Welcome to Episode 38 of the Holmes Movies Podcast. Join Anders and Adam Holmes on their first director’s special. This episode they start with Quentin Tarantino and go through his entire director filmography from Reservoir Dogs to The Hateful Eight. We talk about our favourite films of his and also where he has gone wrong with his recent films over the last few years. Don’t forget to share and follow the podcast on SoundCloud and podOmatic and also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Horror for the last few years, since I saw Halloween when I was 15 along with many other classics, has always been a big part of my life. I listen to this podcast called F! This Movie Podcast and they do this thing called ‘Scary Movie Month’ where the host Patrick Bromley watches and reviews horror films during October. I tried to do this last year but problems with moving into my new flat in Copenhagen kind of got in the way. I managed to see a few new horror films that I never watched before like Tod Browning’s Freaks, Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Babadook, Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow and George A Romero’s vampire film Martin. I’ve always been fascinated by horror and I may have talked about this in another post on my blog but I still feel like I want to reiterate my feelings on the genre. Since maybe after Hostel came out in 2006, I feel horror has gone in a different direction and I think franchises like Saw and Paranormal Activity have ruined it for me. Particularly Saw as the gore and the traps became more essential then actually telling a tense and compelling story and I find that not particularly frightening unlike the first film, which I feel still holds up. Also there has been a lot of remakes popping about and while I find The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th remakes watchable, I find that other ones don’t redoing like Dario Argento’s classic Suspiria. I find Eli Roth to be one of the directors working today that is able to get an honest and creepy effect from his film. Other directors like Adam Wingard who did You’re Next have taken a stab, so to speak, at the genre. You’re Next is said to be the film that brings back the horror genre. At the end of the day You’re Next is a home invasion thriller with really unlikeable characters and lacks tension and fright. This happens when you find out why the animal mask-wearing killers are attacking this family. A well made film nonetheless but didn’t exactly have that spark that I was hoping for based of all the praise it got. I am not diminishing Adam Wingard’s skills as a filmmaker as he made The Guest and that is suppose to be pretty good. It’s on my watch list. I just sort of disagree when people say this is the film that saves the horror genre when it looks like every horror film I have ever seen (so far). I think there’s nothing really that can change the horror genre and save it but you just have to adapt it for your audience and try and see if you can make them jump out of your seat. This is something that James Wan is particularly good at and why I think he is one of the best directors working today.
When I watch James Wan’s films, you can tell he has seen a lot of horror films. He met Leigh Whannel at film school and they collaborated for the first time on Saw and showcased their talents as a writer and a director. They made a complex and tense mystery film with essences of David Fincher laced throughout the film. They went onto to do Dead Silence, the extremely creepy ventriloquist doll film, and I find that film to be very underrated. It has some really frightening scenes and you can just see how James Wan is masterful at building up tension and creating an eerie atmosphere. I think it was here where he really found his style of filmmaking and you can see it in the first 2 Insidious films and of course The Conjuring 1 & 2. He directs films in a very Hitchcockian way. It’s the same thing with the bomb under the table, you know going into these types of films (when they’re done right of course) that there is something sinister and disturbing about to pop out but you don’t know what and when. James Wan is really successful at doing this and even if he is doing a film like Furious 7, he understands the genre of film he is doing and knows what the audience will love and expect, while still bringing in his own style and ideas. His timing with scares especially in The Conjuring has such great fluidity. When it pays off, you get that great jump out of your seat reaction that some directors don’t always get that right and they go for the usual anti-climatic jump scare. It is a big bit of inspiration for when I direct my horror film one day. Or two if I feel like it.
