The Sandlot

There are movies out there that are just the culmination of your entire childhood. Its the movie you watched over and over again and years later when you're watching it, you realize you can still quote every single line from the movie its that memorable.

I feel like I've said this for a movie before but I can't remember which one it was, maybe The Kid? But the way I see it, The Sandlot is one of the most influential and quintessential childhood movies.

The Sandlot is a coming of age tale about a 5th grader named Scott Smalls (played by Tom Guiry). Scotty has just moved to the neighborhood and he doesn't have any friends. He has absolutely no knowledge of the game of baseball, and he can barely throw or even catch a ball.

But he is soon befriended by a local kid by the name of Benny Rodriguez (played by Mike Vitar) and he joins a team of local misfits to play baseball in a run down field called, The Sandlot.

At first Scotty is ridiculed by his new found friends, but he soon learns how to play baseball and gains the friendship of the other 8 players. All the while a local legendary monster inhabits the other side of the fence from the Sandlot, creating a pickle of wacky hijinks for the team.

Right off the bat, the first thing to be said about The Sandlot is that its just a lot of fun. You might watch it when you're older and think that they're taking the situations they run across all together too seriously, but the truth is, it gives a great representation of what its like to be a kid.

This is supplemented by the fact that the kids playing on the Sandlot are some of the best child actors I think you'll ever see. That's not really to say that they are Oscar Winning actors and there's no awkward reading. Hell the majority of these kids ended up getting out of acting and do their own thing. But even when you see them acting over the top and perhaps in a way a kid might not act, they are one hundred percent invested in this film. While you may watch and think that their life isn't going to be over when certain things happen, you feel for these kids and you get the weight of the event from their perspective.

On top of that, you grow to love every single one of these kids because this is the childhood I think a lot of kids would want. They're not going on any adventure that a regular kid couldn't have, they're not digging for treasure, they're not going up against aliens or any outrageous bad guy, they're just having fun being kids in the summer.

The biggest problem I think people could find with this film is that it is a pretty cheesy film. I've already talked about the hokey acting of the kids, but the script is pretty hokey, and the entire set up is just ridiculous.

I mean Benny is visited by the ghost of Babe Ruth... As awesome as it is when you're watching the film, overall its pretty damn hokey and ridiculous taken out of context.

This is going to be a pretty short review due to the fact that this is just a simple movie and its really hard, for me, to be objective and not really say anything bad about this film. I'm not saying its a perfect movie, but it is close to a perfect kids movie.

I think if you haven't seen this movie, its one that you definitely need to check out, regardless of age. If you have kids, show your kids this movie. It is the essence of pure unadulterated fun. Sure there's some "bad language" in the film, but it just adds to the entirety of this being one of the best representations of kids just having fun I've seen in a film.

I don't say this that often, but The Sandlot goes down, for me, as one of my favorite films of all time.

But what do you think? Did you grow up with The Sandlot? Did it resonate with you the same amount it resonated with me? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. This is quite possibly one of the best scenes of the movie and I guess I never realized how short this scene actually is when I was younger. Enjoy!

DC at SDCC

So if you follow me on Twitter you’ll know that I’ve been off the grid for the past two weeks due to Military Training. Now over the past two weeks I did have a little bit of internet and I got some of the news that came out of San Diego Comic-Con. There was a lot of cool information that came out, a lot of good trailers, not just from DC but from Marvel as well. It is very exciting to hear that Brie Larsen is confirmed as Captain Marvel and then Doctor Strange trailer was pretty cool.

Doctor Strange Trailer 2

However, the big thing I’m pulling from this SDCC is the two trailers that DC dropped near the end of the convention. That is the trailer for Justice League, and the trailer for Wonder Woman.

Now I suppose I need to clarify before I move on with this post. I’m a little confused on whether or not the Justice League video was a trailer or just special footage. Some outlets are calling it special footage, others are calling it a trailer. For the sake of arguments, I will call it special footage and I’ll explain why, especially since I’ll be starting my thoughts on that video first.

If you go into the Justice League video thinking that it is a trailer, you’re going to be a little disappointed. This is not a trailer. This is a lot of clips from the movie strung together, arranged with music, and edited to look pretty so we can get a glimpse of what The Justice League is going to be like. I say that because I went into this thinking that it was a trailer and was a little bit disappointed.

