DC Universe

[James]

We can't be talking about the same thing!

[Ben]

I don’t know about anyone else, but I'm talking about who turns up right at the end as a "surprise"…

It either doesn’t make *any* sense, in the shock POTA way, or does actually make perfect sense but doesn’t work in the way James Gunn (for it was he who changed it) intended it to. So either way it’s pretty dumb and they shoulda stuck with what they had.

[James]

I don't know what they originally had, but that scene as is completely played off as a joke. And then, I think, reversed in the post-credits scene.

[Ben]

Oh, I thought it was the credit scene we were talking about!

[Bill1978]

I was talking about the end of the movie - nothing credits related.

My main issue is

I am not a fan of George Clooney at all, so getting this uncredited cameo is not the attraction the studio was hoping it would be to get me into the cinema, it does the opposite. Plus getting the actor from the 'worst' Batman movie, is not the greatest decision in my opinion - joke or not

[Ben]

It doesn’t make any sense though, even as a "joke".

George Clooney is Val Kilmer who is Michael Keaton, who is dead. It’s a recast, not a different universe, like Bale and Affleck are.

So on the one hand that doesn’t make sense. They killed the Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney Bats, only to bring him back.

Or you can look at it like he did in fact save things to the point that Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney Bats was actually saved, which isn’t what Gunn was going for. As far as they are concerned, Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney Bats is dead…except he now isn’t.

They are not different universes, just recasts. It is dumb.

Better would have just been to keep the Keaton-shot version, which confirms that it *is* the same character saved from dying, but I’m guessing they wanted to try and make it doubly sure that he *is* dead so that he couldn’t come back for Batgirl. Or go with the Cavil/Gadot reshoot scene that has Supes and WW reassuring him things are back to normal. The irony is that they did just bring back Keaton-Bats anyway…just in his two actors on incarnation, so their "shock" doesn’t work either.

Yeah…dumb.

But even then…potentially not even as bad as poor Indy…

[James]

The film actually does a pretty good job of explaining their version of time travel. Long story short, and trying not to spoil too much, going back in time and changing something ripples both ways, effecting the future AND the past.

So yes, they killed off Keaton, but after that and before going back to his time, Barry changes something else! He assumes what he did was minor enough not to have effected anything, and he appears to be right... until Clooney steps out of the car.

Now, there's a line in the post-credit scene that hardly anyone seems to have noticed that I think is extremely relevant to all this, but, again I hate spoilers so unless you guys want to know I'll not post it right now!

I'm kinda picky, and have not liked most of what DC has put out. But I thought this movie was a lot of fun!

[Ben]

But Keaton *is* Clooney. And Clooney is Keaton!

I guess I’ll see for myself tomorrow night!

[James]

...I guess I’ll see for myself tomorrow night!

Wait... you're going to an actual theatre? Outside your house!? I didn't think you did that!

[Ben]

Yes! First time since Rise Of Skywalker, I believe. Well, technically I’m just tagging along with someone else who was already going. I’d have just waited to get the disc otherwise!

[Ben]

So..um…how to put this…

The Flash is f*****g awful. Terrible!

There. There really isn’t any other reaction. Weird choices, weird plot, weird shots, weird lenses, weird framing, weird editing, weird casting, weird music, really bad weird VFX — like really bad — just so weird all over. I’m not sure if it was more weird than Wonder Woman 1984, but it certainly gives it a run for its money.

Thankfully that’s saved me buying another redundant disc; it honestly deserves the current box-office fate it’s experiencing: the cinema tonight was just the three of us and four others, all of whom looked at each other at the end like, "wha jus happen?"! I honestly haven’t had a joint audience reaction, where we all had the same response, like "did that just happen" as a communal experience, since all the puzzles faces we all had at the end of Glitter!

Big question will be if Indy will be better or worse, although we already sadly know the answer to that one too…

[James]

You finally leave your house to see a movie and you choose... The Flash!

I've disliked just about every movie in the DCEU and at this point go in expecting them to be bad. With Flash it was so over the top ridiculous that my son and I laughed through the whole thing! I had a blast. Not a great movie, but it felt like the filmmakers knew that as well and leaned into some of the camp.

[Ben]

I didn’t choose it, it chose me!

The thing is…I don’t think they thought they were making a camp movie at all, not by the end. It’s just…bad! I *wanted* to laugh at it, we all did, but we were just gobsmacked, bemused and bewildered by what was happing onscreen, which was just too all over the place to have any coherency or be so bad it’s funny, because clearly everyone in it thought they were making some serious movie. Actually, everyone in it seemed to be in several different kinds of comic book movies!

Honestly, we're all in trouble — especially Batman — if James Gunn thought this was all that great and has now given Brave And The Bold to the same team. The thing is, WB needs to learn that this sheer *amount* of cheese doesn’t cut through in this post-modernist, meta world anymore. You can’t actually go out there and intentionally make a bad film ironically, but sell it as something else, or it will come off as an *actual* bad film and bomb, which is what has clearly happened here.

I’ve never seen a cinema so empty during the first week after a movie being out just a couple of days! But it seems word of mouth has spread fast and an already tepidly anticipating audience has seemingly evaporated instantly. Wow.

[Daniel]

My earlier comments were aimed at this:

The cameos of Christopher Reeve and George Reeves

Unless it works in the film.

[Ben]

Wait till you see it in better, er, quality. Then you’ll see those unfinished looking VFX shots in all their early 2000s uncanny valley glory…