An Open Letter To The People In Charge of “Suicide Squad” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”

Dear fine people at DC and Warner Bros.,

Please stop.

This is not the first time I have asked you to stop, and frankly I was a bit puzzled that you haven’t answered me yet, perhaps with a friendly email or a complimentary trade paperback of Sandman. After you released promo image after promo image from your upcoming blockbuster superhero films Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Really? You’re sticking with that name? That’s not the working title?) and I vehemently pleaded with you to cease and desist for the sake of my own and the viewing public’s sanity, you did not, as I had hoped, issue a public apology and demand Will Smith and Ben Affleck give you your money back, but instead continued to leak bits and pieces from the new productions with a cheer and enthusiasm I find alarming. Eventually it occurred to me that you were neither reading my Facebook posts nor conducting market research at local karaoke nights/supermarket olive bars/bookstore bathrooms, which are where I have made my strongest arguments against your upcoming release schedule. I would have posted on my nerd culture blog, except I don’t have one because nerd culture is tasteless at best and lobotomy-inducingly cringeworthy at worst. I wouldn’t even be typing this right now if you hadn’t belched forth these two new trailers from one of your foul maws during San Diego Comic-Con, and if I also didn’t have the day off. But you did, and I do, so here we are.

We all know Christopher Nolan more or less saved you, but you never even bothered to ask yourselves why Nolan’s Batman movies were so darn lovable. You just wrote “Dark N’ Gritty” in big, black Gothic font at the top of your whiteboard, and you’ve been following that mantra ever since. You were so pleased with yourselves, you didn’t even notice the worried looks your fans have been shooting each other above their rictus-like smiles as they silently pray that these new movies won’t suck. You’ve done nothing to dissuade those fears.

What you need to learn is a one sentence lesson that we all must learn at some point: Darker is not better.

Let me explain.

SUICIDE SQUAD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLLQK9la6Go

Let’s just get right into it: Jared Leto’s Joker looks stupid. I’m sorry, but neither I nor your target market are teenagers circa 2006. No one really thinks Slipknot and My Chemical Romance are the greatest bands anymore, and the only people that shop at Hot Topic or Spencer’s are confused old guys with giant beer guts buying Korn t-shirts and chain wallets and teenagers looking for new nipple jewlery, and also shoplifters (Source: me after working in an Indiana mall for a year). Dressing your villain like a punchline from a story I’d tell after work in a T.G.I Fridays doesn’t make him scary, or intimidating, or a dark reflection of our heroes. It makes him look stupid. I’m not saying I’d like to have lunch with the guy, but I feel like I can at least understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. I’m guessing it has something to do with Linkin Park’s “Numb”, or maybe the Insane Clown Posse’s classic “Bloody Bitch.” He looks like a Juggalo, is what I’m saying (If you don’t know what a Juggalo is, congratulations), and a Juggalo is not intimidating. A Juggalo is someone you pass in the Hamburger Helper aisle at Walmart as you silently thank God that you finished high school.

Are the dark, whispered lyrics in the background supposed to indicate how “deep” you are? It’s a Bee Gees song. The Bee Gees are the exact opposite of Dark N’ Gritty. Did you think those of us under the age of 50 wouldn’t find out where those lyrics came from? Even if we don’t listen to the Bee Gees, we have Google.

Is Harley Quinn a stripper? Really? Can’t she just be, you know, Harley Quinn? Like from the TV show?

I get that you’re going for a certain feel, and I appreciate it. I do feel kind of sad that everyone in this city is so poor they can’t even afford electricity. I assume that’s why the picture is so dark it looks like it was shot by candlelight. It would also explain why everyone looks like a four-year-old who dressed themselves. They can’t even see to put on appropriate attire.

I know Will Smith is actually wondering how his life went so wrong, but the constant look of pain on his face really sets the mood. The director really brought the best out of the Fresh Prince by forcing him to read the script after signing the contract. That’s what I call getting a great performance out of your actors.

The worst part is how artificial the dark tone is. You see, you have this “whimsical” font and Harley’s carefree attitude and a lot of what should be joviality, but it’s all smeared with dirt and grime and this painfully somber soundtrack. I know you have a “no jokes” policy over there, but your antagonist is called the Joker. He jokes. That’s all he does. Yes he kills people, but he’s not called the Killer, or the Slaughterer, or even the Joking Murderer. He’s the Joker. Guys that kill people in comic books and movies are a dime a dozen. What makes him special are all the jokes, which are the things you are trying to smother but will come out in spite of all your efforts. It’s like trying to put an angry Rottweiler in a trash bag and then wondering why it mauled you so badly.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WWzgGyAH6Y

Right off the bat, thank you so much for combing the insanity of Square Enix naming conventions with the most generic of subtitles (That was sarcasm, which is a kind of joke, which you hate).