Here's the video for you if you haven't seen it already.

The video strings together a bunch of clips of Bruce Wayne going around like Nick Fury and gathering the members of the Justice League together to defend against a still unknown threat. The big scenes are him in a fishing town confirming the legend that is Aquaman, and meeting Barry Allen for the first time.

The clips where Bruce Wayne is meeting Aquaman are… okay. They’re not fantastic but they are a little humorous when juxtaposed with him and Wonder Woman saying he more or less said yes to joining them, when really he said no. Is it laugh out loud funny?  Absolutely not, but it does allow for a little bit of levity.

Overall, I like the look of Aquaman, I just would have liked to see him in a little bit of action instead of Bruce Wayne just describing him like he’s describing Jaws.

Then you’ve got the scene with Bruce Wayne and Barry Allen and I enjoyed that scene, again, for the most part. I thought the scene was your pretty standard Nick Fury superhero recruitment scene. I’ve heard a couple people compare this scene to Tony Stark and Spider-man in Civil War and I guess they have their similarities but at least they’re having fun with it. My question is, what if Bruce Wayne had been wrong and that wasn’t Barry Allen, basically he would have thrown a very sharp batarang straight into the face of a young man whose house he just broke into and he would have added him to the list of people he straight up murdered in Batman v Superman.

Now the issue I have with the Flash scene is one of the issues I have with the video overall. DC has been criticized ever since Man of Steel that there isn’t enough levity and fun with these movies and I think a lot of the times, people mistake fun with comedy. And that’s because we’ve been preconditioned with all the Marvel movies that that is the right way to do it. So now, DC is trying to inject that humor into their movies and I’m worried its just coming off as forced.

Now, the humor isn’t as forced as the, “Is She with you?” scene from Batman v Superman, but I’m just confused on why they’re trying to inject Bruce Wayne with a lot of the humor. I’m not saying that you need to make Bruce Wayne a stone cold, never smiling character, but Batman is not the one who is cracking off jokes in The Justice League. They could have used Superman to create some of the humor… OH WAIT, THAT’S RIGHT THEY KILLED HIM OFF…

My point is, stop trying to make Bruce Wayne funny! He can be a real character with real emotions but you gotta stop trying to make him funny.

Even Ezra Miller’s delivery of some of his lines were kind of awkward and strange. Overall, I’m excited for Miller as Barry Allen especially to juxtapose him with Grant Gustin’s Flash. I think for a lot of the fans of CWs The Flash, Ezra Miller is going to have to bring it to really place himself apart from Gustin’s Flash. I never thought I’d say that about a character from a show on The CW but it really is an issue I think might come up.

The other issue I have with this trailer is Cyborg… he looks weird. Again, this is early footage and they probably will clean up some of the visual issues, but I wasn’t impressed with Cyborgs look. I’m excited to see a full mechanized Cyborg, but at the same time you can see how a lot of his appearance is CGI and that might be an interesting obstacle to overcome.

Overall, I like the look and feel of The Justice League. I like seeing everyone together and I like where its headed. There’s just a couple of tonal issues and execution issues with the trailer that I’m wary about.

And here’s the thing, if Batman v Superman hadn’t been as much of a cluster and divisive, I would have enjoyed this a lot more. I have to take solace right now that this is just exclusive footage strung together to show that Justice League is coming. I’m sure in the next 6 months we’ll get a full trailer that gives a better look at the movie and what exactly the plot is going to be. But for now I’m not wild about it.

Now the Justice League trailer was something that I didn’t expect at all. I had no idea that that was going to appear during Comic-Con. And while the same goes for the Wonder Woman trailer, looking at the timeline on when these movies come out, I realized that this was the perfect time for the Wonder Woman trailer to drop.

And while I was a little bit underwhelmed by the Justice League trailer, I was pleasantly surprised by the Wonder Woman trailer. We saw Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman, but I thought she could have been utilized differently and maybe with a little bit of subtlety. But overall, I liked Gal Gadot and the movie wet my appetite for more of her as Wonder Woman. While Batman v Superman was a IS Wonder Woman and she can kick ass. And if the movie gives me any feelings like the ones I got from the trailer, I think Wonder Woman might be one of, if not my most anticipated Super hero films of 2017.

test for her to actually show that she could look like wonder Woman, her standalone movie is her opportunity to show that she

The action looks fantastic to start things off. The weird thing about this trailer is that it is reminiscent of the fan made trailers I’ve seen for Wonder Woman movies in the past, so much that when I watch this, I can’t help but find it hard to believe that this movie is actually happening. It came out of no where and sometimes I have to look at the projected schedule and just remember that this is a movie that is coming out.

