Everything That Could Possibly Go Wrong With BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: PART ONE

Ah, Batman Vs. Superman. DC was really hoping to have their Avengers with you. They were hoping that the fan fever would last a whole two years like Joss Whedon’s masterpiece did, once again giving their superheroes a firm footing. It’s been quite some time now, and that fever has gone down near to zero as more and more details about the film are revealed. Will Batman be a Clint Eastwood stand-in? Will Frank Miller be brought on as a consultant? Will they bring Zack Snyder and David Goyer back? Pretty much everything that could’ve possibly gone wrong has happened. Next thing you know, they’re going to replace Christopher Nolan with Joel Schumacher.

Let’s not fool ourselves: The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel both were very underwhelming films. Beautifully shot, incredible visual effects and pretty good acting, but the story was lacking in both. Do we need another nuclear bomb movie? Do we need yet another alien invasion? In terms of the story there was such a huge degree of laziness that it’s not even funny. Both gave us no reason to care about our main characters, and essentially made them the opposite of what they are. Will Batman stop crimefighting after slipping off a building once? Yes he will, and he’ll hobble around most of the film. Will Superman be an emotionally unstable moron with daddy issues? He sure will, folks. They were saved only by Christian Bale and Henry Cavill being more than good enough to bring some life to the roles.

And to be fair, neither film was exactly awful, just extremely disappointing. I still maintain that Tom Hardy’s Bane is still one of the best movie villains of the last decade. Amy Adams’ Lois Lane is easily the best out of all other portrayals. And to be entirely fair, Man of Steel could never be as bad as that godawful Smallville. Then again, even Batman & Robin is better than that show.

But there’s a distinct laziness in the story. Christopher Nolan has clearly had enough with superheroes. His grittiness is starting to wear thin a little. It works perfectly fine in his other films. He’s still one of the best directors of his generation.

But now that he and Zack “Slow Motion” Snyder have returned to combine their films into a giant explosion of heroism and heroes fighting each other, I begin to imagine a nightmare. A nightmare in which every conventional thought is ignored and Batman Vs. Superman becomes the next Green Lantern. If there was no interference whatsoever, and everyone was given free reign on this Frankenstein’s movie, this is what will happen:

Note: Man of Steel and every Chris Nolan Batman film will be heavily spoiled. Beware.

We open up the way all “proper” superhero movies begin: with a flashback. First we see a condensed reenactment of the destruction of Krypton, Jor-El getting stabbed and all. We will once again be introduced to General Zod, even though he won’t appear again, because someone decided to snap his neck instead of pointing his head at the ceiling. Superman’s penis-shaped rocket will fly once again to Earth, with a handy reminder that Superman is somehow a living flash drive. This, too, will not be mentioned again.

Now we cut to the origin of Batman, which will be a condensed version of that death scene from Batman Begins. Waste not, want not.

We see assorted clips of Superman and Batman becoming their alter egos. Superman still doesn’t have underwear.

We’ll hear an exposition from Morgan Freeman (he did Conan the Barbarian, so…) about how in a time when the world was threatened, heroes arose to combat the threat that no ordinary man could face. It’ll sound suspiciously similar to another group of heroes.

The titles will appear.

Cut to Metropolis, with an establishing shot on LexCorp. We see a lone and very bald man overlooking what he believes to be his city. He takes a very slow-motion sip of his coffee, because Snyder is going to throw exaggerated slow motion anywhere he can.

A female character, dressed in a revealing bikini, walks in and alerts him about how Superman is responsible for the destruction of Metropolis. Which he is. Every female character will be dressed provocatively and be portrayed by actresses picked for their looks, because it’s ironic to be sexist. Sucker Punch taught us that.

Luthor swears to rid the world of this alien in a dramatic monologue. He kills the bikini clad female in extreme slow motion. He walks out of the room, the camera lingering on her deceased boobs, because boobs.

I’d like to pause here and say that Bryan Cranston would actually be a damn good choice for Lex Luthor. He’s a great actor. But Zack Snyder would deliberately have him look and act like his character from Breaking Bad in order to attract the fans of that show. Instead of acting as a completely different character, and despite the fact that we already know that Cranston is a great actor.

