 The DCEU. Jesus. Even the name is a mess. Couldn't just do DCU, right? Because that's already its own thing. Had to make it more complicated than it needed to be. And that's really the lesson we've learned over the last 11 films that they've come out with. I believe it's 11. Joker doesn't count. That's not part of the DCEU. Obviously the Christopher Nolan films aren't. So what we're left with is just a hodgepodge of stuff that really doesn't add up in the end. We don't get this big endgame moment. We probably never will. Which is unfortunate because I think the heroes in the DCEU are just as good if not better than what Marvel has to offer. Today I'm going to be ranking all these movies from worst to best, but before we get there I just have to say this one more time on this channel. I truly don't care if it's Marvel or DC, Chevy or Ford, Coke or Pepsi. These rivalries mean nothing to me. I just want good films. And they've come out from both camps for sure. So let's get started with the worst. Wonder Woman 84, why? Why is all I could say while I was watching this overlong, bloated mess of a film that took everything good about the first, threw it out the window, and went a completely different direction? Listen, popping up the film, adding the color, the nostalgic music, that stuff works for a film like Thor Ragnarok? Because the previous two Thor movies weren't good. The first one was fine, sure, passable. So the Dark World was just a shit show. They needed to change the character. Wonder Woman, however, was good. They had a great thing going. The color palette was awesome, it was rich, it was dark, it was gritty. You had great characters. But then you take that, you flip it on its head for no reason. Wonder Woman sucks in this. She's not likable in this. They tried to bring back the magic from the first by having Steve come back into the fold, and it just didn't work in the story. They had to like come up with a bunch of BS to get him there. Because at the end of the day, we have Princess Diana raping some dude while Steve is trapped in his body. It's completely fucked. The whole thing is a mess. It has the multiple villain angle, which almost never works out well. Action scenes are laughably bad. Nothing about this was good, and it was a huge, huge disappointment. So what are we, some sort of suicide squad? Will Smith asks, in some of the many poor lines of dialogue uttered throughout this film, horrible Joker, a twerking villain, awful CG at times, somehow it wins an Oscar for best costume. It's like a participation award at a high level. It's like, good job, guys. You somehow convinced Margot Robbie to wear that ridiculous get up, and we respect you for it. And in fact, I think that's why it truly won the award. You're like, god damn, you got one of the hottest actresses to put that on? Okay, here you go. Here you go. You take all of them. Take all the awards. If you're on the younger side of things, I can see this movie being a blast to watch. You have tons of music everywhere. Every five seconds a new song comes on. There's tons of action. It's not good, but it's there. Lots of vibrant characters on display. I just can't, for the life of me, understand how anybody with any sort of real film criticism could look at a film like Suicide Squad and say, yep, that's top tier. That's where movies should be. Jared Leto's Joker, I think we're at the point where pretty much everyone agrees he was horrible. I know there's still some diehards out there hanging on. Some guys really ate up that a horse shit from the Zack Snyder Justice League where he's in black and white talking all sorts of bullshit, but no, not for me. Another horrible film, one that I've sadly seen multiple times because my son eats it up. He's a big fan of Killer Croc. Too young to watch the new Suicide Squad, which is a shame because I think King Shark is far better, but let's move on. So what are we some sort of Justice League? No one says that in this, but there is still plenty of awful to be had, particularly a slapstick gag where Flash comically falls on Wonder Woman's breasts. That's so funny. He's not supposed to be there. He wasn't invited there. Oh, pratfalls are great. We also can't forget that poor family out in the middle of nowhere trying to survive an alien attack. Is anyone thinking of the children? Is anyone thinking of them right now? Joss Sweden was given a 10 pound bag of shit by Warner Brothers and told to fit it into a one pound bag. The film runs quick, really quick, because you don't know what the hell's going on. Nothing really makes much sense. Batman's killing alien bugs. Next thing you know, Superman's back from the dead. Steppenwolf wants to get three mother boxes so he can terraform Earth for...profit? I don't know. Doesn't matter. Not only does Weedon have a 10 pound bag of shit to work with, he decides to scoop up his own and put some in the mix. So now he's gotta not only cut up what Snyder gave him unfinished, but then throw in more junk that he thought was better, which was worse. The color of this film is atrocious. It's nightmarish, which I guess goes with the theme because there's nightmarish alien bug things, but no. It's not good. It's a bad film. So far, all these movies I don't like on this list, but we'll get to some good ones sometime. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Batman v Superman never has a film come out that has garnered so many obnoxious fans online. I don't even know what to say about this film. If it wasn't for the internet making me hate it even more, I would look at Batman v Superman and say, man, what a disaster. Never go full Snyder. Zack Snyder is at his best when he gets to focus on the visuals. 300, Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, Sucker Punch. No one's gonna argue they look beautiful even if they're disgusting films. They look great. It's when he gets in front of the script. He starts to write down all his thoughts, which his mind is full of, his beautiful mind is full of all these ideas and concepts and he's gonna put them all out there, regardless of if they make even a lick of sense for the story. They're gonna make sense six stories down the road. That's just good storytelling. You give everyone a bunch of nonsense up front and you'll explain it. Three films down the road. That's good, good stuff. This movie, like The Last Jedi, has almost become insufferable because, yes, there's a lot of people that hate both of these films and they've said their piece, but there's just as many people, it seems, that love these movies. Not just think they're good, but think they're masterpieces. They're like tour de forces that can't be reckoned with. That somehow BVS is so deep and complex with all its symbolism and deconstruction of characters that us regular mortals can't possibly comprehend it. That's not just pissing a jar. That's just not grandma's marmalade or whatever. There's some deep-seated underlying content there that you can't understand that only Snyder knows and he'll reveal it later. Batman didn't just refrain from killing Superman because their mothers shared the same name of Martha. No, no, no, no, no. It's that Batman finally understood Superman. He saw him as a human, a mortal man for once. You're not a man. You're not a man at all. But no, that's just painting the picture. That's just letting you know that, oh, he actually is a man in some ways. It's just deep. It's so complex. Wow. And the fact that the greatest master detective didn't figure out his mother's name sooner or a Superman came from or that he's Clark Kent. The fact that Cal L looks identical to the journalist working at the Daily Planet never dawned on Batman, never dawned on Bruce Wayne. Then there's the incredibly cringe performance by Lex Luthor Jr. The horrible final boss villain Doomsday. I just everything is so sloppily handled and which sucks because it does look beautiful. That opening sequence where Bruce Wayne runs into the disaster, the falling buildings, that shit's good. It's powerful. He helps the person out for some reason. His business partners or the people in his building or ride or die and don't evacuate sooner is a little sketch. It's a little questionable why he didn't tell them to leave like, you know, right away. But whatever, we'll overlook that. Problem is you have to wait 45 minutes in between all this exposition and, you know, character studying. Complex. It's so complex. I don't hate BVS, but I certainly don't like it. And it's a massive step down for Man of Steel where I think Zack Snyder was more in check. He didn't have control of the script. And that's where he should be. Just keep him on the camera. We're now in the phase of movies that I like kind of. They're passable. I could watch them again. I wouldn't if I had the option, but I could watch them again. And that's Birds of Prey. Harley Quinn gets to shine on her own this time without that stupid suicide squad holding her back. Now she has the Birds of Prey, I guess, but they're barely in it, which to be honest is fine because most of the Birds of Prey suck. I understand that Margot Robbie was way over sexualized in Suicide Squad. Her character is. I mean, that's Harley Quinn, right? And it's fair that they wanted to pull back on that a little, but did you have to go so far the other direction to have her in literal trash for clothes? We couldn't have found a happy middle. Thankfully, they do in The Suicide Squad, but here it's just depressing seeing her in these awful clothes. So you lose a little bit of the draw going in. The tone of the film is a little all over the place as well. It's trying to be kind of funny at times and slapstick with, you know, the egg sandwich falling and her bawling her eyes out. That stuff's great. But then there's people getting their faces cut off. And that's pretty hardcore. You know, it kind of goes zero to 100 pretty fast in some of those scenes. The actions all over the place as well. Some scenes look fantastic that were, you know, reshot by the John Wick crew. But then you have that final fight with the entire crew that looks like something out of Batman and Robin. It's that bad. Overall, the Birds of Prey is very inconsistent, and that's why I say it's just mediocre. It's watchable, but I'd rather watch something else. Now we have Aquaman, which I would