The Conjuring 2 is not really a throwback film to the horror of the 1970s like the first one was but still manages to find new ways to frighten and keep the audience on their toes. What the film gets right this time around is that it really makes good use of the chemistry between Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson and they both give really enthralling performances. The relationship that these two have is highlighted a lot more and they feel more like a couple in this film who really want to protect each other and more importantly they believe in one another. This is integral to the plot of the film as Lorraine sees visions of Ed’s death and is scared to get to close to the fires of hell and play with things that they have no real control over. The film’s opening at the Amityville Horror house gets the film off to a very scary start and James Wan hits the ground running and sets the stage for the rest of the film and everything comes together in the end. Everything Lorraine sees is connected. This time around Ed and Lorraine head to 1970s England, where punk reigned on and the political landscape was causing problems on the streets, and they are called to observe a alleged haunting in Enfield where the Hodgson family is experiencing poltergeist activity and being threatening by some demonic force. The Enfield Haunting became one of the most infamous cases into the paranormal and some believed it to be genuine while others were not so convinced. I liked how the atmosphere has changed from the previous film where it took place in a normal grand looking house and in this film we are transported to a council house. The house in the first one looks like a safe place but becomes a place of terror and death as the film goes on. James Wan makes a very compressed and tiny council house very unsafe from the word go but once the scares start occurring it is a place that the Hodgson family can’t escape from. Janet, played by Madison Wolfe, is the entity’s main target and Madison Wolfe gives a tremendous and heart breaking breakthrough performance. She shares a scene with Vera Farmiga’s Lorraine where she is sad and lonely over what is happening and expresses the confusion and uncertainty of this horrible experience beautifully. Also she gets top marks for keeping her English accent consistent throughout the film, as I did not know she was American till I looked her up on the Internet. The Conjuring 2 was able to convey more moving character moments and ideas throughout the film more than the first one did. Like the relationship with the Warren’s, the Hodgson family feels like a real family and the actors playing the children all have a strong bond and the actors were carefully chosen for this film. Frances O’Connor who plays Peggy the mother almost turns into a stock character but becomes a character that becomes the heart of the film. A mother who stands by her children no matter what happens and she is strong and capable to be there in any way possible. But what I really liked about the film was that James Wan and the writers were playing around with the idea of what is out there on the other side of all this. Is there some other plain that ghosts inhabit? Is there such thing as the supernatural? Is there a Heaven or Hell? This theme is highlighted in the scene with Simon McBurney’s Maurice Grosse where he talks about his dead daughter. With the Amityville Horror, people didn’t believe the Lutz family when they said that there was an evil presence in the house that was tormenting them and made Ronald DeFoe Jr kill his family. James Brolin and Margot Kidder in the original film didn’t believe the Lutz’s either and that role is played by Franka Potente’s character Anita Gregory who does not believe Janet and believe she is faking everything. The film almost plays around with that idea and you start to think are the filmmakers playing a game with us but you know that this place is haunted.
The Conjuring 2 does in no ways cover new ground but is a breath of fresh air in a sea of reboots and remakes and horror films that try to cover new ground but end up being an almost copy of the films they are inspired by. It shows how fun and influential horror films can be and it shows that the filmmakers put a lot of care into the story and the characters to make it scary but an absorbing character piece.
A.H.
Welcome to Episode 36 of the Holmes Movies Podcast. Adam and I get a little philosophical on this episode when we sit down to discuss Jim Jarmusch’s cult western classic Dead Man starring Johnny Depp.
Be sure to follow the podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud and don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes. Do feel free to give us a glowing review! 🙂
https://soundcloud.com/anders-holmes/holmes-movies-episode-36-dead-man
Hello everyone! Here is the new episode of the Holmes Movies Podcast. On this episode, Adam, my brother, and I get together just before he flies back to the UK and we talk about the classic film, The Silence of the Lambs. On this episode we also talk about the malicious and horrific real life tales of serial killers that inspired the film and the Thomas Harris book, as well as talking about where the series went wrong after Lambs was released.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Episode 34 of the Holmes Movies Podcast. On this episode my brother Adam and I discuss and review The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Trevor Howard. We look at the film with a fine tooth comb and also give our two cents on Eye in the Sky and Eddie The Eagle.
Be sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and podOmatic. Feel free to leave us a review on iTunes and on the various episodes. Enjoy!
Welcome to Episode 33 of the Holmes Movies podcast. Adam and I join over Skype to talk about the Coen Brother’s dark comedy classic Fargo. On the podcast we discuss and review the film, HBO’s TV drama dilemma, our favourite TV shows and the true crime stories that may have inspired Fargo.
Be sure to check out the episode on SoundCloud and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and do feel free to leave us a nice review.
Enjoy!
Hello everyone! Welcome to Episode 32 of the Holmes Movies podcast. Adam Holmes joins me this time and I won’t have to go solo for a while. On this episode of the podcast, we sit down and discuss not one but two 80s classics, Ghostbusters & The Thing. We review the films and also talk about the Rogue One trailer, cliffhangers, The Walking Dead Season 6 finale and The Bechdel Test.
