Everyone has an opinion by this point about Zack Snyder‘s pretty turgid “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.” Perhaps that’s fair given it was supposed to be the anchor of a new DC Films universe, that over a year later, is still trying to figuring out its footing. Now, yet another opinion has landed about why the movie didn’t work, and it comes from a surprising place: “Watchmen” artist Dave Gibbons.
Sitting down with CinemaBlend, Gibbons shared his reason why the blockbuster, superhero, smash-up didn’t work, and his thoughts echo what many have said. Simply put, ‘Dawn Of Justice’ simply wasn’t true to its two lead characters, particularly the disenchanted Superman.
“I think, as I said earlier, the trend in entertainment now is to actually come up with something which is more entertaining, which is less dark, which is much more full of hope. And I think probably the failure of the Superman-Batman movie was that it was really too dark and that Superman was made as dark as Batman. And to me, that really doesn’t work, I thought that’s the perfect opportunity to contrast the two characters,” he said.
That’s not a bad critique. Certainly in ‘Dawn Of Justice,’ we saw two bummed out heroes who wanted nothing to do with each other when there could’ve been a more complex dynamic between them, while still retaining the issue that drives them apart. As for the hope, that’s the eternal promise from Geoff Johns and we’ll see if “Justice League” delivers on that front when it opens on November 17th.