How would you rank the 16 DCEU films from best to worst?
1. Man of Steel ( A film about Krypton)
2. Aquaman ( A film about Black Manta, his origins and his relationship with his father)
3. Wonder Woman ( A film about Themyscria Island and the Amazon culture there)
4. The Flash ( A film about Super Girl)
5. The Suicide Squad 2021 ( A film about Peacemaker with King Shark as his sidekick)
6. Zack Snyder's Justice League ( A film about the Knightmare scenario, i.e. evil Superman and gun wielding Batman in an alternate reality)
7. Shazam! ( No changes. Solid family film. )
8. Blue Beetle ( Shift to hard R format, lots of sex and violence)
9. Suicide Squad 2016 ( A film about Amanda Waller and her origins)
10. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ( A film about Senator Finch putting Superman on "trial" and the question on if he should answer to world governments)
11. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ( A hard R film, with real brutal violence, showing a war with the collected world navies against Atlantis. )
12. Justice League ( A film about the original early history war for the three Motherboxes with Steppenwolf)
13. Shazam! Fury of the Gods ( A film about Harcourt and Economos investigating super heroes)
14. Black Adam ( A film about Doctor Fate)
15. Wonder Woman 1984 ( A film about Diana and her early life and her trials/tribulations of growing up)
16. Birds of Prey ( A film that operates as a real origin story for Quinn and Joker)
Some basic thoughts -
I loved Man Of Steel. The casting was great and there was a real clear appreciation, homage and understanding of Clark Kent's core nature. What I enjoyed about Kent is he had effective boundaries. He wasn't idealized to the point of disbelief. He didn't try to be right or wrong with humans, only fair.
I fully believe, and have always held, that buried within most DCEU films was a greater film inside of them, that if they were truly realized, would have kept the previous slate going, instead of having the clear Gunn reboot. While I loved Man Of Steel, the movie that should have come next should have been a Krypton prequel. Crowe and Shannon were fantastic. The world building, aesthetic, tone and shape of Krypton in the opening scenes of MOS were IMHO phenomenal.
Where I think the DCEU went wrong is it tried to form it's own "Avengers", instead of organically assessing the characters, actors and storylines that had real weight behind them. Doctor Fate was super interesting. Black Adam? Not so much. I know having a Superman "trial" doesn't seem exciting as fighting Batman. But I felt that storyline asked some really big and interesting questions about what the real context would be if the world had to accommodate the reality of real super heroes. Not the hand waving of the Sokovia Accords but a real accounting of the true cost of that upon the entire world.
I felt the same way about many of the Netflix Marvel shows. Who cares about Luke Cage? I didn't. But Cottonmouth and his sister, their backstory, was just incredibly well done. Do I want to know more about Jessica Jones? Not really. But I'd like to see more of David Tennant as a psychopathic bad guy. Didn't care about The Runaways (on Hulu). But a story about Ned and Betty from the Spiderman films, having their own lighthearted adventure, in the vein of Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist, would have done so much better to appeal to a younger audience.
Just tell a good story, even if it's a smaller story and without the brand names. Do it right and you'll make the audience care. And have faith that good word of mouth and just making good solid films will carry you to the end, even without the big superstar hero characters if need be.