Please check out the podcast on SoundCloud and do subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and do feel free to leave us a comment or two, it will really mean a lot.
https://soundcloud.com/anders-holmes/holmes-movies-episode-32-ghostbustersthe-thing
Hello everyone! I forgot to post about this a few weeks ago. This is Episode 31 of the Holmes Movies Podcast. I decided to go solo yet again to talk about by The Crow, probably one of my favourite comic book adaptations and also a damn good film.
Please check out the podcast on SoundCloud and do subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and do feel free to leave us a comment or two, it will really mean a lot.
On the 30th of November 2013, Paul Walker and his friend Roger Rodas left an event for Walker’s charity Reach Out Worldwide. They were in Roger’s own personal red 2005 Porsche Carrera GT. The car crashed near Kelly Johnson Parkway in Valencia, Santa Clarita, California. The car crashed into a concrete lamppost and two trees on Hercules Street in a 45-mile per hour zone. The car burst into flames after the crash and both of them were pronounced dead at the scene. The site was popular spot for drifting cars and the car was reported to be speeding possibly as high as 100 miles per hour. Roger Rodas was driving the car while Paul Walker was in the passenger seat. Paul was in the midst of shooting Fast and Furious 7 and was on break until sometime in December. He was halfway through shooting his scenes and Universal Studios had announced that they would be halting production on the film and figure out how to complete the film after speaking with his family. The release date of the film was changed and that production would continue on April 2014 with Paul’s brothers Cody and Caleb added as stand-ins for Paul’s remaining scenes. Peter Jackson’s company Weta Digital re-created Paul’s face and body for the scenes that required it. The final film includes a combination of CGI and carefully chosen camera angles and lighting when using Paul Walker’s brothers to simulate his appearance. The film was able to retire Brian O’Connor and give Paul Walker a moving and respectable send off that was very well done. James Wan deserves a lot of praise for finishing off a film under enormous circumstances. What the crew did to complete Paul Walker’s performance, is quite similar to what happened on the production of the film The Crow.
On March 31st 1993, Brandon Lee was shooting a scene where his character Eric Draven gets shot. All this happened at the EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. In the scene, Eric walks into the Apartment and finds his fiancée being raped and beaten by thugs led by T-Bird played by David Patrick Kelly. Actor Michael Massee, who played Funboy, fires a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 at Lee as he walks into the room. A scene from before had used the same gun and had called for inert dummy cartridges fitted with bullets that had no powder or primer to be loaded into the revolver. For close up scenes showing the front of the gun where the bullets are visible, dummy cartridges provide a much realistic appearance than blanks. The film’s prop crew were hampered by time constraints and used live rounds instead of dummies and pulled the bullets by dumping the powder charge and reinserting them. They had unknowingly left the live percussion primer in place at the rear of the cartridge. During production, the revolver discharged with one of these improperly de-activated cartridges in the chamber and had set off the primer with enough force to drive the bullet partway into the barrel. It got stuck and this condition is called squib load. The prop crew either failed to notice this or they had failed to recognise how significant this issue was. In the scene, a revolver was used to actually fire at Lee from about 12-15 feet away and the dummy cartridges were exchanged for blank rounds, which feature a live powder charge and primer. There is no bullet thus allowing the gun to be fired without the risk of an actual projectile. Unfortunately as the production company had sent the firearms specialist home early, the prop assistant was left with the responsibility and was not aware of the rule to check all firearms before and after they are used in a scene. The gun was not checked for obstructions when it came time to load it with blank rounds. The bullet from the dummy round was already trapped in the barrel of the .44 Magnum and it was fired at Lee. It was fired out of the barrel with the same force as if it had been loaded with a live round and it struck him in the abdomen. He was rushed to hospital and was dead after six hours of surgery where the doctors attempted to save his life. He was 28 years old and the shooting was classed as an accident. The producers were left with the decision of continuing production without Lee who still had three days of shooting. The rest of the cast and crew apart from Ernie Hudson and Sofia Shinas, who had witnessed the accident, were left in Wilmington and the film was on hiatus. Miramax picked up the film and was able to increase the budget of the film that was needed to complete filming. The script was re-written, mainly the flashback scenes, and CGI was used to digitally composite Lee’s face onto a stunt double that was used to complete his scenes. Like Furious 7, the film was completed and is a marvellously visual and haunting film that is probably close to being one of my favourite films and favourite comic adaptations.