Cranston has since denied that he has been cast in the role, but since he’s the most popular choice by far (I actually think Mark Strong would be a good Luthor), he’s gonna be him for the purpose of this hypothetical nightmare.

Anyway, we now cut to what is the stereotypical model of a Middle Eastern terrorist camp. It’ll be in Iraq, for obvious sentimental reasons. A terrorist group called Not Al Qaeda (or Weird Al Yankovic, take your pick) is holding hostage a bunch of conventionally attractive American soldiers. They’re casually burning Bibles and speaking in Arabic (more accurately, the gibberish that is supposed to be Arabic that was famously parodied in Team America). They’re proclaiming that Islam is the one true religion, and how everyone else should die.

Note to Muslim readers: it’s racist on purpose, the same way that a Michael Bay movie is racist. Snyder will try to appeal to the evangelist Christian crowd this way. Think of it like Team America without the dramatic irony. Unleash The Fanboy is aware that claiming that everyone of a particular religion are evil is just bonkers.

A soldier will scream to his commander on how if they don’t stop Not Al Qaeda, then America will be in danger because they got hold of a NUCLEAR BOMB. Oh noes! Whatever shall we do?

But luckily, Superman is here!

He swoops in, no underwear in sight, and makes short work of Not Al Qaeda. The soldiers cheer their approval. One forgives him for the hundreds of thousands of deaths he’s been responsible for by fighting Zod. A terrorist dramatically tells him how he will not win. Superman will smile and say, “America always wins.”

I admit I’m stealing liberally from Michael Bay’s style of filmmaking here. But seriously, there’s been a recent return to 1980s nationalism in movies (White House Down, Olympus Has Fallen, that godawful Red Dawn remake), so this’ll work just fine.

Right before Superman leaves, an entire town full of ethnic stereotypes that make the characters of Aladdin look progressive cheering him on, he notices how Not Al Qaeda’s weapons and nuclear missile were created by LexCorp. Just like that scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark discovers that his weapons are being sold to terrorists. If people remember that movie, which was one of the best superhero films ever made, maybe they’ll like this one more!

We cut to Gotham City, and the infamous Bat symbol fills the night. We see a beautiful girl, also scantily clad, but wearing very expensive scantily clad clothing, walking hesitantly through the bad part of town. All the poor people, naturally hideously ugly and lecherous like all poor people are (haven’t you ever met one before?), hiss at her and make her various sexual offers. She gets even more scared, and runs down a dark alley. Suddenly, an especially ugly street thug and his boys corner her. As we learned from Disney movies, all bad guys are ugly people. They speak to her in New Yawk accents and demand her money.

To summarize, this is a partial recreation of that scene in the otherwise very good Spider-Man. Not the reboot, the original. You know, the scene where the elementary school age you paid rapt attention because you could see Kirsten Dunst’s nipples through her dress? Yeah, it’s like that.

Except Batman saves her!

Well, kind of. but guess who Batman is?!

Unfortunately for Snyder, Christian Bale wouldn’t accept the $60 million he was just offered to reprise his role as Batman. So they had to go for the next best middle aged actor. I’ve got nothing against Hamm, since he too is a great actor, but he never seemed like the Batman type to me.

Robert Downey, Jr. sarcastically said he’d play Batman for $100 million, but Warner Bros. wouldn’t dare pay an actor that much.

Now, this has become slightly inaccurate since we already know that Ben Affleck is going to be Batman, but again, most popular choice these days is a prominent actor in a show that will soon finish its run on AMC.

Jon Hamm saves our female victim, because we all know that women can’t protect themselves and need a man for everything. Chloe Moretz and Jennifer Lawrence are flukes, damn you!

He goes home in the Tumbler after a long night of Batmanning, only to meet Alfred, played once again by Michael Caine. Alfred alerts him to Superman’s recent actions in the Middle East, and how amazing it is how someone so powerful can exist. As they talk about Superman, they go into the Batcave.

