film is a sequel or remake. People who worked on it have called it both or just a remake, while its fans are outraged at the idea that its not "the greatest horror sequel ever". I can now confirm that the film is a remake and not a traditional sequel. To be more precise, its a reboot and maybe the "original" reboot.

Evil Dead 2 starts with a flashback but not to Evil Dead. The events in the original Evil Dead didn't happen (because Sam Raimi couldn't get the rights), so similar events happen to this film's version of Ash but he's not the same Ash. The characters and hellish torture he went through is erased and replaced with a condensed 10 minute version of some scenes from the original. This film's Ash then goes through a scene-by-scene recreation of the first film (this is what makes it a remake and not a sequel) including a possessed witch in the cellar, man-eating trees, a bridge thats been destroyed and finding a book to send demons back to Hell. Notice how ED2's Ash finds the bridge and book as new discoveries. Because he is not the original Ash.

Losing continuity really spoils the fun for me. It was a clever trick to hide that this isn't a real sequel, but the appeal was that the same universe had suddenly shifted its tone to a more comic and action-driven one and that Ash had to re-live the horrors he experienced. Now I see that this Ash is really a comic book copy of the original and the plot is just a lazy re-telling to cash-in on the original film. The charm has worn off and the cynicism is pretty thick as Raimi does a fairly shabby job with much of the film, only showing interest in trying new camera tricks and playing with a bigger budget. He's obviously looking towards his future Hollywood career and mining old ideas to prep for it. Its a very kinetic, wild and weird movie, but not nearly as effective, sincere and artistic as the original. The rubbery FX and cheap laughs were so cool 15 years ago but now come off as boring. I'm really turned off at the lack of thrills and suspense. It tries to be scary a few times and fails miserably. The action is there but its so dated by today's standards. Kudos to being ambitious and very high quality in its day.

To Raimi's credit, he has done much more with the premise of a action-comedy Evil Dead with his new Evil Dead TV series, which is just Evil Dead 2 done over and over again. But the best continuation of the original Evil Dead, ironically, is the 2013 reboot. That film was much more original and simultaneously faithful to the 1980 classic. (Evil Dead 2's sequel "Army of Darkness" has nothing to do with the other Evil Dead's, but is a fun horror movie for kids and delivers more of the Monty Python/Three Stooges worship).

Evil Dead 2 has earned a huge reputation as an entertaining and over-the-top follow-up to a film that was very hard to top. It does not top the original, but its a very unique spin-off. But its not the best horror sequel. I think it works best as a standalone film, which is why its very popular with people who don't necessarily enjoy the original. Like I said, this is the original reboot.

Batman V Superman: Extended Cut 2016

Ok, quick run down of the plot because, somehow, people had a hard time following it. I admit it is plotted very densely, like a comic book series and less like a movie script (which I cherish as it separates it from the Hollywood-ness of all other superhero movies):

Batman thinks Superman is going to turn on humanity and enslave them eventually with his unstoppable power and will. Little does he know the seed to kill Superman is being planted by Lex Luthor, a young socialite entrepreneur who wants to destroy Superman because Superman is a god and Luthor hates God because his father abused him. Lois Lane is trying to clear Superman's name and Wonder Woman is trying to expose Luthor's corruption. Eventually, Batman realizes that he is projecting onto Superman his own anger that his father let his mother die and saves Superman's mother to get over his own issues and rectify his lashing out at Superman. In a fight with Luthor's monster Doomsday, Superman sacrifices himself for the world, thus proving to everyone that he was who he said he was. Batman and Wonder Woman decide fear that they cannot fill Superman's shoes, so they decide to form the Justice League. In Superman's grave, his dirt on his casket rises and we assume he is resurrected.

I saw Batman V Superman in theaters twice within 24 hours. This was easily my favorite movie experience of 2016 because its the rare film that is made to be viewed on a big screen, not only for mass consumption but to use its grand stage to be different and say something new. It was pure escapism: indulgent action, fabulous photography, bigger than life characters and a very melodramatic tone. I expected the negative reactions before I saw the film, was convinced fans would enjoy it during the film and then shocked at how much negative press it received. There is a clear bias towards the film as Marvel is the more populist label when it comes to superheroes and a darling with pop-critics. DC has been firmly anti-Marvel in their approach and seems to revel in their unpopularity. I dismissed much of the social media backlash to really dim fanboys having a circle jerk. I couldn't find any viable negative reviews but I was dismayed that there weren't very many glowing reviews either (perhaps out of fear of non-conformity). 2016 was a year where collectivism, peer pressure, political correctness and a move towards fascism seeped in exploded into American life. But then Suicide Squad was released and it was truly the uneven, amateurish, middlebrow disappointment that fans hoped and claimed BVS was. I started to believe the hype that the DC movies may have some weakness I missed. So I put off rewatching BVS for a year.

I chose the Extended 3 Hour Cut to review and, while the film may not be my favorite film of 2016 in this or its more blunted form, Batman V Superman is one of the best popcorn movies ever. Maybe a masterpiece of the modern blockbuster genre. The Apocalypse Now! Redux of superhero movies. I think it surpassed The Avengers and actually just misses the glory and thrills of 1978's Superman, 1989's Batman and 2008's The Dark Knight, the three superhero films you can call American classics (sorry, Marvel).

