Friday Rant: Hey Warner Bros. - If you want to keep f***ing me how about some dinner first

It all started back with the first trailer for Man Of Steel. As someone who detests Superman at a very base level on account of his boring backstory and indestructability unless Kryptonite is involved, imagine my surprise when the first trailer actually got me excited. It was packed with lush Zack Snydery visuals, an emotive score, a decent cast and a “under the watchful eye of Christopher Nolan” tag. It had winner all over it. While Nolan didn’t really stick the Dark Knight trilogy landing with Rises, he definitely told a pretty great Batman story for at least two movies.

Was the dark and moody tone appropriate for Superman? Maybe not, but as someone who loved Watchmen, I was on board with a Zack Snyder-helmed Superman movie as much as I could be with any Superman movie. And you know what, the end result, while no masterpiece, wasn’t half bad. It was definitely better than 3 out of 4 Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and as someone who doesn’t really care for the main character I didn’t really care that it probably missed the mark with regards to the fundamentals of all American hero Clark Kent.

Of course, while it made some decent cash ($668 million USD to be exact), it wasn’t enough for Warner Bros., watching on with envious eyes as Marvel ran the game with their massive extended universe. So who do they call on to fix the problem? Old mate Bruce Wayne. “Alright Man Of Steel didn’t quite set the world on fire, let’s re-do Batman again and finally give the people the fight they’ve always wanted,” said Warner execs, rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of making billions of dollars.

And, not content with the thought of making billions of dollars, they decided to use a Batman versus Superman story to get in on this extended universe game, and start setting up the Justice League and show those Avengers pansies how it’s done. And you know what? Fine. Sure, if you wanna go the opposite way to Marvel and just start with the team and then branch out from there, I’ll go with that.

Ben Affleck was announced as Batman, and while many cried foul, there were plenty of us who were 100% on board. And when Batman V Superman came out earlier this year, we smugly smiled as Ben Affleck ended up being the absolute best thing about the movie. We couldn't really scream "I told you so" given the absolute shit show that surrounded him - a definite symptom of Zack Snyder chomping at the bit to make a Batman movie. Which he did. While also trying to make another Superman movie. While also trying to kick start the Justice League. While also introducing Wonder Woman. While also trying to atone for the mistakes he made in Man Of Steel.

Batman V Superman was a convoluted mess that kinda makes more sense when you tuck in to the 3-hour-and-then-some extended cut, but it’s still a chore to get through. It looked bloody gorgeous, but that’s Zack Snyder. He could probably make shit on a stick look gorgeous. Batman V Superman couldn’t live up to years of hype surrounding the much-anticipated meeting of the two on film, and that was a huge bummer. It didn’t rake in the kinda bucks everyone thought it would, and probably the only good thing it gave us was a funny Ben Affleck meme:

Alright Warner Bros., you put all of your eggs in Zack Snyder’s basket and now he’s basically doing that thing in high school where you learn about physics by building little caskets made out of straws and drop them off a balcony with an egg in them to see if you can make the egg not break.

So far, Zack Snyder has sucked at making supportive cases for the eggs that are the DC Cinematic Universe.

As a Batman fan, I can live with Batman V Superman, because Batman kicks arse in it. Sure he’s a psychopathic murderer in it, but I’ll run with that, because he’s bad arse. And Jeremy Irons is a great Alfred, crapping all over Michael Caine’s wishy washy “Don’t be the Batman/actually you should be the Batman” bullshit.

And besides, following that, Suicide Squad was coming up! And holy shitballs did it look fucking cool! Whoever cut the trailers for Suicide Squad deserves a raise because they succeeded in making it look like everything BVS wasn’t; a fun, exciting, good old time at the rodeo. The casting was ON POINT BRO: Margot Robbie is the biggest thing in Hollywood right now, the Fresh Prince himself is in a team-up comic book film, Cara Delevingne is Cara Delevingne, and perennial embarrassment to Australia – Jai Courtnay – actually looks at home playing an Aussie af dude called Captain Boomerang.

Yes, Jared Leto looked like a methed-up gang banger as The Joker, but we’re not gonna get something better than Heath Ledger so we may as well just go with it. The director, David Ayer, has made some seriously bad-ass movies that seemed to suit Suicide Squad perfectly. Street Kings, End Of Watch and even Sabotage are gritty as hell action/crime thrillers, and the trailers made it look like he was having a damn good time playing in the superhero sandbox.

Now here we are, a few days after Suicide Squad’s release, and it’s a fairly resounding, WTF man? If Batman V Superman was a convoluted shit show, Suicide Squad is a clusterfuck of gargantuan proportions. A genuine hot mess that is pretty clearly the victim of studio tinkering thanks to Warner Bros. clearly gunning for a Guardians Of The Galaxy-style movie is full of loveable, fun characters set in a weird new world.

The trouble is, you don’t get to START at Guardians Of The Galaxy. Marvel built up to GOTG slowly, with each new Marvel movie injecting weirder and more out-there sci-fi elements and characters, so that when they finally say, “Hey guys, so here’s this movie about a Han Solo-type and also a talking raccoon and a giant tree doing crazy shit in space”, we respond with “Yep cool, I’m in.”

And try as Robbie and Smith might (seriously, they save the movie from being a complete disaster), Suicide Squad is another massive letdown from Warner Bros. and the team trying to bring the DC Cinematic Universe to life. Yes, I was suckered again by some fantastic trailers, but it was still filled with so much promise.

I, somewhat foolishly perhaps, still remain hopeful. They dropped some nice trailers at Comic-Con recently (although we’ve now seen where cool trailers can lead to), and word on the street is Justice League is at least going to try and not be so fucking dour. Plus Wonder Woman looks pretty great.

So I’ll hold out hope that this boat can be corrected at some stage over the next 50 planned DC movies coming up, but I’m gonna need if nothing else just a nice home cooked dinner in the mean time.

Because I prefer to at least be wined and dined if I’m gonna get continuously fucked.