BRUCE HAMM: I don’t understand how a man like that could possibly exist, Alfred. I had to train myself for years with the League of Shadows to become the Batman. This fool got his abilities just by existing. He’s no real hero. 

Alfred goes to the Batcomputer, which can magically pull up convenient info on anyone like it did in The Dark Knight Rises. He then offers a philosophical argument about Superman.

ALFRED: His name is Kal-El. He’s no ordinary man, Master Bruce. He’s from a dead planet called Krypton. He’s an orphan, too. Clearly you both have a lot of similarities. It took an immense tragedy for you both to become who you are. But which part is he really: is he Super or merely a man? 

BRUCE HAMM: I’m no ordinary man, either. He may be super, but I’m a Batman. And bats are far cooler than just being super!

Without Chris Nolan to weave the clunky exposition into something poetic, David Goyer and Snyder will clearly sound like they’re imitating Nolan’s writing style.

Alfred leaves Bruce Hamm alone to brood quietly in his cave.

Cut to the Daily Planet offices. Clark Kent walks in, dressed like a hipster and not bothering to change his personality at all. Snyder got a memo from some executives about how superheroes can’t ever be losers, so he takes a page from the Green Lantern directing manual and turns Clark Kent into a womanizer, just like Ryan Reynolds!

But he’s only got eyes for Lois Lane, who knows his secret identity! OMG!

Amy Adams appears here, showing off far more cleavage than she ever did in Man of Steel. She’s going over to LexCorp to interview Luthor, and she wants to know if her secret BF wants to go with her.

Laurence Fishburne as Perry White shows up and once again doesn’t realize that the guy who looks exactly like Superman is Superman. For some reason, only Lois Lane and his mother can tell. Lois says “Chief” a few times while some of the older members of the audience loudly complain how yet another black man has taken a role clearly meant for a white man. I calmly retort with a hearty yell of “Samuel L. Jackson!” The theater quiets down. A hearty yell of “Idris Elba!” keeps them that way. Kent and Lois leave, with a good view of her buttocks.

I quietly whisper “Michael Clarke Duncan,” just to make sure that the racist farts get the message soundly into their bigoted little brains.

Meanwhile, Bruce Hamm’s in Metropolis, accompanied by Alfred and Lucius Fox, who happens to be around to help him casually invade the privacy of every living being in the area with his magical cell phone. They briefly discuss this, and they agree that sacrificing privacy is worth it in order to stop criminals that don’t actually exist, because NSA.

Editor’s Note: Palmer Rubin was briefly detained for saying something mean about the NSA, national security be praised. After ensuring that he wasn’t a terrorist, they let him free again. I, for one, welcome our new privacy-invading overlords. All hail the NSA. 

On a whim, Bruce Hamm and Clark Kent knock into each other. Pulling up his ID on his magic cell phone, putting Kent’s face next to Superman’s proves that this mild-mannered hipster is the Man of Steel!

BRUCE HAMM: That’s an incredible disguise! I dress up like a bat, and spent millions of dollars to do so! If only I just wore glasses, I could’ve saved a lot of money!

LUCIUS FOX: We’re dealing with a mastermind here. He makes the Joker look like a circus clown.

BRUCE HAMM: But he is a circus clown. 

LUCIUS FOX: Shut up and catch that alien already.

A limo immediately pulls up, and the three enter. Fox tells the driver to follow Kent. The driver is actually the Martian Manhunter, because no superhero movie can be complete without a shitload of cameos and easter eggs.

As they slowly drive behind Kent, without him or Lois noticing the limo, the Flash suddenly speeds past, because cameo. He’s played by whatever douchebag is playing him on that CW show that is vaguely about Green Arrow. I’m not even going to bother looking that guy up, as no actor on a CW show is worth mentioning.

Kent and Lois finally reach LexCorp, where they’re escorted inside by futuristic security guards. Bruce awkwardly changes into his Batman armor in front of Alfred and Lucius. It’s a different style so that a different action figure can be made. It’s called “Fast Limo Change Batman!” Comes with a free limo. Alfred and Lucius Fox figures sold separately.

Lex Luthor meets them on the penthouse, where he casually mentions that he’s met Clark Kent before. Oh no, it’s time for a flashback, because that’s what mature character studies do!

