Poll: Which was worse: Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

snip

This actually raises an interesting parallel: is aiming for 10/10 but failing admirably better or worse than aiming for 6/10 and succeeding? BvS clearly is at least attempting to deal with really heavy and interesting themes: who should Superman be accountable to? Can he be accountable to anyone? Is the existence of Superman a threat or a blessing to Earth? It fell way short of the mark it was aiming for, but the ambition was definitely there. GotG's themes were... what exactly? To be honest I can't really recall getting any feeling that the movie was attempting anything deeper than "Fun! Excitement!".

Marvel has the formula down so well it's basically an algorithm at this point, and none of their films have yet annoyed me for their whole runtime. I enjoyed Iron Man 3 while watching it, and even Thor: The Dark World passed the time. Their greatest sins were being at worst dumb and inconsequential, whereas Suicide Squad and BvS... well, we all know how those turned out.

What's interesting about comparing the DC movies to Marvel's is that while Marvel is more consistently entertaining, I found much more "wow" factor in Man of Steel and BvS, bar perhaps the first Avengers and Winter Soldier. DC has much higher highs (the end fight in Man of Steel) and lower lows (Eisenberg's Luthor) whereas Marvel usually just skirts the middle ground with not much really annoying, but nothing really standing out that much either. This was readily apparent in Civil War where I just didn't get engaged anymore: the conflict felt so artificial and obvious and the movies have been going on for so long that all sense of urgency or threat is nonexistent at this point.

 

[Frankster]

Judging 100% from what critics and random people say cos I haven't actually watched either film:

Batman v Superman.

Because Suicide Squad is apparently sexist and problematic, thus it's automatically more interesting then BvS where the most recurrent thing I hear about it is the worst crime a film can commit: it's fuckin' boring and dull.

How accurate this is I'll find out in a few years when watching both on netflix.

 

[Mangod]

snip

This actually raises an interesting parallel: is aiming for 10/10 but failing admirably better or worse than aiming for 6/10 and succeeding? BvS clearly is at least attempting to deal with really heavy and interesting themes: who should Superman be accountable to? Can he be accountable to anyone? Is the existence of Superman a threat or a blessing to Earth? It fell way short of the mark it was aiming for, but the ambition was definitely there. GotG's themes were... what exactly? To be honest I can't really recall getting any feeling that the movie was attempting anything deeper than "Fun! Excitement!".

This is actually a very good question. I suppose it could be that a movie that BvS trying and failing to be as intelligent as it was aiming for just made it come across as obnoxious, while a movie like GotG was just aiming for dumb fun, and succeded.

 

[Hawki]

This actually raises an interesting parallel: is aiming for 10/10 but failing admirably better or worse than aiming for 6/10 and succeeding?

Aiming for 10/10 but getting 4/10 is admirable, but 6/10, regardless of the effort, is still the better product at the end of the day. BvS is an ambitious film, but it falls flat. One might get credit for trying, but not points, so to speak.

You do speak below about what I consider to be the key flaw of Marvel movies - they're average. The only genuinely good MCU movies I've seen are Iron Man 1 & 3. IM1 because I felt the quality was all around good enough. Iron Man 3 because it kept that writing, and actually had something to say on the nature of public/media perception on terrorism in the 21st century. Not a deep message by any means (heck, it's outright spelled out to the audience at the end), but I give the film credit for it. So, the difference here is that both IM3 and BvS both tried to have something to say. IM3 still had the better execution, hence, the better film in my eyes.

 

[Cheesy Goodness]

No I hate Guardians of the Galaxy.

I hate that fucking Raccoon, I wanna slap Star Lord in his fuckin Face, I wanna set Groot on fire for his blatent Plagerism of The Iron Giant, I hate the jokes and quips, I hate music...
!@#$%^&* THAT MOVIE!!!

It represents everything I hate about the tone and direction of current Marvel movis and it also represents the kind of Superhero movies people want.