But the thing that sets it apart from the fan made trailer is the human interactions between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. Those two were the main attraction of the trailer but everyone seemed to have a part to play and it looks really great, especially augmented with the visuals.

The last thing worth mentioning is the mythos behind Wonder Woman. She mentions how she was created by Zeus and you see the Amazonian women and it all feels like its pulled out of a greek myth.

And that’s the parts that DC is allowed to borrow from Marvel. When I saw the Amazonians, I couldn’t help but think about Asgard from the Thor movies, and I couldn’t help but think about how the mythology was so well handled in that and I really hope they do the same for Wonder Woman. I don’t want them to totally copy it, but there is a reason why Diana Prince goes to our world, and there’s a reason she leaves. I really hope there is a great explanation to all those things and it utilized both the Amazonian home and the setting of World War 1 correctly.

I’m just overall excited for Wonder Woman.

But I’m still cautious. I’ve been watching more and more clips from Suicide Squad and I’m really hoping that that movie knocks it out of the park.

At the moment, DC’s batting average is not very good. While I personally think that Man of Steel is a fantastic Superhero movie, it still is pretty divisive among super hero fans. Some people, like myself, love that movie, and some people really hate that movie. And then there’s Batman v Superman, which I think even DC’s staunchest supporters will say wasn’t the best movie out there.

Now even if you’re talking about the theatrical cut, I will say that Batman v Superman doesn’t deserve the levels of hate. I think a lot of people, myself included, were really excited for that film and when it wasn’t that good, we let our emotions take control and say that it was just a horrible film. When in reality, it was just sub-par.

My worry is that because that film didn’t do as well as DC wanted it to critically, I think they’re going to shift course a little bit and try and make the DCCU more like Marvel in a way that I think would be unimaginative and a waste of potential.  

We have to remember that Marvel had 5 movies to develop a tone, test things that may or may not have worked, and land on a tone that worked for them before they got all their heroes together to create that perfect franchise building movie that was, The Avengers. DC is trying to set that tone early so they can get to The Justice League faster and its definitely going to have its growing pains. Instead of having multiple movies for fans to get accustom to the tone and the feeling, they have a couple of movies with the Marvel bias already in their minds. We have something that works already set up, it might be difficult for people to shift their thinking from the fun, comedic, light heartedness of Marvel to the gritty, shadowy world that is DC.

I want DC to have their own tone, I want them to have their own voice, something different than Marvel. If I wanted them to be the same, I would rather DC just sell the movie rights to marvel and have them do it. But I would like DC to take control and make something that is theirs, and own it.

If they wanted Suicide Squad to be darker and have less humor in it, they should have kept it the way it is and not (allegedly) changed anything to appeal to a wider audience that was already sore from Batman v Superman.

Overall, I don’t think tone is DC’s problems, I think it’s the writing. And as much as I advocated for him, I think that means we need to get rid of Zack Snyder.

Maybe not entirely. Let him produce and still be involved with a franchise that he’s obviously interested in, but let someone else  take the wheel and let some other writers take control. I have liked all the creative work done by a lot of people involved with movies like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, but the quality is not where it needs to be, especially with the task DC has in front of them.

Stop trying to make Batman funny, have fun with these movies, but make your own tone and make it the best you can.

But that’s my thoughts on a lot of the information that has come out of DC from SDCC. What do you think? Did I miss something? Would you like me to discuss other parts of the convention? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I’ll leave you with this. Here's the last trailer for Suicide Squad. A movie that I'm looking forward to probably more than any movie that's coming out in the next month. Enjoy!

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

I think I am at a little bit of an advantage because most people who are a fan of the Sin City franchise watched the first film back in 2005 and had to wait ten years for the sequel. I only had to wait a couple of months.