The film is adapted from James O’Barr’s comic book and tells the story of rock musician Eric Draven who comes back to life after behind murdered on Devil’s Night the year before along with his fiancée Shelly Webster who was raped and died later. A soul that dies is taken to the land of the dead by a crow. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t be put to rest. The crow can sometimes bring the soul back, in order for that soul to put the wrong things right. That is what Eric is doing and his main goal throughout the film is to find the people that killed Shelly and him. That would be T-Bird and his gang: Tin Tin, Funboy and Skank. T-Bird’s gang is a low-level gang who answer to the twisted and tortured gang leader Top Dollar played by one of my favourite cult actors Michael Wincott, who was behind the events leading to Eric’s death. The crow guides Eric through the dark and dangerous city of Detroit to find the people who wronged him. The Crow is a visual experience that probably is one of the best comic adaptations of all time. It’s hard not to see how the film inspired other similar films like it. Eric’s make up looks to have inspired the look of The Joker in The Dark Knight. The film must have inspired Blade (another R-rated comic book film to be released in the 90s) and certain scenes of Daredevil. Not the good one, the Ben Affleck one.
(There are a couple of moments that may have been paid homage to in Daredevil I.E. The flaming Crow sign after T-Bird’s death)
The Crow feels like an American Gothic Edgar Allan Poe inspired story meets revenge thriller set in a city of urban decay that is missing any redeeming qualities. It is a dying city and the psychos and the thieves are the ones that profit from it. The film’s look seems to have jumped right off the page and is a world that that has a body and a heart. It lives and breathes and you can feel it and that adds to its believability. For me, it doesn’t feel superficial. It shows that everyone from the cinematographer to the production and costume designers to the set decorators were on the same page and knew exactly what this film was going to be like. The Crow has a lot of style and this gothic film noir-esque style would definitely inspire the look of Alex Proyas’s next film, Dark City, but also set the stage for Sin City. Sin City is another comic book film that uses the source material as inspiration and transfers the pages to the screen flawlessly but The Crow does it without the green screen. Dariusz Wolski cinematography is the main highlight along with Alex McDowell’s production design. Alex McDowell was also the production designer on Watchmen, another violent adult comic book film that is of the same vein and is a world you can easily transport yourself into and believe. The film could have been played out like a cartoonish violent piece of exploitation but Alex Proyas, who has a background making music videos, is able to create something that is both moving and evocative. The film has an emotional core to it despite having a dark violent avenger wiping out his killers like they were nothing. He is a walking talking grim reaper but someone who is in pain and haunted by what happened and the memories that the survivors carry with them. Brandon Lee shows such charisma as Eric and it is an unforgettable performance and had he not died, this would have jump started his career and made him the new action star of the decade. The Crow is an action film but relies more on the star of the film and the style to make it rises above some of the formulaic action films of the time. It is like Robocop, which had a more satirical tone and had religious imagery playing throughout. The Crow has that too minus the satire. Michael Wincott as Top Dollar mirrors Eric as someone who is in control and revels in despair and anarchy but is someone who isn’t as crazy and maniacal as the people who work for him. He is calm and calculated but like Eric, he is tortured by his life but doesn’t wallow in it and let it affect him that much. He shoots and stabs anyone who fails or disrespects him and uses drugs to keep him moving. Ernie Hudson provides the film with some comic relief and what the film has is a sense of humour. Unlike Batman V Superman.
Everything about The Crow really works and is a film that everyone should see, not just if you are a fan of comics. Brandon Lee’s death does haunt the film but I think that adds to the experience. It’s hard to describe how it does but you come away feeling that. The Crow is a haunting and vivid experience, unlike your average bright and shiny comic book film. There should be more like it and the last one I can think of that was similar was Watchmen. The Crow remake has been stuck in development hell for years and directors and stars keep dropping out. Maybe it doesn’t need to be remade. It’s perfect in its own genuine way. Leave it alone and give up.
Rest in Peace Brandon
A.H.