put in a similar category. James Wan is a great director on the conjuring. One and two, not three. I don't think he did three though. I hope he didn't do three because he's taken a step back then if he did. But this is just so all over the board. You have some really beautiful visuals going on, same with the music. But then you have Pitbull and awful green screen effects and awful red wigs on Amber Heard and just cringe level dialogue of runtime that is way too long. This is over two. It's like two and a half hours long. There's like six plots going on. It just needed focus, focus on one damn thing. There's a part where they go down into the trench, right? And these underwater alien creatures are attacking them, and they find the lost city of Atlantis or whatever this place is. That's a movie. That's a whole movie right there, and they wedge it into a 20 minute sequence. Then there's the Black Mantis stuff, a side character who comes and goes whenever the script sees fit. Another character you should have left for the sequel. This stuff didn't need to be in here. There's already an epic underwater battle forming. Why do you need all the other stuff? So again, overall it's watchable, but why is it so long? Why are there so many inconsistencies throughout this thing? If they would have just focused on an hour 45, two-hour film, cut a lot of the bullshit, you could have had a really nice movie here. As it stands, this is a film that needed a Joss Whedon cut. Sex Sniders Justice League. Oh my god. I don't even know if it should be this high on the list, honestly. For every step forward, there's another step or two back. It's better than Joss Whedon's version in some ways. It's four hours long, so you have a half hour of footage at the end that's horrible. Just added on stuff like a kid in a toy room who's like, oh, I want this toy too and let's throw this in and this in. It's like, you already have all your toys over here to play with. Why do you need to add in all this stuff that doesn't even go with it? You got G.I. Joe's. Why are you throwing Ninja Turtles and Transformers in? I get that they're all fun and cool. That's just too many different things, though. You got too many different flavors. What do we have here is an overly artistic film with the four by three aspect ratio, which automatically makes me roll my eyes. I don't understand. I never will. You can give whatever bullshit excuse you want, something about IMAX, something about it costing too much to transfer everything or convert everything. There is no excuse you can make that is going to make me believe that this is the best route they could go. It's the only movie in recent history that had to do this. I know it's unprecedented situation. We had fans basically clamoring for this online and petitioning for years to get the Snyder cut out. Well, we got it out. You know, it costs, what, 30, 40, 50, 60 million dollars to get out, tons of reshoots, tons of extras thrown in the mix, all of them pretty bad. What's better? Well, we have a vision that's finally seen through. Even if the vision's a miss, even if the vision's sloppy and messy, it's still better than hacking another movie up by another director and throwing two different styles into it. That's for sure. We have far better action. We have far better music, but then at the same time, we have far worse music because every time Wonder Woman shows up, it's a fucking nightmare. Every time she does anything, she goes to get a stick of gum. Why? Why? Really bizarre slow motion. The movie's four hours, but half of it is slow motion shots and I eat up slow motion. I like Zack Snyder's slow motion until I apparently didn't. Did we need the flash to have this bizarre creepy hair pushback scene where he's kind of touching this woman and placing her while there's disaster happening all around him? No! No! We didn't. With so many superhero movies being released and all of them having a very similar feel to him, I do appreciate Snyder being different, but that doesn't mean difference good. That just means it's different. Putting it around the middle is about where it fits, because Zack Snyder's kind of in the middle of his own universe at this point. They gambled on him, they walked away from him, they kind of like half went back in, like just the tip, and that's what we're left with. Just this meandering mess of a movie with a lot of what ifs in the future tacked on to the last 25-30 minutes. Yeah, just wow. We're finally at the movies that I could watch again pretty comfortably and have. Zack Snyder's Justice League is watchable. I did like it, but then I look back and think, do I like it? It's just weird. I think there was just that whole prom feeling like, wow, we're back at prom again. I'm not with the worst date ever. I'm with the third worst date ever, so it's way better by comparison, but still, I'm still with a pretty shit date. Shazam, though, finds a good balance. It's got heart, it's got likable characters, it's got some good action, it's fun, it's lighter. For the most part, though, it's got charm. It harkens back to more of the 80s, 90s films like the Goonies where you have the kids taking the