If you'll recall, I was kind of lukewarm about the first Sin City movie overall. I think its a beautifully shot movie with some interesting stories, but at the end of the day, its a movie I saw and will probably never see again. However, I liked it just enough to feel like I wanted to see the second one to compare and decide if it was a movie worth making a sequel for.

A Dame to Kill For follows the same formula from the first movie. You have a couple of stories that sort of connect, probably more in this movie than they did in the last film. But the overall thing that connects them all is that they are set in the hell hole that is Sin City. And I'm glad they didn't try and play it off like it was Basin City, no they just called it Sin City.

In A Dame to Kill For, you have a number of characters that were in the first movie like Marve (played by Mickey Rourke) Nancy (played by Jessica Alba), and Bruce Willis plays the ghost of his character from the first film. But at the same time you have new characters like Joseph Gordon Levitt who is a gambler, or Josh Brolin and his noir style relationship with Eva Green, the Dame to Kill For.

So what's the difference?

Well first off, the visuals, in my opinion, are not as good as they were in the first movie.

That's not me saying that they aren't good, I just don't think they are as memorable. I just remember sitting through the first Sin City and not being the most enthralled with the story but finding it impossible to deny that the visualizations were just beautiful.

Maybe its just me getting used to the style and the novelty of it wearing off, but I didn't find the visuals quite as intriguing as they were before.

What I did find more interesting though were the stories. I thought the characters were a little more developed and interesting in this film than they were in the last film.

However, even though that is the case, the pacing in this film is actually kind of awful. I was watching the section of the movie based off the title all about Josh Brolin and Eva Green and I realized that I was only 40 minutes into the movie. I felt like The Dame to Kill For could have been its own movie and it was paced like it was going to be.

On top of that, it just wasn't as gritty as I remember the first Sin City being. A Dame to Kill For is more of a classic noir story, which can be okay, but it doesn't exactly fit with the weird and comic book feel that the first Sin City provided.

What this movie did provide however was Eva Green being a stone cold fox.

The truth is, I'm never going to complain when Eva Green is on screen and she's looking fine. However, if you're asking me if this storyline is all that good, I'm probably going to say no.

I did like The Dame to Kill For storyline, I just thought it was all together too long and should have probably been its own movie.

The other storylines are good in their own right. But again, the pacing is very off. Either it goes by really fast or it goes by all together too slow. Joseph Gordon Levitt's piece, all together too fast. Jessica Alba as Nancy, all together too slow.

Overall, I'm not totally sure how much effort was really put into Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. While the story was a little bit more character driven and developed them as much as they could, I felt the visuals, the pacing, and just overall, a lot more effort was put into the first movie. A Dame to Kill for feels more like a cheap retread of the first movie than it does an actual sequel that takes what the first movie provided and expands on it.

Maybe I'm being too harsh because I bet if someone watched A Dame to Kill For without watching the first Sin City, they would have thought it was really good. But I just came out of A Dame to Kill For, not feeling the same I did about the original. I felt it was too generic and mainstream as opposed to the weird comic book movie I saw a couple months ago.

The truth is I'm not really a fan of either movie. This is more of a personal thing but like the first one, I'm probably not going to watch A Dame to Kill For again. The difference is that I finished Sin City recognizing the visual masterpiece that it is and while I didn't care for it myself, I understand why people would love it. Again, perhaps this is because I already have that experience in my head that A Dame to Kill For was such a bland experience in comparison. I think there are some valid things about A Dame to Kill For and its not a horrible movie, I just think a sequel that takes 10 years to be released after its original is either in development for so long because something good is in the works, or they just wanted to get it off the slate and they put it out the best they could. I think the latter is what happened with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Those are my thoughts on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Let me know what you think? Am I being too hard on this sequel? Did you like it more or less than the original Sin City? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Just for the hell of it, here's ACDC and their music video of their song Sin City. Enjoy!

Zootopia

When Disney makes movies about talking animals, chances are you're going to have a good movie... its just kind of a fact.

Zootopia is an animated buddy cop movie set in a world where animals have evolved to human intelligence. Predators and prey live in harmony with one another and they have jobs, drive cars, etc. Now this is either just a cute world where that is the case, or this is set thousands of years in the future and tells a very bleak narrative of what happened to humans... cause there are none in this film.

