In June 2013, when Batman vs. Superman was announced, it caused a great stir between fans about who would win. Would it be the Man from Krypton or the Bat of Gotham? When the likes of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg were announced to be in the movie, the speculation increased. Yet what most people failed to see was there was a much larger battle coming. The war between fans and critics.
Since the release of the movie, Rotten Tomatoes has continue to lower it’s rating of this movie with the current rating at 28%. Many critics place the blame on director, Zack Snyder. Snyder took a lot of heat, when the film’s prequel Man of Steel was released in 2013.
Actress Amy Adams, who played Louis Lane, defended Snyder saying:
I know that Zack doesn’t make the movies, or none of us are making the movies for the critics. You can’t go into it with that perspective. I know we really hope the fans like it and so far the reaction has been really positive on that front.”
Personally I agree with Adams. I came out of the movie quite satisfied and plan on seeing it again soon, but there are several reasons why critics may have disliked this film while fans loved it.
For nearly a decade, Marvel has been the leader when it comes to superhero movies. With films such as Iron Man, Captain America, Avengers and Ant-Man, Marvel has set the tone and the mold for the movies of the future. Marvel’s overall theme and emotions have varied from what we have seen thus far from the DC universe.
Marvel has mixed in brighter palettes and humor to their movie to produce a light hearted, action based, family environment. DC on the other hand has produced darker, more serious movies that some families may not want their younger kids to see.
On the same aspect, DC was criticized for the amount of destruction included in Man of Steel discussing how many causalities would have happened in that movie. On the other hand, Marvel has taken tasks to limit death of civilians.
For example, In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the movie had the team use their abilities to avoid the crashing of an airborne city while Superman used buildings as weapons in his battle against General Zod.
Another thing Marvel does extremely well is their use of humor. With movies such as Guardians of the Galaxy that is meant to be extremely humorous and Ant-Man with its action packed fight on Thomas the Tank Engine.
DC, on the other hand, had very little humor in Batman vs. Superman. Instead it focused heavily on dark back story explaining origins of several characters leading up to the climax. This type of experience could come as a shock to several movie fans used to the lightheartedness.
Of all of the people that saw Batman vs. Superman, many of those fans are casual comic fans or just fans of action movies. Only a small amount of those viewers are truly hardcore comic book fans.
DC has produced some of the darkest comics in memory with ones such as “The Killing Joke” and “Killing Superman”. As a whole, DC has darkness written into it. When you think of Batman, you think of the DARK knight and the gothic style of Gotham. Superman is famously known for the death of his entire planet, Krypton. Another lesser known side of DC is the entire Lantern Corps which includes the Black Lanterns who feed off death.
Each company has the right to make movies however they like. Personally I like the company’s playing off of what each of the other lacks. Expect this trend to continue with DC’s Suicide Squad being released later this year.
Suicide Squad is currently rated PG-13 which is the most mature movie yet by each of the two companies. (Deadpool is a Sony produced movie and although Deadpool is a Marvel character, it is not a Marvel movie.)
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