As I wrap my coverage of the Superman movies, I want to take an aside and talk about DC's first big-screen attempt at an extended universe. Called the DC Extended Universe, or more often, the Snyderverse, this era produced some fun, some good, and some terrible movies.
Suicide Squad (2016)
While not a great movie, it is fun one. It introduces us to Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, one of many perfect castings in the DCEU, and featured one of my favorite characters, Enchantress. Don't go into this movie looking anything but comic book action and plot. I mean one of my favorite scenes is when Harley sees her old Harlequin costume in her box of things and gets all excited about it. Ok, the scene where El Diablo fights Incubus is also pretty cool.
Wonder Woman (2017)
Honestly, this movie is a masterpiece and is easily in my top-5 superhero movies of all time. Patty Jenkins was great as the director, and Gal Gadot WAS Wonder Woman. She had huge boots to fill from Lynda Carter, and she did it. She gave us a Wonder Woman who is strong and powerful without loosing a gram of femininity; exactly like she should be from the comics. I know the family of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator, was thrilled with it. This one might be the best movie in all the DCEU.
Sadly, Wonder Woman 1984 just could not live up to its predecessor's heights.
Aquaman (2018) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
Both of these were fun and were excuses for Jason Momoa to give us his brand of Arthur Curry. They are also fun, but fall just short of great, really, with the 2018 movie being a bit better.
Shazam! (2019), Black Adam (2022), and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
Shazam, aka Captain Marvel, "the Big Red Cheese" is a difficult character to get right. He is a kid in the form of a god really. Zachary Levi did a great job of this in the 2019 and 2023 movies and Shazam! was a really good flick. You have to be a fan of the character though I think. Kudos for the cameo of Michael Gray from old Filmation Saturday Morning Shazam! series. The 2023 movie also has Wonder Woman in the end.
Black Adam was Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's dream gig in the DC Universe. So much so he was a producer on all three movies. As expected it is darker than either Shazam movie. Nice post credits scene with Amanda Waller and Superman at the end.
They are not great movies, but fun ones.
The Flash (2023)
Pity the poor Flash. It might go down as the movie that killed the DCEU. It didn't, but it certainly didn't help.
Let's talk about what is good. LOVED seeing Michael Keaton back as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Wonderful, worth the price of the movie. As janky as it was, the Flash running through the Multiverse and seeing ALL the old Supermen, especially Christopher Reeve and Helen Slater, standing side by side as Superman and Supergirl was amazing. Even the Arrorow-verse, which the DCEU always seemed to ignore as an annoying kid brother, gets a nod. Though it does it in a way that shows they are either ignorant of the characters (most likely) or are being purposely disrespectful. NICHOLAS FREAKING CAGE as Superman with a mullet fighting a Thanagarian Snare Beast! If you are a DC fan, you know what this means, so while I would like to give them a pass on being ignorant on the CW-DCU (Arrow-verse) this shows they did know the deep lore. So maybe they were not allowed to use any Arrow-verse characters as their Arrow-verse character...DC does some strange things at times. The end with the big "Batman twist" is fun. BUT it was also a sign that they knew the DCEU was ending.
Now the bad. Erza Miller turned into a bit of a dumpster fire. I mean, he was kinda fun, but never really right as Barry Allen. Plus, we had a GREAT Barry Allen. Grant Justin was amazing. The script is a bit of a mess. Though the Flash having the Flash as the big bad does fit with the comics. Sasha Calle was great as Supergirl, but we never got to see enough of her, and she was gone before we could know her.
There were other movies. Blue Beetle was fun. There was a soft-reboot, sorta-, sorta-not of The Suicide Squad. I enjoyed the Birds of Prey movie, even if most didn't.
There were some fun times here, but by and large they did not measure up to the successes or the storytelling of the Marvelverse. Trust me, as a DC fan, those are hard words to write.
I am hopeful for the new James Gunn helmed DC Studios and the new Superman and DCU. Does this include the newer Batman movie? I don't know really.
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