But Zootopia stars a rabbit by the name of Judi Hopps (voices by Ginnifer Goodwin from Once Upon a Time). She is a bunny who's only career goal since she was a kid was to be a police officer. Obviously this seems funny to everyone because the only animals who become police officers are larger animals and mainly predators. But Judi will not be deterred. She works hard and eventually becomes the top of her class at the police academy and is assigned to Zootopia to become a police officer.

Right from the get go I will say this, Judi is one of the best developed characters I have seen in a long time in an animated movie. I found myself invested in this character and I wanted to see her succeed. It would have been very easy to just put her as a bland character who is a bunny and leave that as the only thing to make us root for her. But they go an extra mile and create her as an incredibly likable, optimistic character, but also flawed. She is impatient, she has her own prejudices and misconceptions about other animals, especially foxes and for good reason, based on the development and character story provided from the get go.

Judi starts her career off and already has more hurdles to jump through.

She is assigned as a meter maid because of her size even though she wants to do real police work. But when a series of disappearances gives Judi an opportunity to prove herself, she puts everything on the line to do an investigation and discover where the missing animals went.

She finds herself working with a Fox by the name of Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) who is directly involved with the case. Nick is very knowledgable about how things work in Zootopia but is also very crafty and untrustworthy from the get go.

Together these two band together to create an unlikely team and thus the buddy cop tropes begin.

I'll talk about Jason Bateman as Nick because I really like Jason Bateman. Ever since I started watching Arrested Development a long time ago, I've been really invested in a lot of the movies he's in and I really enjoy his performances. Whether its this, or Horrible Bosses, or This is Where I Leave You, or a lot of other films. He's just a very talented and very funny actor.

But what's more is that he's a developed character as well. He's got a great backstory that is explained very quickly but still gives you the feels and is a little tragic. Again, the movie doesn't really waste any time not developing these characters who are really just animals.

But holy crap is this movie not your typical Disney animation.

In the past few years, Disney (and Pixar) have come out with a lot of films that for the most part have been directed towards being kids films, but also have a flair about them that are very adult in surprising ways. Big Hero 6 makes a very heartfelt tale about loss and dealing with it, while still providing colorful superhero action and visuals for the kids to enjoy. Frozen is your pretty run of the mill princess fairy tale but challenges a lot of the typical princess fairy tale conventions that have been in Disney's wheelhouse lately. Inside Out is colorful and have a lot of cool animated characters, but at the same time is incredibly intelligent about the human psyche.

Zootopia takes all of that and leaves those other films in the dust. Because while this movie is very colorful and features a cute bunny and a sly fox, the subject matter could not be any more adult. And I do agree that its never really too early to talk to your kids about tolerance, but in the past Disney movies have taken that serious topic and hid it in metaphors and were a little more subtle. Zootopia really hits it right on the nose and comes right and says, this movie is about beating stereotypes, fighting prejudice, discussing profiling and other racial, sexist, and just conversations about people being different. Now, its still masked with the differences that these animals face, such as differences between predators and prey, small animals and large animals, so the message is still hidden, but its a line I don't think Disney has ever crossed before and it makes the movie very, very mature.

Now the good thing is, its done very well. Again, I think the intent of the people who made it are saying is, its never too late to talk about issues like this. My only concern with this movie is that while Disney does a good job bringing up issues like this and its good to talk about them, this is the kind of movie that I think deserves a heart to heart conversation with the kids who watch it. Its the kind of ideas that young kids won't understand and older kids need to be talked through it. I just don't think this is the kind of movie you put your kids in front of and not let them comprehend what's going on. Not a negative on the movie, just something to think about.

The one real criticism I have with the movie after a little bit of time to think about it is that the ending of this movie really ties up together almost too nicely. There's a twist and the answer to all the questions that really just kind of appears in front of the protagonists.

I almost feel like the movie was trying to push the message its going for right in your face that the conclusion of this movie is a little weak. I think the good twists in movies are right in front of you and if you're really paying attention you could maybe figure it out, but its still not obvious.

This twist came really out of no where and it seemed more like a way to continue the story just enough to push the message across.

But overall, Zootopia is a really fun movie that I would definitely recommend to both adults and slightly older kids. Its got the cute animals and vibrant colors for the kids and its got A LOT of inside jokes that only adults will pick up on. Its a little on the nose with its message but its still definitely a movie worth checking out.

