I was pretty happy with this movie. Yeah, there’s room for improvement - could have explained a few things better, plot was heavily telegraphed, basically no character development outside Diana herself and a bit of Steve. But considering that it’s an origin story that has to pack in a lot of info in a way that’s not going to overwhelm the average movie-goer, I think it was well executed.
My only real gripe is the over-use of slow motion in the action sequences. Every once in a while, fine. Need to point out some particularly flashy move, like grabbing a sword as you go flying by, sure. Seemed to me like the action was going all Matrixy constantly, though, and it annoyed the heck out of me. Just my pet peeve, I suppose.
I’ll take slow-mo over frenetic shaky cam, any day. Agreed that well-choreographed, viewable, real-time action (e.g., the Avengers and Civil War) is best.
Yeah I liked the slo mo. I actually think the Snyderesque 300 action style fits well with super powered heroes like The Man of Steel action scenes in Smallville were really good. And the reason I liked Winter Soldier is they did melee combat the best in ANY superhero movie.
Maybe I am starting to feel my age, but having we been seeing this since The Matrix? It’s not going anywhere until something different and even more special shows up. I don’t mind it though when done well and not too abundantly.
I think the action was more 300-esque sans the blood, with slow mo for dramatic purpose/emphasis in the action, not entire slow mo. And it is actually closer to “freeze mo”.
Which is fine, because that’s really the only way to do a speedster. I don’t hate slow motion in and of itself, just the over-use of it with no real reason to do so. And yes, as many others have already said, even over-used slo-mo beats the hell out of shaky cam.
FYI - Zack Snyder’s particular kind of slo-mo, the slow down, then speed up, is referred to as “speed ramping” by the industry. Zack’s big innovation was adding a flashy zoom in during the speed ramping. (300 has it in spades.)
I really liked the action scenes in WW too (I had some problems with the quality of the effects in the beach battle, but post-island it all looked really good). And the action of Man of Steel was the best part, especially the battle in Smallville. I hate that movie, but it wasn’t because of how the action was shot. In that regard, though I often forget about it in my frustration with the rest of his decisions, I can actually still see why someone looked at Snyder’s work and thought he’d be a good fit for the franchise.
I thought it was a really good movie and the best from the current DC generation of films by far but… the plot was very paint by numbers, especially the ending and major plot points were heavily telegraphed. I knew exactly who “the big bad” was almost immediately. I thought that if they had to go that route it would have been better if they had made Dr. Poison the identity Ares was hiding behind.
I have to believe that they left a lot of film from Themyscira on the cutting floor because, at least to me, it felt lacking in consistency a bit.
I skipped my train of thought. I was comparing that Snyders action works for heroes who are Super powered, for the effect of epic statuesque slo mo posing… And that fast cut works better in melee combat, firsticuffs in Winter Soldier. Just a generalization though for these movies, because the ending action scenes in Man of Steel weren’t as good and they did the same slo mo. Snyder is just bad at pacing overall i think. But he does have a gift for some original action scenes.