With this one you were in trouble the minute Man of Steel was in the can. You gave Superman a gritty reboot. Superman. A man who is made super by being in the sun. Which is bright. Then you decided to pair him with a Dark, Gritty version of Batman, the Darkest and Grittiest of superheroes. On balance I guess you’re doing the best with what you have, except you didn’t have to make Man of Steel. Nobody asked for Man of Steel. Also, why didn’t you stick with that tasteful naming convention?

It’s clear that Ben Affleck took all that angst and asshole-ness he had worked up starring in Gone Girl and just doubled it for this role. The man is incapable of not looking angry in this trailer. If only you realized that levity is required to humanize a character, and that the charm of Batman is how he is always balancing between human and monster. You must have thought people just liked the monster part. It’s an easy mistake to make, except it isn’t and you should not have made it. At least he and Henry Cavill have great chemistry here, insofar as they seem to communicate entirely by fisticuffs.

Speaking of Superman, would it have been so bad to just let him be a hero? Must he be an embattled, bitter hero? I understand the urge to bring Superman down a peg. I feel it whenever his stupid mug shows up. That urge comes from the fact that everyone loves him, and if no one loves him I don’t care if he’s taken down or not. Once again, Man of Steel bites you folks on the bottom, because he didn’t do anything in the movie that wasn’t punching people. He wasn’t a hero so much as a demigod in a four-demigod grudge match that destroyed half the city, and ended with him very graphically giving General Zod a 180-degree makeover. Snaps for Supes!

Way to throw Wonder Woman in there apropos of nothing, by the way. Seriously, why is she in this film? Couldn’t you have introduced her to audiences in her own film, since she’s a major character in your universe? And why does she have high heels? I don’t want to sound like a Jezebel writer but you guys have some serious issues with women.

Your boy Lex Luthor fits into this two man Dark N’ Gritty jamboree about as well as a militant vegan atheist fits into a church barbecue. I know he’s wearing a wig, I know we’re supposed to know he’s wearing a wig. But amongst all this serious business, should the deadliest archvillain on planet Earth, arguably the biggest villain in the DC universe aside from maybe Darkseid, also be the comic relief? I know you said “no jokes,” but it’s clear whoever cast Jesse Eisenberg/gave him his lines/dressed him did not get that memo. He’s wearing Hackman-esque couture and popping off ridiculous puns about “red-capes” while also being Jesse Eisenberg, a man who established his career by basically being Michael Cera’s evil twin. He comes off more menacing in the infamous poster for The Social Network.

The CGI is awful. I don’t have anything clever to say about it. The CGI is awful and I hope you haven’t run out of money in the budget, because it looks like an early Xbox 360 cinematic. Which is fitting because based on all your other decisions in these trailers culture stopped moving forward around 2006.

THE NOLAN EFFECT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5U8suTUw0

Christopher Nolan brought your films back from the brink. You know it, I know it, every nerd and geek and fangirl knows it. You’d still be pumping out Joel Schumacher Batman movies if he hadn’t come along and saved you. The lessons he taught were invaluable. Unfortunately, the lesson you learned, “make it darker,” wasn’t the most important.

I understand how you thought it could be. The Nolan movies are full of plot holes, hokey dialogue, gross lapses in logic, poorly constructed fight scenes, and heavy-handed messages that couldn’t be more blatant with a House of Cards style address to the viewer. With this many mistakes, it must have been the darkness that saved those films, right?

What makes the Nolan films good, or at the very least watchable isn’t the darkness. It’s the humanity of them. Alfred trying to reason with his psychotic adopted son, Gordon’s sincere love for his family and city, Lucius Fox being forced to bend his own moral code, Bruce Wayne slowly losing his fucking mind, it’s all these characters responding to situations in realistic and believable ways (except when the plot demands otherwise, but let’s face it, superhero movies are rarely well-written). There’s a wide cross-section of the city shown, from the poor to working stiffs to politicians. The Nolan films have the aesthetic of mob movies and police procedurals, and they feel familiar and alien at the same time. What you’ve shown so far of your new universe just feels alien.

I know you folks are very pleased with yourselves. How could you not be? You’re finally on the road to a cinematic universe like Marvel’s, a celluloid wonderland of interconnected films sure to make all of you enough money to fund nonstop debauchery for about six weeks, seven if you skip the company retreat in Macau. But if your trailers are an indication of the final product, then I can’t help but feel that one day, in the post-superhero cinema landscape you seem eager to bring about, we’ll look back at your films as nothing less than an assault on the audience.

So please, I know it’s too late, but please. Stop.