Those are my thoughts on Zootopia. What did you think of it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as request movies I should do in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Here's the honest trailer. Enjoy!

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition)

Maybe its been obvious, maybe it hasn't, but in a way, Batman v Superman broke me a little...

Here's a movie that I was looking forward to for years. It was a movie that followed one of my favorite super hero movies, Man of Steel, and I really thought it had a chance to be one of, if not the best Superhero film out there. And then I saw it...

Here's my review and my spoiler review.

But what I don't say in those is the fallout of this film. I was overly excited for all the superhero films coming out this year. But after seeing Batman v Superman, my excitement honestly went down. Maybe its the fact that I've been busy and traveling for work, but something kept me from really enjoying the other two superhero films that have come out since, Captain America: Civil War, and X-men: Apocalypse. And I kind of blame Batman v Superman. (On a side note, I'm going to attempt doing a video, at the very least an audio review of spoilers for both movies this week, so stay tuned).

But then I heard that there was going to be a Rated R Ultimate Edition being released when the movie. Its 30 minutes longer and apparently it fixes a lot of the issues that people brought up with this film. I heard some of the reviews and people started saying that the Ultimate Edition is better than the theatrical cut.

And I'll say it now, that is true. But does it redeem Batman v Superman?

For those not interested in reading about Spoilers and haven't seen Batman v Superman, all I will say is, a lot of the structural issues are fixed and if you're going to watch one of the two versions of this film, definitely watch the Ultimate Edition. That being said, there are still a lot of glaring issues with this movie and its not going to be the movie I think you will enjoy like other Superhero films have been.

And now I will give an unfiltered analysis of Batman v Superman The Ultimate Edition.

I do have to applaud this version for not being a story telling mess. In the theatrical cut, one of my biggest issues was the fact that Batman v Superman was just a structural nightmare. They jumped between so many characters with so many subplots, and so many issues that it was really hard to keep track of. The Ultimate Edition does a better job at organizing the different plots within the movie and putting it in an order that just makes more sense. In fact, while there are a couple scenes that I would say, yeah, maybe they took that out for a reason, there are a lot of scenes that don't make a lick of sense on why they pulled it out of the theatrical cut. Like I really can't stress enough how much more sense this version makes as opposed to the theatrical cut.

For example, the scenes in Africa where Lex Luthor tries to blame the butchering of a village on Superman, that scene is made more sense when his henchmen actually make it look like this is something Superman could have done. The public response to something like that makes more sense when Superman is painted as a rogue faction that nobody can control. He's not the symbol for Truth, Justice, and the America way of life, and you can understand why half the population doesn't trust him and even despise him. The ultimate thing that changed was developing more on what exactly Lex Luthor was trying to do by blaming that incident on Superman, suggesting Superman had something to do with the Capital blowing up, it makes more sense why people would be so divided on Superman.

And by developing that part of the movie, they also develop two characters that were incredibly underdeveloped, Lois Lane and Clark Kent.

One of my biggest complaints about the theatrical cut was that they still didn't give Henry Cavill and opportunity to actually act and give us some feeling behind the character of Clark Kent. It also didn't provide anything for Lois Lane to do besides almost drown.

In this version, Clark is a character. He actually goes to Gotham, he actually sees the harm Batman is doing to people and there's actually a reason for him to get pissed at Batman. And I liked that it wasn't Lex Luthor manipulating that, that's just flat out philosophical differences between Superman and Batman. There's a great scene where an inmate is killed because he has the bat brand on him and his widow says to Clark Kent, you can't stop him with words, you can only stop him with fists. That was a great motivator for Clark to process these thoughts on Batman and take action the only way he can when the Daily Planet doesn't allow him to.

And Lois. My god, is this even the same character from the theatrical cut? She does something! She actually contributes to this movie! She actually helps uncover some of the plot and reveal how much Lex Luthor was really behind things!

Now she's still kind of useless and they probably could have written her in as a better character or had her do something more useful... or not even put her in the movie at all. I don't know, that seems like something they couldn't do, but its an already crowded movie, they probably could have had her take a Natalie Portman from Thor and have her sit out a film.

What she did bring is Jena Malone back into the fray.