These are the movies people want Superhero movies to be and I hate them all:

This sickens me we progressed to greatness with things like Watchmen (comic) the DCAU and 90s Marvel Animation, only to regress back into the shityness of the Silver Age/Comics Code Authority era of Superheros but now with "Retro/Self Aware" stupidity.

I wouldn't have said any of this in quite the same angry tone, but the sentiment here is pretty much shared by me. I feel like this genre has stagnated in to a safe, bland, inoffensive state. All of these movies are starting to blur together. I couldn't recall the plots to half of these films if you asked me.

I remember watching both Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy and being completely unimpressed by either movie. If this is the kind of stuff people want from superheroes, you can count me out. Someone in this thread used the term insufferable earlier, and I believe that description fits these movies like a glove. Most of the Marvel stuff is not funny or likeable to me. The plots are totally inconsequential. It is also impossible to feel any kind of tension when none of the characters are taking anything seriously. Something happens... pop culture reference... Iron Man punches bad buy... funny quip... roll credits. The end always has some easter egg for an upcoming movie that never makes much sense by itself. Needless to say, I don't stay after the credits anymore. I've also yet to see Civil War. May skip it altogether honestly. Have no interest in Doctor Strange either.

That's why I'm surprised Suicide Squad has gotten such a lukewarm reception from many people. You could easily lump it in with these other types of "fun" superhero movies. Batman v Superman is not my favorite superhero movie whatsoever, but I would gladly take a million of those over all this other disposable garbage. No thanks!

Please reference IHE's video below for more information:

<youtube=8tmJRQ6IKkk>

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

I'm not sure if I can really judge since I could only sit through the first 45 minutes of BvS, but BvS was the most dour and incoherent mess of a film I've seen. Suicide Squad made no fucking sense either but at least it was vaguely entertaining by comparison.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I don't care much for BvS. If found it an overly dour movie that bored me for most of its runtime, with the exception of the fight scenes, which I did enjoy a lot. A lot of plot points didn't make sense to me, most notably the massacre in africa they framed Superman with[footnote]Though Superman killed one person there. That warlord holding Lois Lane hostage? Dude's dead. If the abrupt acceleration from Superman grabbing him at those speeds didn't kill him, then the impact from getting pushed through that wall behind them certainly did. Guy's a mangled sack of shattered bones at best.[/footnote] and Luthor's entire plan, which seemed to hinge entirely on coincidences and big maybe's. I like Afflecks and Irons performances as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Alfred. I despise Eisenberg's Luthor.

Suicide Squad is a mixed bag. The tone was all over the place, but I did enoy the few scenes where the main characters just hanged out. I liked some characters like Harley Quinn, El Diablo and Deadshot (helped quite a bit by Will Smith's natural charisma), but I don't remember much of the others even though I only saw the movie last night. For example, did Slipknot actually have any lines? Like BvS there were various things in the plot that made me go "whut?".

Spoiler: For example

Enchantress, supposedly one of the most powerful metahumans around with vast, largely undefined magical powers? Decides to take on a bunch of B- and C-lister villainous badass normals in a fist and knife fight, instead of, you know, whiping them from the face of the earth with spells.

Oh, and then there's Jared Leto's Joker. He was in it for all of 5 minutes or something, but I cringed every second he was on screen. I can't believe for one second that this guy can be Batman's archnemesis. As far as I'm concerned, this is not the Clown Prince of Crime, but an entirely different character named Mister J.

Overall, I like Suicide Squad a little better, mostly because it didn't bore me as much as BvS.

 

[DarkM1nd]

Batman v Superman 'cause of fat batman face

 

[McMarbles]

I haven't seen Suicide Squad yet, but it at least looks like a fun mess, rather than a dour mess with some nice visuals and Wonder Woman.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Batman V Superman, wasn't even fun. It was just boring. Suicide Squad was at least fairly enjoyable throughout (obvious, other people's experiences will differ). Honestly, my only major issue with Suicide Squad was the often cringe worthy dialog. Yes, for a movie that tries to be comedic, having shit dialog is pretty bad, but there was enough good stuff for me to not regret seeing the movie.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

BvS.

