MOVIES
Thursday, april 8, 2021 • ThE BullETiN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 19
The DC Extended Universe movies ranked
BY MAKENZIE WHITTLE
The Bulletin
I
’ve been a bad nerd.
I’ve neglected a very prominent sec-
tion of movie/comic book/pop culture
for years by avoiding most films in the DC
Extended Universe.
With a few exceptions, the films never
looked particularly intriguing beyond the
chiseled jawline of a certain hero and the
empowering look of “Wonder Woman,” so I
avoided these “dark and gritty” takes on the
comics.
That all changed this past weekend when
I set out to watch them all culminating with
the “Snyder Cut.”
The biggest and most obvious problem
I have with the series of movies is most of
them have interesting concepts and plots
but are generally overly long and poorly
written.
Like every good nerd, I will now rank
the DCEU, all of which can be streamed on
HBO Max.
Note: “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix,
is not a part of the DCEU and is a side uni-
verse that exists on its own and, as such, will
not be listed.
10) “Suicide Squad” (2016) — It’s re-
ally not a great leap to wonder why Warner
Bros. is doing a semi-do-over with writer-di-
Continued from previous page
back and forth, and the cut achieving almost
mythic status, it was released in all its glory
(there is even a “grey” version) on HBO
Max.
The general plot remains the same: Bruce
Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) begins as-
sembling a team of heroes after the death of
Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) to be
ready to fight against any meta-humans or
aliens who decide to make Earth their next
battleground.
Well, the fight comes sooner than he
thought when the alien being Steppenwolf
begins a quest to find the Mother Boxes,
devices that, when unified, will create a por-
tal for his leader Darkseid to arrive and lay
waste to the planet.
When Steppenwolf finds one box hidden
in Themyscira, home of the Amazons, Di-
ana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot)
joins with Bruce to find others to join them,
including Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry
Allen/The Flash and Victor Stone/Cyborg
(Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher).
Because of its length, the film is broken
into six parts and follows more of an ep-
isodic pace. It makes the film as a whole
much easier to follow and allows viewers
natural breaks to go to the bathroom, grab
Clay Enos/Warner Bros./DC Entertainment
Gal Gadot in a scene from “Wonder Woman 1984” (2017).
rector James Gunn in this summer’s release
of “The Suicide Squad,” because the first one
was rough. David Ayer’s film tries and fails
to really capture the audience’s attention this
band of too many villains brought together.
Instead, with a clunky pace, excruciatingly
bad exposition and flat performances from
pretty much everyone except Margot Rob-
bie’s Harley Quinn, it’s the worst of the
bunch.
9) “Justice League” (2017) Theatrical Cut
— Closely following the villain team-up
movie is what should have been the antith-
esis: the big hero team-up movie. Most of
the problems come from the uneven tone
and the rushed pace that leaves gaping holes
in the plot. Yes, most of this stems from the
departure of director Zack Snyder and the
studio’s hiring of Joss Whedon to finish the
film in his place. Well, Whedon marked his
territory, doing reshoots and adding enough
dialogue to give him a co-writing credit. The
additions are just bad and the script suffers
from the tired Whedon-ese tacked on.
8) “Wonder Woman 1984” (2020) — I still
don’t know how they messed up so badly
with this one. While the first installment is
pretty incredible, the follow-up misses the
mark on so many levels. First, the story is
all over the place. Second, it highlights how
poor of an actor Gal Gadot is. Third, it has a
crummy script. Fourth and fifth, they crim-
inally underuse Chris Pine and Pedro Pascal
while completely miscasting Kristen Wiig.
It’s just a mess.
7) “Man of Steel” (2013) — When I sat
down to watch this last week, I soon realized
that I had in fact seen it before, but com-
pletely forgot about it. So, this rewatch gave
me a better insight into the world Snyder
Continued on next page
a snack or even watch it like a TV series if
that’s more your speed.
The film is packed with information at
every turn. Special effects are more cohesive
and impressive. The epic battle sequences
have been revved up and tone adjusted from
an awful burnt orange to the more Sny-
der-esque steel grays and blues.
But the best addition to the film is the ex-
pansion on Victor Stone/Cyborg’s charac-
ter arc, in that he actually has one and it has
depth.
It does, however, suffer from the things
that have plagued the DCEU since the be-
ginning, namely bad writing and length.
Instead of allowing actors to, you know,
act and emote like what they’re supposed to
do, the script, penned by Chris Terrio, basi-
cally just tells the audience what is going on
at every turn, leaving little room for nuance.
And even with it separated into different
parts, there is still way more packed into one
movie than really needs to be in there.
While this new version certainly im-
proves by leaps and bounds the problems of
the original theatrical cut, it never manages
to be anything more than is expected in this
universe of comic book movies, and places it
just above average.
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0304, mwhittle@bendbulletin.com
HBO Max
From left, Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot and Ray Fisher in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” (2021).