No matter how you feel about superhero and comic books, you can’t deny how important they are and how seriously people take them. Comic books fans are committed and dedicated people and that is something that has always fascinated me. I didn’t grow up reading thousands and thousands of issues from Spiderman to the Incredible Hulk. I was generally one of those guys who just watched a lot of movies, mainly Westerns. That was my drug. I did watch the animated series of Batman where Kevin Conroy voiced Bruce Wayne/Batman and also a little bit of the Superman animated series. I forgot who voiced Superman in that. Superhero films were never my bag, at that point. I think the first one I ever watched was Batman and Robin. Granted, not a good introduction but it was the only one my parents had in the house. I didn’t know it was bad going into it. I think it was around the time of 2001 going into 2002 was where I started watching them. Spiderman with Tobey Maguire had just come out and X-Men had just been released and X-Men 2 was just about to come out. But I had never watched a (proper) Batman film or a Superman film. 2005 was when I watched Batman Begins and fell in love with that film and also The Dark Knight which came out 3 years later. As I have gotten older, I have started to buy comic books or graphic novels, if you want to call them that. The Walking Dead was the first one I bought and I am now starting to get through my Preacher comics, just in time for the release of the TV Show on AMC in May. Going into Batman V Superman, I understand how much of a big deal this was for people. These are two real heavy weight comic book characters that are going to be sharing the screen for the first time. They tried many years before and made a reference to it in I Am Legend. Warner Bros and DC Films have a lot riding on this film and that they have a whole shared universe plan and are going to make a Wonder Woman film (which they are shooting right now) Aquaman (James Wan I believe is directing it) and of course Suicide Squad, which I am really excited for. It would’ve helped if it weren’t coming off from Man of Steel, released back in 2013.
Man of Steel, like I think it was for most people, was quite a disappointment. It showed a lot of promise as the people behind the Dark Knight trilogy and the guy who brought Watchmen to the screen Zack Snyder were making the film. What could possibly go wrong? Narrative wise and structure, the film was quite weak and I found it very hard to get emotionally involved. With Batman, there was a lot of juicy dark material to work with. Trying to apply that to Superman looked like it was quite difficult. The cast were good and Michael Shannon and Russell Crowe gave notable performances. Henry Cavill had a lot going for him and looked like he was feeling the burden of meeting fan’s expectations. It gets dragged out with one giant action set piece to the next that felt draining. Going into Batman V Superman, I wasn’t exactly going in with high positive expectations. But I was going to give it the benefit out of the doubt as it could learn from the mistakes of Man of Steel. Not quite.
I want to start off with the actor who people were expecting to be the elephant in the room but wasn’t, and that is Ben Affleck. The moment he shows up on the screen he commands the screen as Bruce Wayne. As Batman, he looked like he jumped straight out of the comic books and there are some scenes where he just seems to embody what I like about the character that actors like Christian Bale and Michael Keaton were also successful at doing. His presence when he is in the suit was very striking and it fit him very well. All you haters better be quiet now. When you see where he’s come from, pre and post-Gigli, you can see how much he has changed as an actor and how mature he has become. I think he was always a great actor but he has become more dignified. This felt like it was more his movie than it was a Batman/Superman film and thought he would be sharing the same amount of screen time with Henry Cavill, who I thought was a lot more comfortable playing Superman this time around. Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill really fit well together when they are sparring on the screen even as Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Gal Gadot was the one actor that had the most pressure put on her as she was bringing Diane Prince aka Wonder Woman to the screen. Many have tried since the glory days when Linda Carter played her. The likes of David E. Kelly and Joss Whedon had tried to tackle the character but none of them ever came to fruition. Gal Gadot, for the small amount of screen time that she has, manages to give a welcoming impression as Wonder Woman and showed that this very mysterious and powerful woman was not here to win the hearts of men, even if Bruce Wayne wants her to. The two of them had great chemistry and it was a taste of what is to come once the Justice League films start coming out. I look forward to seeing her stand-alone film next year although I wish Michelle MacLaren directed it. The supporting actors in the film had a mixed reaction from my perspective. Laurence Fishburne needed to be more in the film as he was the films source for much needed comic relief as was Jeremy Irons who was a great version of Alfred. He fit well with Ben’s old, dark and violent Batman. His version felt like someone who was more experienced and has maybe seen much more than Bruce has, even before he saw his parent’s gun downed in front of him. The next time we reboot the Batman films, can we agree to disagree on not showing his parents getting killed. We get it. What a waste of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan. They have better things to do on The Walking Dead. Holly Hunter is a wonderful actress and was given a very thin role as a US Senator out to get Superman. Now I am getting to the real elephant in the room and that is Jesse Eisenberg who played Lex Luthor. People were complaining about Gal Gadot’s casting along with Ben Affleck, but I was more critical of his casting. I understand the reasoning behind it but his performance was almost something out of Joel Schumacher’s Batman films. He didn’t invoke any kind of threat that Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey were remarkable at doing. His campy child like performance and weird way delivery of his dialogue made him not much of a realistic or successful intriguing villain. Granted, the last two portrayals were all about real estate and were pretty much gangsters but at least they were formidable and were believable as someone who could take on Superman. They weren’t afraid and never showed it. Although not an amazing example, but I thought Corey Stoll’s performance as Darren Cross from Ant-Man was something that they should have gone for. Also I think they maybe should have given him much more of a reason for why he wants Superman destroyed and not just because he is a Xenophobe.