For some reason, Jena Malone was cast as a really small part as a crime analyst with STAR Labs. It just seems weird that this pretty successful actress would just show up for a small role in Batman v Superman. Which makes me think she's going to have a larger role in a future DC movie, maybe The Flash or something else. But for now it just seems really weird. I liked her part, but I thought it was just strange for it to be played by a good actress for such a short time.

But let me go back and talk about Lex Luthor's plot a little bit.

So on one hand, Lex's plot is a little more developed in this version. You actually see how much he has his hands in everything and you see how much he is manipulating. It does give a little more credibility to a character that before just seemed to be a little bit of a bumbling idiot.

However, my issue with this version is the fact that it takes away from the philosophical differences between Batman v Superman.

With this version, EVERYTHING is manipulated by Lex Luthor. He pays off the woman from Africa to say that Superman killed all those people in the village. He intercepts the checks to Scoot McNairy's character. He manipulates EVERYTHING.

And while that does make him, I think, a little more menacing of a villain, my problem is that I don't think it needed to be meticulously manipulated the way it was. Lex Luthor didn't need to manipulate both the public and Batman in the way that he did, to the level he did. Public trust in Superman could have been eroded just from an event like what happened in Metropolis in Man of Steel. Batman could still hate Superman for destroying Metropolis from what happened in Man of Steel. The public distrust is already there, the xenophobia Bruce Wayne has is already there. Just use it! I think Lex Luthor only needed to set up the dominos, and watch them fall. Yes, having his hands in everything makes Lex Luthor seem like a more meticulous villain, but it also looks like he's trying WAY too hard.

I really don't see why, in both versions, Zac Synder couldn't just let Batman and Superman have philosophical differences. Differences that put them at odds and make them fight. Lex Luthor still manipulates Superman to fight Batman to save his mother. Its still overly complicated.

And while we're on that, this movie did not need to be 3 hours long. I will say, because of the new scenes and the restructuring of existing scenes the movie is more enjoyable and easier to watch so much that it doesn't necessarily feel like 3 hours, but I still feel like this movie did not need to be three hours long.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this movie is essentially, at least two movies in one. I mean you could have made about 4 movies with the plotlines going on in this movie, but the way I see it, there is Batman v Superman, and then there's Dawn of Justice. There are scenes, especially juxtaposed with the new scenes that add clarity that don't really need to be in this film. Of course, I will say that Doomsday did not need to be in this movie. That's a given. But I'm going to give an even better example.

Batman's dream of Apocalypse, Darkseid, and Injustice Superman did not need to be in this film.

As much as I've gone back and actually really enjoyed this scene, it did not belong in this film.

We're not totally sure if this is a vision of the future, if this is a dream being given to Bruce Wayne by Darkseid or the parademons, but even in its new place in the structure of the movie, it takes away from the plot and does absolutely nothing to further the story. Yes its a cool scene. Yes it probably will come into play in The Justice League or some other movie coming up in the future, but for Batman v Superman, it stops the storyline dead in its tracks and did not need to be in the film.

I looked and the whole scene is about five minutes. And I thought for a little bit that this could just be used to manifest Bruce Wayne's prejudice about Superman. That these are the nightmares of what could happen if Superman gets too out of control. But the dialogue in those five minutes is way too specific to just be fear manifesting itself. Superman saying, she was my world and you took her from me, Bruce being visited by The Flash saying he was right about him and that Lois Lane is the key, its just too specific to not make the audience pause the movie and say...

I only hope that scene will pay off down the road. Obviously they are going to try and develop the Justice League and I have a very strong feeling they are going to try and do the Injustice Storyline. However, this movie would have saved five minutes if that scene was left out of the movie or left at as an end credit sequence.

The same goes for Wonder Woman on her computer seeing the videos of all the future members of The Justice League.

One thing I wanted to see changed was the introduction of The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. In both cuts of the movie, the tension is building, Batman removes the tarp from the Bat signal, Lex Luthor is waiting for Superman to arrive, Martha is kidnapped, as is Lois.

Its about to go down, you can feel it...

Aaaaaand then Wonder Woman checks her email...

Once again, the movie is thrown off the tracks and a commercial for DC's upcoming movies comes on. Watching the behind the scenes of the forming of the Justice League movie, I can understand how a studio would want to gather all these characters together. I would understand why they would want to get people excited for future films. And if I'm Zac Snyder, I can understand why I'm excited to put these guys in this movie just to show them off. But you gotta put them in at a strategic place.

