Razzies #37, Worst of 2016

The Witch.

They picked the wrong DC movie this year for worst picture!

Affleck should not have been on there. Zack Snyder, though? Oh, thank you, Razzies.

And the "winners" are...

Worst Picture - Hillary's America
Worst Director - Dinesh D'Souza/Bruce Schooley (Hillary's America)
Worst Actor - Dinesh D'Souza (Hillary's America)
Worst Actress - Rebekah Turner (Hillary's America)
Worst Supporting Actor - Jesse Eisenberg (BvS)
Worst Supporting Actress - Kristen Wiig (Zoolander 2)
Worst Screen Combo - Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill (BvS)
Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel - BvS
Worst Screenplay - BvS

Also a "Razzie Redeemer" for Mel Gibson and Hacksaw Ridge, for whatever that's worth.

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So boring. I was reading the other day how the Razzie's started off celebrating really bad movies that were still fun like Xanadu was an example; now it's just the very obvious everyone hates these choices. Don't care about them obviously but i think it would be a good thing it being used to bring attention to some "good bad movies" for people who are into that sort of thing, i'm not but i get why others are.

BvS is not surprising. It was an utter crap fest.

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I get hating BvS, but I still contend it is the same film as Civil War. I can't see loving one and hating the other. I was middle of the road on both, with a slight positive lean.

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Letterboxd

I had my friends BvS for over a month and i just couldn't bring myself to watch it. To be fair though it would've been the same with just about any Marvel film.

I see all this stuff in the theater with my boys, which I'm pretty sure gives them about a half star bump. Although, Suicide Squad was still probably the worst thing I saw last year. They usually don't do anything for me when I rewatch them at home with the boys. I would say Iton Man, Avengers, and Guardians have some staying power for me though.

Looking over the wins and nominations for Worst Picture also indicates that they have always been about going after the most notorious fiascos and/or flops (whether commercially, critically, or both) of any given year like Inchon or Mommie Dearest. A movie's so-bad-it's-good reputation tends to develop after the fact (if it does at all), so being able to immediately recognise them and reward them as such is a little difficult; I daresay Showgirls won less because of its camp value and more because it was a notorious flop.

Yeah, guess that's all true. I just find their selections really boring and obvious year in year out, even more so than the Oscars somehow.

It's very simple. In terms of script, character use and general story, Civil War is far better accomplished than BvS.

We know that MCU could never do a full blown Civil War as in the comics [they don't have the rights to many characters that are in that story], but in terms of gathering multiple characters and make them work on screen the MCU has done a pretty fine job [seriously, Guardians of the Galaxy? Who would ever though?], while the DCEU struggles to put 3 characters together [in this case, Superman, Batman and WonderWoman - 3 of the 5 most well known comic characters on the entire planet].

Snyder also did some pretty dumb crap with the characters:

- Jimmy Olsen got head shot [the man even stated that he thought it would be "fun" to kill a well beloved character because.... reasons]
- 10000th time we see the Waynes getting shot [needles at this point]
- kid Bruce Wayne getting lifted by bats [cringe worthy, even for a "dream sequence". My eyes rolled way back into my skull]
- All of the sudden Batman can see the future [the dream sequence was a general mess. There's absolutely no reason for it. When asked how come Batman has a vision of the future, the guys responsible for that mess had to "explain" it via The Flash inducing it to Bruce via his time traveling abilities. It's very convoluted and in no point on that scene is it clear]
- Flash appearing out of nowhere was dumbfounding to say the least. Many people in the theater felt confused with that scene. Almost no one recognized him as the Flash with the exception of those who actually read or used to read the comics.
- Introduction of characters via an emal [the movie fully stopped for character presentation. Senseless]
- Lex must have had a great time drawing the Symbols for each character as well [senseless]
- Emo Superman rushes to save Lois but is unable to save his own mother when she gets taken [senseless]
- the Martha scene [the entire theater laughed aloud for how cringe worthy that one is. It also generated a lot of Memes]
- The premise of the movie is Batman versus Superman. We got 5 minutes of it [with an absolute and senseless bias towards Batman] and it ended with Martha.
- WonderWoman is a glorified cameo at best. Simply thrown in for no reason than to introduce her [badly] in the DCEU
- Doomsday thing was needless. That's a whole movie worth of material thrown out of window [also, if Doomsday could die via the spear, it made no sense why Superman should be wielding it when WonderWoman is right there and shown her self quite capable of that task]


Meanwhile you have the MCU with basically the same core concept, except without those problems. A tighter script, a great introduction of two new characters [Black Panther and Spiderman] and an interesting take on Baron Zemo [I couldn't care less for Zemo in the comics, but this take on him - making him simply a man with a personal grudge - is far more sympathetic then Lex Luthor].