Objectively, this cut of Batman V Superman is probably a solid 9 out of 10 stars to the shorter version's solid 8. The longer version fills in so much backstory and rounds out the subplots that are intriguing on their own but slow the film down. The theatrical cut has a very brisk and fun pace that is missed here, but the characterization is stronger and the structure feels more operatic and less roller coaster-y. I can't deny that the film has weak spots. I find Henry Cavill an actor who is full of potential with this role, but he's still a bit stiff and hammy. Affleck seemed bored at times and monotone. Amy Adams is also quite mawkish and uncommitted. Its sort of understandable because a film like this, in the tradition of Hitchcock and silent films, is more about plot, themes and spectacle, leaving little for the actors to do. They had smaller moments to shine and build chemistry and no one is the real quarterback here. This is typical with movies like Independence Day and, shit, The Towering Inferno. But that allows the insular actors to really breakout. Jess Eisenberg is almost brilliant as the snotty, condescending but self-satisfied manchild who will become Lex Luthor. Gal Gadot brings so much grace and emotion to the film as Wonder Woman. And Diane Lane is exquisite as Clark Kent's mother "Martha". Oh, Martha, Martha... we must talk about Martha.

The film makes the bold choice to hinge itself on a single emotional moment between Batman and Superman at the peak of their conflict. Smart. But the plausibility of the moment is truly questionable. The coincidence that they have mothers with the same name is fine. The coincidence that Batman's parents are his Achille's heel is fine. But can we really buy that Superman calls his mom by her first name? Its such a tiny gripe but it takes you out of the movie right when you need to be there. It irks me to no end and reminds me that we are still in contrived comic book plotting territory no matter how beautiful, fun and daring this movie is. Ironically, the film's biggest haters aren't bothered by the implausibility of the Martha moment but confused why it would stop Batman. Here I can defend the film's choice as both poetic and psychologically taut. Batman realizes that he is becoming the killer he set out to stop and that Superman is a placeholder for his own father. "You're killing Martha" is Thomas Wayne's ghost speaking to his son through Superman. Batman sees Superman as the man who let his best friend die the same way he sees his father as letting his mother die. Batman's arc is about realizing where his own rage and fear of Superman comes from and reasserting that Superman is a victimized son trying to honor his mother. "Martha won't die tonight" is Batman sort of putting to rest his beef with his own demons and trusting Luthor's new "demon". Its very clever and maybe brilliant in its conception. I'm just underwhelmed with the build to this moment because it is so good. Its cheesiness, pretentiousness and romanticism is still in keeping with the source material of superheroes in a way, so I still allow it.

Batman V Superman isn't The Godfather, but its a bold lie that the script is full of holes or the characters act uncharacteristically. Mainly, these claims come from Marvel people who look for problems that aren't there and DC purists who are offended that these films take liberties and try to entertain people who don't care who Jimmy Olsen is. I've met lots of people who enjoyed and even loved BVS but they really don't care about comics i.e. they don't rant online about it (like I am).

One special complaint needs to be squashed: "Batman doesn't kill!" More accurately, Batman doesn't murder. In this film, Batman ends a few lives by chance or self-defense. He's never negligent or going out of his way to kill, neither reckless or meditated. "Why is Batman so unsafe when he's a ninja genius?" Because the lives of goons are not as sacred as the lives of innocents that will die if he doesn't drive through this car of people shooting at him.

And lets talk about the talent of Zack Snyder. This guy has a lot of haters who not only dislike his films but claim he is a hack. The claim is that he's style and no substance. His history in commercials and music videos haunts him for some reason, even when many directors started there (Ridley Scott, Spike Jonze, David Fincher). He has a very graphic visual style that is supported by acting and story rather than supporting them. So what? Hitchcock was the exact same way. Most great directors I would argue because film language works in this way. I find it refreshing that Snyder makes films that work in operatic and sometimes oneric ways. As a stylist and technician, he is far above the average as he always stages action in the most dramatic way possible, giving weight to every moment and using light to match the emotions of his characters, not relying on actors to do the heavy lifting. Scott and Fincher do this too, but Snyder has found a new personalized way. And unlike any director ever, Snyder takes world-building to a scale never before seen. Such diversity in actors, settings, action and effects. He's the modern Cecil B. DeMille. Like DeMille and Hitchcock, Synder is famous but not totally respected during the course of his career and I assume it will take a younger generation to appreciate the mix of innovation and classicism he has brought to genres that are usually thought of as low or middlebrow and expendable. Zombie movies, CGI kids movies, war movies, scifi. He's bringing a lot of taste to audiences who aren't always accustomed to it. I respect his craftsmanship, stark vision, unwavering guts and respect for the audience. His detractors would deny him those same qualities, but highlight them by denying they exist in his arsenal. BVS is a perfect story for Snyder and even an auteur piece as Synder is as despised, divisive and pure as Superman is.

In summary, there's a lot under the surface of BVS, but many of ignore it and focus on the shallow differences to what they were expecting. I had my high expectations met so I think the problem is that most people had impossible expectations or simply have bad taste. Let me be clear that this is not quite high art. But its far more complex, experimental, moving and fun than what its being compared to. If you go into this demanding stark realism or classical drama or something other than good guys beating up bad guys, you are an idiot. This is escapist theater with just enough brains and style as needed and more. I think I did get more out of this movie than any other in 2016 because it was the only Hollywood film that succeeded in being an art film in a sea of art films trying to be Hollywood. Its a welcome reversal and another huge step toward big conglomerate filmmaking actually trying to reach high cinematic expression. And it did it.