wheel, they're in charge, they have to save the day, and, you know, it's not getting too bogged down with all the serious stuff, all the brooding stuff that Snyder's known for. And out of all the DCEU properties, it was one that I had the least interest in, but have the most interest in a sequel for, so that's something to say. Wonder Woman's Awesome. There's no other way for me to say it. Gal Gadot is great as this character. I know some people have tried to correct me and say it's Gal Gadot, but I've looked at multiple videos and interviews and she says Gadot, so what do you want me to do? What do you want me to, you want me to try to pretend it's something else that it's not? You son of a bitch! Sorry. It's not your problem, this is my problem. Freakin' comments, man. Freakin' comments. I do my best! This film does hold a special place for me in the area that people consider the heart that I think I used to have here because I took my daughter to this film when she was probably, I don't know, six or seven, and we had a blast. It was the first time my kid saw a woman in a role like this, where she's a badass superhero, overpowered, stronger than pretty much everyone else, and I know it's not the first movie with a strong female lead. Okay, don't get me wrong, I make fun of that shit all the time and how they, how they pander to that type of culture and whatnot, but this one felt earned. You know, it's Wonder Woman. This one's legit, and it didn't have to knock other people down to make that point. It didn't say that all men suck and that all women are great. No, there's flaws in the character. There's good guys in the movie. It's just a well-made film with awesome action, some good heart, some good emotion, a great score. It looks visually pleasing. Besides the final fight that could have used another pass or two, the mustache Hades is pretty bad. But overall, this was really great. And watching my daughter leave the theater and talk about how cool she was as a character, that was just a, that was just an awesome experience that is once in a lifetime. I guess I could have showed her Tank Girl or Halle Berry's Catwoman or Electra or that awful Supergirl movie they made years and years ago. I mean, come on. There wasn't much for superhero female movies. So Wonder Woman legit earns the place. It earned the hype that it got. And I think it's still great. I've watched it a few times since with the family. We still enjoyed it a lot. There's some really, I think it has some of the best action sequences in the DCEU. And that's going up against Snyder, who does, that's like his thing. I think Patty Jenkins nailed it. What the fuck happened to WW84? Some people hate Man of Steel. And I guess I can understand why it is long. It is a bit somber. It's a bit emo. It's depressing. This isn't the Superman of all. This isn't Christopher Reeve, you know? But I think it was a really good starting point to understand the character and his struggles. Making Superman relatable to everyday Joes is a hard thing to do for a lot of people. Clearly. It's been almost impossible for many. I think Snyder did it here. You know, we see that he's this alien character who's been raised by some country bumpkins to hide, to suppress his real powers, his raw strength. So we have the different sides of this character and how he's failing to balance this out. And it's not called Superman. I've said this many times over. It's called Man of Steel. He's not Superman yet. He hasn't become the beacon of hope. Unfortunately, for as good as this film does at starting this character out, we don't ever get to see him as Superman in this entire shit show of whatever it is. The DCEU trilogy of Superman. It's awful. We get Man of Steel, Kal-El becoming the beacon, but then we kill him in Batman versus Superman. He's already being feared and hated by many. We don't really get to see him do anything stoic, heroic, or inspiring. There's like little bits thrown here and there, but it's done so somberly still. It's done with such edge to it, such spite and hate that there's just nothing. And that's why Joss weeded into his credit, even though it was horribly executed, with that opening phone footage of him with the bad CG overbite. He's trying to be that. He had to put that in for the kids to be like, we love you Superman. We want to be just like you. You're the best. You're the greatest. Because Joss weeded and went in with a character that a lot of people hated and he had to bring him back from the dead and pretend like everyone loved him. It's impossible. Back to Man of Steel though. The action in this is insane. I've always wanted action like this where he's flying through buildings, punching dudes and smashing everything and stuff's blowing up and everyone's dying. It's great. I don't care that people are dying. I don't care that he didn't save more people. Fuck the people. He's fighting an alien superpower. It's epic as shit. It's like a Goku battle in Dragon Ball Z. And again, he's not Superman. He hasn't figured it out yet how he needs to juggle between fighting a bunch of alien dudes and saving the lady with the cat. Lady with the cat's dead right now, okay? Maybe