Batman V Superman suffers the similar narrative problems that Man of Steel did and gets itself into a little bit of deep water. This makes me worried for the future films in the DC Cinematic extended universe, especially Suicide Squad. It makes me wonder why they didn’t follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe more carefully and present their own version of that. The film’s running time was a worry and they had a lot of cast members to pack into the film and not to mention they had to have the other three guys who are part of the Justice League in the film which felt extremely forced and didn’t exactly make sense to me in the way it’s portrayed in the film. I won’t spoil it for people who are planning to see the film. Maybe it should’ve been saved for a post credits scene? The film literally starts with a bang and puts a frantic Bruce Wayne during the events of Man of Steel where Metropolis is being destroyed. Witnessing the destruction of Superman’s ‘heroic’ actions is enough to fuel his hatred but a lot of building up to the fight of the century, that at times was exciting but proved to be quite dull, feels misguided and not with a clear path. Besides the odd dream with a giant bat thing and a Mad Max Fury Road inspired post apocalyptic world, that’s all there is to show that Batman is frightened by Superman and what he can do and that he wants to destroy him. This scene where Batman is dressed in a long Western style of coat that reminded me of the Saint of Killers from the Preacher comics, with his bat cowl was very interesting and a wonderful bit of imagery but the scene is never really called back to and feels misguided. Plus the foreshadowing of this was quite confusing. There was something psychological about the relationship between these two and the fight needed to be about something more than just a misunderstanding. Having just seen Daredevil Season 2 and seeing the way that the conflicting views of Daredevil and The Punisher was much more successfully portrayed, I couldn’t see why they filmmakers and the writers couldn’t have gone more into this route. In the early episodes, especially in the rooftop scene of Episode 3, it made for some interesting thought provoking ideas of justice and the ideals of Frank Castle and Matt Murdock banged off each other like pin balls to create a lot of tension. Had BvS gone down that similar route it would have raised the stakes a lot more and made for an interesting and satisfying conflict between them. Batman represents humanity’s hostility against Superman and that the themes of what makes a hero and the idea of do we really need him should have come more into the play. I am not saying they weren’t there in the film but the way the film was edited together and putting its focus in other areas made it hard to see that point come across. Henry Cavill looked like someone who was struggling with the idea of trying to do right but causing more fear amongst the people. His development would have been clearer had there been more scenes to show this. The film fell into the same trouble that the Avengers: Age of Ultron did by packing too much in and spending time setting up what is to come. That is fine and you can leave little Easter eggs but the story comes first.
I am not saying I hated the film like some critics have. I quite enjoyed the film and liked what Zack Snyder and the rest of the team were trying to do. I think he is an extraordinary and talented filmmaker and has a great vision as a storyteller. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice has moments where you feel enthusiastic about it but its overstuffed and muddled narrative bring it down. It showed signs throughout the film that there was a great film around the corner and I am guessing that is the Justice League film. I apologise to whoever who may read this if this ruins the planned viewing of the film. I will say it is much better than the last superhero film that Ben Affleck was in, but that’s not saying much. Like always, the Hans Zimmer score is great.
A.H.
Anders Holmes 