We get a series of shots of inanimate objects that would make Terrence Malick puke. This goes on for five minutes too long. Roger Ebert’s ghost tries to kill himself, but realizes that he’s already dead.

A youngish Lex Luthor (played by Chace Crawford) is in his laboratory in Smallville. A younger Clark Kent (played by Justin Bieber in his first film role) watches him eagerly mix random chemicals.

LEX DOUCHEBAG: Just you watch! One day, I’m gonna rule the world! And then everyone will worship me like they should!

CLARK KENT: I dunno, Lexy-poo, that doesn’t sound like a good dream to have. Maybe you should have your own women’s fragrance or something. 

LEX DOUCHEBAG: That’s it! The key to creating my Potion of Blah Blah Blah! 

He runs and grabs a bottle of Justin Bieber perfume, and pours it into the mixture. The whole thing explodes, setting Lex’s hair on fire! He screams and falls to the floor. Clark’s about to blow it out, when Kevin Costner runs in!

DANCES WITH WOLVES: Don’t do it, Clark! Remember when you didn’t let those little kids drown and they all thought you were Jesus? You can’t save him because I have a really skewed moral code! Besides, he’d look way sexier bald.

CLARK KENT: Well OK, dad. I’ll let him burn to death. 

DANCES WITH WOLVES: Atta boy! Let’s go tornado chasing since there’s f#$k all else to do in Kansas!

CLARK KENT: Yay! Nothing could possibly go wrong and emotionally scar me for life!

They leave hand in hand while Luthor writhes in pain on the ground. He looks up to reveal his bald head!

LEX DOUCHEBAG: Oh no! Even though it’s miraculous that the skin on my head wasn’t somehow burned off, women don’t like bald guys! Even though I’m actually completely OK otherwise, I’m going to take over the world, for real!

Cut back to the present day. Clark apologizes, but Luthor tells him there’s nothing he could’ve done about it. Kent and Lois wink to each other, snickering.

Cut to a mysterious room in the back of the LexCorp building. A robotic shape is slowly being assembled. A couple scientists casually mention how it’s built to detect Kryptonians and kill them on sight. Suddenly, it detects Clark and activates! He hears it with his superhearing and asks to leave.

But the robot has malfunctioned. It’ll attack anything with Kryptonian DNA. Clark’s skin cells are on Lois’ shoulder, so it attacks Lois!

But suddenly Superman appears, rather conveniently, and attacks the robot!

The commotion is spotted by Batman, who immediately uses a grappling hook to get to that floor of the building, but not before Superman kicks it out of the window in slow motion. It’s almost identical to that shot of the Comedian in the Watchmen movie. It falls to the ground and explodes, killing everyone except for Alfred and Lucius Fox.

LEX LUTHOR: You just killed several hundred people with that robot I made to kill you! You really are a terrorist! You’re not even from around here!

SUPERMAN: You were selling your own weapons to terrorists! You’ve killed tons more people than me indirectly!

BATMAN: Honestly, how come every character in this movie has dubious morals? 

ZACK SNYDER: Shut the hell up! It’s cool and edgy! Frank Miller said so! Hey Amy, show a little skin, will you? 

Lois Lane’s top falls off with a blast of superbreath.

AMY ADAMS: My three Oscar nominations clearly don’t mean jack squat, do they? 

EVERYONE ELSE: Nope! You’re a girl, so boobies. 

SUPERMAN: In Zack’s defense, my bulge is clearly visible and clearly digitally enhanced. So it’s not just women he’s objectifying. 

Lex Luthor looks down to see that he’s not wearing anything below the waist.

LEX LUTHOR: Tell me about it. 

Cue canned laughter.

That’s all for PART ONE of this CGI-enhanced clusterf@#k of a movie. Just replace Jon Hamm with Ben Affleck (turning Bruce Hamm into Batfleck), and you’ve got the movie that’s most likely to exist.

PART TWO will be arriving soon, so hopefully you enjoyed this first installment of Everything That Could Possibly Go Wrong With Batman Vs. Superman!