@Little Devil I agree with you only in the sense that you can pull apart every superhero film in the exact same way and make it seem ridiculous. You going to tell me the MCU doesn't shoe horn characters into their films in service of the next one. Spider-Man and Ant-Man anyone. Or that the Superman vs Batman angle is any more short sighted then Cap vs Iron Man. We all know that no real tragedy is going to befall any of these characters. I think it always comes down to how you feel about the characters when they are outside of these contrived conflicts. Batman and his personality and motivations have always appealed to me more than any other, that's why Burton and Nolan have made the best superhero flicks for me to this point. Also why Iron Man has been my entrance to the MCU, and why I have stuck around despite the mostly average films.

Of course you can. Superhero flics are all silly, be it IronMan, Superman or Batman.

The difference is how tight the story is. And in that case BvS lacks a great deal.

There will always be characters shoe.horned in any movie with multiple comic characters. How well they are introduced and how well they play out [ie, their motives and general motif/raison d'étre] and how tightly they contribute to the general movie is where the quality [imho] resides.

I have my own share of problems with the MCU [ex: I couldn't care less for Thor or even Captain America, never was a fan of them to begin with] and Civil War has some problems with Zemo [most notably the extent of his plan]; however so far they seem to be able to fully expand their characters through out the entire movies making them more complex and yet very transparent and easy to understand.

The MCU also offers movies that are fun to watch [granted, maybe watch them 1 or 2 times and that's it, The Avengers [as per example] won't age well. But a Supoerhero movie is supposed to be FUN to watch.

That didn't happen to me with BvS, SS or Man of Steal [ie the DCEU]

@Little Devil Fair enough. I think the biggest problem DC has right now is that it so obviously wants to be the MCU. It is so transparent they are really going to have to hit a homerun to earn any respect. They should have went more the route of Star Wars. Took it a little more slowly and let people get into the characters. They went from 0-90.

Totally agree. They should bide their time and do things more thoughtfully.

Maybe if they reboot it, they'll be able to do it. I hope so, The Flash is one of my favorite comic characters.

Yeah at least Marvel embraces it's a comic book movie and enjoys it. DC is trying to go this deep "mature" route trying to pretend to be intellectual and it has all the depth of a teaspoon. all the christ imagery in MoS was laughable, not deep... Lest we forget:


And sadly, MoS WAS Subtle compared to BvS where pretty much every line Lex Luthor has is going on and on about how Superman is a "God" and gods and demons, etc etc etc.

Some laughable points: Wonder woman's entire purpose in the film is trying to steal a digital picture of herself back from Lex Luthor. because she knows what "military grade encryption" is, but doesn't understand how digital pictures work.

the title fight in a 2.5 hour movie lasts 5 minutes, ends because their mommies have the same name.

Batman racks up a friday the 13th style body count, has this whole speech about how if there's even a 1% chance superman can go bad, he must be killed. that goes right out the window like a light switch is thrown.

Plotlines that make zero sense and go nowhere in an extremely boated film. (Or worse, cause damage to the characterizations. Lex Luthor resembles Otis the bumbling idiot from Donner's Superman films just due to how many "evil plans" leave a neon lit roadmap directly back to him)

As far as Comic Book movies go, it was really the bottom of the barrel.

They do seem to have a hell lot of fun with their movies [not so true with the DCEU]

They also make some very sensible changes to their characters without changing their core motif.

An example:

Thor in the comics used to have a split persona. Not true in the movies [they did give a subtle nod to it though]
Dr Strange had no humor whatsoever in the comics, he is able to have some humor in the movie
Iron Man is far more conscious heavy in the movies than his comic counterpart
and so on

Their suit designs also make sense [I never thought I'd like to watch Cap America all suited up in the movies, but they tackled that issue with a more utilitarian approach, same thing with IronMan]

Another thing I found interesting [probably the fanboys didn't] is their choice of making Tony Stark design Ultron and not Antman. That to me makes a hell lot more sense, given that Tony is the machinery tech genius in the MCU. It fits.

The DCEU offers a grim view on things just for the sake of being "dark" and "mature" [whatever that even means]. Hell, the entire IronMan and Winter Soldiers' stories are as dark and gritty as they get [Tony is responsible for many bad things and also an alcoholic, while Bucky is a mind washed killer with no memories who becomes aware]. Doesn't get "darker" than that, except the MCU doesn't rub it on the viewers nose like the DCEU does.

Lex spewing his high-school pseudo.philosophy [the already multiple times laid to rest dichotomy of good vs evil in the History of Philosophy] would be easily avoided if the writers took their time to actually do some research.

Man, there's a ton of things on BvS that makes me think they simply didn't care to present a tight script.