I mean imagine if the movie is coming to a close, Bruce Wayne is at Clark Kent's funeral, Wonder Woman is not there, she's in the wind, Bruce Wayne has no idea where she is. We say one more good thing about Clark and then it cuts to black. Next scene is the Darkseid scene, and you see Superman but he's all evil. The audience would be confused, until Bruce Wayne wakes up to the Flash telling him to be wary. Bruce Wayne is confused. He's not sure if it was a dream or a vision of something darker, but you cut to credits.

After credit scene, Wonder Woman has retreated to some hotel around the world, she pulls up her computer and Bruce Wayne says, you're not just a badass now, you've been a badass for hundreds of years. I need your help. Cut to black. Wouldn't that have been awesome?

I mean that's probably the best way they could have hinted at the return of Superman but with a bitter sweet tone. Saying, Superman might be back, but he might not be the superman we remember.

I'm just ranting now instead of actually talking about The Ultimate Edition but its for a good reason. The fact of the matter is, as much as the Ultimate Edition cleaned up a lot of things with Batman v Superman, the movie still just wasn't quite right. There are a lot of great things in this movie, especially with the added scenes. The added scenes give development to Clark Kent as a character and makes you actually care about him. I love that. The action is really good. Ben Affleck is still probably gonna end up being my favorite Batman. There is a lot of good here being set up. But this movie did not need to be the sacrificial lamb I think its going to end up being.

In essence, whether you watch the Theatrical cut or the Ultimate edition, the fact cannot be avoided that this movie is jam packed with too much. It doesn't matter that the 3 hours allowed it to be cleaned up more, this could have been 2, maybe even three movies.

Based on what we're given, this is how I see it could have gone down.

Batman v Superman is essentially the fallout of Man of Steel. Humanity needs to decide if they love or hate this strange Kryptonian. We can keep Senate hearings all we want but it must actually bring forth a debate on whether or not the world will accept a Superman. Meanwhile, Batman blames him for the destruction of Metropolis. At the same time, Superman sees the antics of the Batman menace and decides to do something about it. This leads to a class of philosophies, one being Superman does everything by the books, and Batman who does whatever it takes.

All the while you have Lex Luthor, afraid of the unlimited power of a demi god like Superman and stays in the background pulling the strings manipulating these two, just enough to keep them focused on one another. Just enough to create his own monstrosity to show the power of man, but something he can pick up in a later sequel.

This movie allows for Superman to actually be a hero. Show us that he's out there saving the world, doing good, saving cats out of trees. As well as showing the flip side of that coin and showing the absolute terror Batman can instill in the criminals he goes after. Near the end, it is actually a question of what approach is better, and what approach is more effective. That should have been the first movie.

The second movie should have been after Batman and Superman fight and realize that beating each other to a pulp isn't going to help anybody. That there are larger things out there than just a philosophical squabble. And just in time. Remember that monstrosity Luthor was cooking up? Well its wreaking havoc over the world and Batman and Superman may not be enough to stop it. Good thing we were introduced, but didn't see Wonder Woman fight in the last film (you know, because it was Batman v Superman, a fight Wonder Woman didn't need to be a part of).

That's when the trinity can form. That's when we can even start to gather the Justice League. That's when Lex Luthor can, if he really needs to, be revealed. And as much as I still wouldn't want it to happen, this is when Doomsday can appear and if absolute need be, this is where Superman can die. If Zac Snyder and Warner Brothers are so determined to make Batman the head of this outfit and ignore the opportunity for Superman to be a leader and develop his character more, then fine, kill off Superman. But don't do it in the second movie!

Again, if you haven't seen Batman v Superman, or you know someone who hasn't, show them the Ultimate Edition. People are still going to develop their thoughts on the movie regardless because the story is still pretty much the same. However, The Ultimate Edition makes the movie coherent and enjoyable. It makes a helluva lot more sense and while you may be like me and say that the story is too crammed and not what we needed, you can at least say its a crammed movie that makes sense.

But those are my thoughts on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition). What do you think? Does the extra thirty minutes and restructuring save the movie? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So I'm finally watching Daredevil Season 2 and I definitely have a lot to say about it already. Here's the trailer to give you a taste of my review to come. Enjoy!