the next lady with the cat will be okay because he's got to learn and grow. The eye hop placement, yeah, a bit much, a bit much, but I'm willing to forgive it. Pa Kents going all in on his stubbornness, also very dumb. I'm not saying this is a perfect movie. I found that scene to be just really bad in an overall really well done film. No, don't save me. Let me dine this tornado. This is definitely worth it for me to sacrifice so that you're not emotionally scarred afterwards and there's definitely never going to be another time where you're going to need to suppress your super ability. I mean, come on, dude. Come on, Kents, I liked you. This was bad parenting. But Superman doesn't kill people, Adam. Well, tell that to Zod snapped neck because he did. It was a great scenario to put him in and show that he's willing to push. He's willing to fight and even kill for the earthlings. Maybe not the Superman you wanted, but it's the Superman I needed. And I'm glad I got it. Thank you, Snyder. Thank you for that one gift and never again after. So what, are we some sort of the suicide squad? I know I've made that joke like three times now and it probably wasn't funny any of the times, but that's okay. We all make mistakes and clearly Warner Brothers has learned from it by hiring James Gunn to fix the mess David Ayer gave us previously. David Ayer really wants his cut released. I say let him. It's not going to be any better than the crap we got. You might have less references to music. You might have a more cohesive storyline, but it's not going to be a better one. Listen, Snyder's version was definitely different than than Joss Whedon's, but at the end of the day they they both I think were equal messes just in their own ways. The suicide squad is the type of movie you get though when you have a competent writer and director who can see the whole product from beginning to end. I love this movie. I've watched it a couple times now and it keeps getting better for me. Where previously Harley Quinn was almost the only thing to like about those films she was in. Here she's almost like a secondary. I liked almost all the other characters just as much if not more than her. And I'm not sick of Margot Robbie, that's for sure. Not at all. It's just that King Shark, Polkadot Man, Bloodsport, Ratcatcher 2, Peacemaker. They're all so great in their own ways. Even as basic as Rick Flag is, there's still a little bit of edge to him now. There's a little bit there that there wasn't before. He's not just so generic and lame. He takes everything from that hard R2. You got lots of swearing. You got some pointless nudity. You have a lot of heads exploding. It's all good. It's all good stuff. I said this in my review for the Suicide Squad 2, but when you can get me to sympathize and wish and hope with all hope that a Shark Man doesn't die before the movie ends, you've done a fantastic job in the writing room. I mean, why do I care about King Shark? Well, because they made me care. Sylvester Stallone also. Just a gem. The same can be said for Ratcatcher 2, who upon second viewing I thought was just phenomenal. I liked her the first time through, but here she really is the heart of this picture. James Gunn doesn't harp on anything for too long. He gives you just enough information to expel what you need to attach to that character. Always have to appreciate his music. The visuals are top of the line. Some of the CG is really good. Shark King, for instance, so many times he really felt like he was part of that scene. He blends in so well with the live actors and with the backgrounds. Really good comedy, too. I laughed my ass off. Yes, some of it's juvenile penis jokes, but you know what? The world's not going to be a better place with less penis jokes. If anything, it'll be worse. We have to laugh at this silly stuff once in a while. And with the lack of comedies hitting theaters these days, if we have to turn to superhero movies for that, too, I guess bring it on. Bring on more Deadpool. Bring on more The Suicide Squad. Well, there you have it. That's my ranking. I'm sure we won't agree on this. There's a lot of Die Hard Zack Snyder fans. And once again, not shitting on the guy. I just want him to focus on what he does best. Let me know in the comments what you thought. Like the video if you had a good time. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't. I put out a lot of content now and hopefully I'll see you around. I'm told there's a black and white version, too. Could you imagine? Oh, you're still here. If you want to, you can join me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies. You can give me a dollar, $5.10 just to show your support and your thanks for all the years of content I've provided. Or you can join me via the join button right here on YouTube. It works the same way. It's a monthly little subscription and it gives you access to exclusive videos that the normies don't have access to. You get some perks. You get the feeling of helping a small channel to grow and flourish. And at the end of the day, we're all just trying to survive on this spinning orb. So might as well help each other out when we can.