It's way too fucking long, and worse yet the cuts that they made to shorten it make it discombobulated and confusing to follow, they probably should of just bit the bullet and made it uncut.

Suicide Squad was fucking stupid, but it was silly and fun and I talked about at length in this video...

Spoiler

tl;dr, I think it suffered from the same editing hatchet job but I can tell you firmly that unlike BvS I'd go sit through Suicide Squad again because it brings to the universe exactly what it desperately needed: Some fucking sillyness. I've back peddled on this so much, because I do like serious takes on superheroes like TDK but at some level there has to be this tiny amount of whimsy to make it work otherwise it's like... why the fuck is Batman dressed like a bat instead of a guy in swat in armor, ya know?

Anyway, anyone that says Suicide Squad was terrible was/is asking too much from it. It's a silly little movie thats suppose to set up the government and explain how the revolving door at the jail works. People bitching about Joker/Harley in this, just remember this a movie were the Kents are selfish and Batman kills people, just consider it an elseworld and it's so much more easier.

Also, and this doesn't get enough praise: They got Amanda Waller nearly dead on.

 

[Sceadu]

I didn't waste my time with either of them. This isn't the 90's, I'm not that desperate for stuff to watch, and I'm not that dedicated to the source material.

To be honest, I don't see much of the appeal of movies anymore. They're truncated stories and overblown production values. The really good TV like Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and all of the rest blow them out of the water, and actually tell a coherent story.

 

[Laughing Man]

BvS by a long long way. The premise for the entire movie was stupid, literal god vs guy with lots of cash, they trotted out the tried and tested Batman gets the upper hand because of magic space rock, a plot twist so obvious it actually hurt when it appeared and the main bad guy in the film... I've seen the movie twice and I still can't work the fuck out what it is Lex Luther is meant to be doing what his goal in all this was. It's also one of the few movies with a directors cut that does nothing for the movie, some add to the story, some actually make the movie better, others change the tone of the movie, this one does not a fucking thing for it.

Suicide squad on the other hand actually had a premise that was believable (in the terms of super hero movies) okay Marvel did the premise last year with Guardians of the Galaxy (and yes the premise was shockingly similar, group of bad or otherwise not good folk get thrown together by circumstances outside their control and end up having to beat some big bad dude who wants to destroy the world) and did it much much better but yeah premise works. The villan in Suicide Sqaud actually had a motivation that made sense, stupid, simple, idiotic but made sense all the same (which highlights just how truly fucking terrible Lex Luther was in BvS, if Sorceress in Suicide Squad was a better more sensical bad guy) ok Joker was truly drinking the same bat shit mad cool aid that Lex was but at least that was more in tune with the character style of the Joker.

Honestly though both movies were bad, Batman Vs Superman takes the win (or is that loose?) because it had so much riding on it, it was meant to be the true start of the DC fightback, the movie that was to prove that Warner and DC had the chops to take the fight to Marvel, it had vast wads of cash thrown at it and it had the pre release hype train chugging at full steam by the time the movie hit the cinema so the fact that it was so bad, really really bad when it really needed to be good, not brilliant just good is why it takes the win. Suicide Squad was living in the shadows of BvS, did we honestly go in to the cinema expecting Suicide Squad to blow us away, to be a true winner that would correct all the wrongs that had turned BvS in to the dog shit filled dumpster fire that it was... after reading about the reshoots, the constant crap the actors were going through, did we really think Suicide Squad was going to be THAT good? No it was what it was, a crap movie following a fucking awful movie and really that's all it ever was going to be.

 

[Kyrian007]

Eventually I did watch BvS. I waited until I didn't have to pay for it (watched it after borrowing it) and it really was as bad as the reviews said.

I may do the same with Suicide Squad, but I probably won't bother.

But I wasn't going to pay money to see either after almost walking out of Man of Steel. It can't be good until a reboot, you can't build a franchise on such a terrible foundation.