That story is so impossibly sad. On the personal front I have nothing but tremendous sympathy for Snyder, but as a director I've always been at odds with his superhero portrayals. He was the perfect director for material like the Watchmen because that fit his cynical views like a glove. But I can specifically remember watching that movie and saying, "Wow that was compelling. But I hope he never gets his hands on our superheroes, because they would all be depressing and dark."
He has these amazing visual talents to bring extraordinary subjects to life in a very surreal way that feels almost real, but not quite. Its like he plucked the spirit of Alex Ross from an alternate universe and conceptualized him with a little more edge to create his storyboards. But as rich as his visuals are, his characters (for me) tend to be very one note in terms of their emotional seating. Every one of them is a reluctant hero with any number of social conflicts dialed in to say, "I'm here, but honestly I would rather be somewhere else." While I can appreciate his desire to give them complexity to wrestle with the moral code of what they're doing, the never-ending philosophical struggle weighs down the spirit of the source material.
He has these amazing visual talents to bring extraordinary subjects to life in a very surreal way that feels almost real, but not quite. Its like he plucked the spirit of Alex Ross from an alternate universe and conceptualized him with a little more edge to create his storyboards. But as rich as his visuals are, his characters (for me) tend to be very one note in terms of their emotional seating. Every one of them is a reluctant hero with any number of social conflicts dialed in to say, "I'm here, but honestly I would rather be somewhere else." While I can appreciate his desire to give them complexity to wrestle with the moral code of what they're doing, the never-ending philosophical struggle weighs down the spirit of the source material.
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