Batman (1989)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Billy Dee Williams and Pat Hingle.

Runtime: 121 minutes

Suicide Squad

‘Suicide Squad’ Poster

With the release of the long anticipated, and heavily advertised (more on that later) Suicide Squad, DC’s cinematic universe continues to build apace, in what will likely be a sizable box office battle with rivals Marvel for the foreseeable future. Many more projects are in varying stages of production for DC, and there is a lot more yet to come, but in the early stages of the building of their cinematic world, following on from Man of Steel and this year’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad is all set to introduce us to another assembly of characters who the uninitiated are going to have to come to know to follow the forthcoming releases. For the fully initiated, however, Suicide Squad was arguably one of the most anticipated of DC’s upcoming projects. However, given the scale of its promotion push and amount of footage released in trailers over the past year, have DC been guilty of perhaps overselling somewhat, and killing off some of the excitement and buzz there was for this film? Could this have been a case where “less is more” would have been a good mantra to go by?

Batman vs Superman: Superhero Season is Back

‘Batman vs Superman’ Poster

It’s that time of year again, when the superheroes take to the screens, and offer audiences another slice of their blockbuster universes with their blends of action, humour and kick ass special effects. With Deadpool sneaking his anti-hero movie into the February-March slot, it is up to two of the biggest names in comic book folklore to kick off the superhero season in earnest, with DC’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. A battle between two of the granddaddies of the comic book world seems like a safe bet to grab the collective attention of global audiences, and the respective worldwide box office returns would seem to suggest that that has very much been the case. Nevertheless that somewhat masks the fact that this has proven something of a divisive film overall, which has set critics against fans against dissenting fans, in a discussion which suggests that all is not as rosy in DC-ville as it is across the way at Marvel’s Studios.