Batman vs Superman
I hated the “Batman vs. Superman” movie.
I thought I hated it because it was too dark and because it didn’t portray the “good guys” as being really “good guys”.
Both the heroes were portrayed as being more complex than that, men of mixed motives with all too human vices and virtues.
In other words, they were just like us, except with super powers and gadgets.
That’s not what I wanted to see… I wanted to suspend disbelief and believe in something better for a couple of hours.
We want to believe that there are those who are always pure and virtuous, that there is always a clear delineation between good and evil, and that good either triumphs or dies trying.
We want to believe that there are actually people who always do the right thing.
That’s why they call it “fantasy”…
In the church we call it “over realized eschatology”.
We set expectations for each other and our leaders that will almost always fail as badly as this movie.
To make matter worse, we often fancy ourselves as being carriers of those virtuous ideals and actions and able to carry them out without fault or failure.
That only happens in the movies…
You and I, regardless of our place in the church or society, are simultaneously saint and sinner and will be until our resurrections.
I’m not good, I’m forgiven.
I haven’t transformed much, but I’ve been completely redeemed.
The only supernatural power I have (and the only reasonable expectation for me), is the ability to repent.
We will fail…but our repentance should be faster than a speeding bullet.
My job isn’t to show you how good you can be, but how you can repent as well as I can.
We will fail at that too…
The real reason I hated that movie was because while it was “realistic” about the nature of people, it was also graceless.
Grace is the power that gives life, gracelessness is Kryptonite for the soul.
In this movie, both heroes are left fallen…but, our Hero lifts the fallen by the power of grace.
It’s all about what He’s done, not what we can do.
Someday we’ll be like Him…and we won’t need these movies anymore.
I still can’t wait for Captain America though…
well written Michael. Hope you are feeling well this weekend.
Thanks, Brian. Not feeling very well, but it could be worse. 🙂 I’m off to church…
I really didn’t like the film, either. But then I can’t say I’ve really liked a Zack Snyder film yet. Batman: the animated series and Justice League gave us versions of Batman and Superman with some significant character flaws. It’s just that thanks to things like the Comics Code and the FCC the character flaws that could be alluded to get showboated in Snyder’s film.
But at no point did I get a sense that this showdown had a compelling reason. Why crib Miller’s story if it’s shoe-horned into before the title characters even meet? Jonathan Kent’s ghost doing the speech about how there’s always collateral damage was the kind of moment that could have been put into, oh, Man of Steel. Cut out the dream sequences and the slo-mo flashbacks and there’s a shorter movie that gets its task accomplished without throwing in parademons for no explicable reason. Yeah, 2% of us know those are from Darkseid’s planet but it felt like they were shoe-horning in every spin-off in advance of making sense of the plot they had.
Well, I just hated it because it had no plot. Literally, no discernible plot at all. Just word spaghetti on the screen.
Haven’t seen it yet, might not see it after hearing all the bad reviews. Sounds like a big old computer generated mess with no plot and terrible writing. No thanks.
Michael, your article is well-written in your unique style as usual, and reinforces one of your big Themes….which I agree with.
No such thing as “Specially Anointed” and none are truly “Transformed” in the sense that Calvary Chapel and Evangelical Sects who sell the Transformation version of the Gospel present it and sell it.
Mandatory mediation with BG in tomorrow morning. Prepared for the worst, and prepared to go the distance, though his attorney has floated them just dropping the lawsuit which is a chicken***t move and would be very telling of his guilt by dodging a Jury Trial in that manner.
No Justice, no Peace. I won’t ever rest until I get some measure of Justice that I can live with.