Why Zack Snyder makes me nervous about Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice

During the advertising blitz for Watchmen in 2009, Zack Snyder was referred to as “The visionary Director of 300”. I could never see what visionary direction he took with 300. Snyder read the historically inspired tale from Frank Miller and made the frames of the film look like the panels of the comic. The sepia tones, stark contrast, and the slow motion shots looked nice on the big screen but were certainly not groundbreaking nor visionary. Snyder did the same for Watchmen, more or less making a motion picture reproduction of the comic. Both of those movies were considered average among critics at rottentomatoes, 300 is rated at 60% and Watchmen is rated at 65%.

Most directors have a vanity project that they would love to do, but the studios have to test the director first. Zack Snyder’s test was his first original concept, a project he had been working on before he directed Watchmen. Snyder obviously passed, as both 300 and Watchman were successful enough for Warner Brothers to green light Sucker Punch. Snyder employed his usual tactics like stark contrast and a multitude of slow motion shots and added good looking girls and gratuitous upskirts. The result, an ill-conceived movie with poor dialogue and wooden acting whose sole purpose seemed to be those gratuitous upskirts. The score on rottentomatoes, a dismal 23%. A lot can be determined about a director, by judging their vanity project and Zack Snyder’s vanity project was awful. Sucker Punch was critically panned and just barely made its production budget back. Yet they still let him direct Man of Steel.

Before I talk about Man of Steel, let's talk about Christopher Nolan. The Batman trilogy that spanned from 2005 to 2012 was a critical and commercial success. During the first phase of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe with it’s bright, colorful visuals and sense of humor, Nolan went darker, grittier and more realistic. Which is absolutely fine. I loved Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Darker, grittier and more realistic absolutely works for Batman. Even if Batman walks alongside alien gods, Amazonian Warriors, galactic heroes, sorcerers and so on, Batman is still a human. An exceptionally skilled human, but a human nonetheless. Batman is a street level vigilante and the streets in Gotham are dark and gritty, especially after Neil Adams and Frank Miller wrote the book in the 1980s. Nolan's Batman trilogy worked so well because he understood and captured the essence of Gotham City, making it a supporting character in itself.


This is the problem with Man of Steel. Warner Brothers and DC liked rolling around in the money Nolan made for them so much they decided to try it again...but with Superman. However, nothing about Superman in his 80 plus years is dark, gritty or particularly realistic. Superman is a humble Kansas farmboy with a strong sense of morality instilled in him by Ma & Pa Kent. He is a consummate do-gooder, a boy scout in demeanor. Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way. He is a bright beacon of hope for mankind. I know the viral YouTube video that addressed this subject has been the source of controversy, which is why I didn’t link the video. I did include a screencap from that video and the final trailer for Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice. Even if you doubt the disputed video evidence, or forgot how light or dark Man of Steel truly was, you can not deny just how excessively dark the color pallet is in what we've seen of  Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice.

What Zack Snyder gave us was a poor imitation of Nolan’s Batman, but replaced the Dark Knight with Superman. Again Snyder emulates another artist’s work, how does that make him visionary? Man of Steel was bleak figuratively and literally. Except for a time in the 1990s Superman wore bright blue, red and yellow. It wasn’t just the costume in the Man of Steel that didn’t look right, the skies were gray and the fields of grass and rows of corn in Kansas were brown. Man of Steel is overly edited and desaturated to be literally dark, in order to give them film more weight and tone than the script or acting did. To give Superman a Batman-like edge he erased the morality of Pa Kent, who suggested he should have allowed a school bus full of children to drown in a river than reveal his strength. Then, Pa Kent sacrificed himself in a tornado because he didn’t want to expose Clark’s speed. I guess that is all it took for Clark to become an angry crab-fisherman.

Not only was Superman’s color pallet off and his brooding attitude completely unfamiliar, his regard for human life was absent. During the final battle in Man of Steel half of Metropolis appears to be destroyed and countless lives are lost. From what I can gather, the movie included the excessive destruction because Snyder thought it looked cool, and to shoehorn in the product placement. Superman can't get thrown into an IHOP if he is fighting his enemy on the moon. Superman should not have allowed such a fight to take place in such a populated area.

Zack Snyder doesn’t understand Superman and strangely, and perhaps more concerning, neither does DC or Warner Brothers apparently. I'll post my concerns about them later.