Oh hey, it’s Dumb Avengers.

So I went ahead and watched this without actually watching Batman Vs. Superman. I’m sorry if you find that problematic but I’m sick and I couldn’t find Batman Vs. Superman. I’m not sure I missed anything anyway.

This is like the “Infinity Saga” crammed into one movie and without most of the mythology/backstory. It’s kind of incredible how many similarities there are between this film and elements of the different Avengers films. The most noticeable difference is that this film lacks whatever charms the MCU films have.

Not only is the plot eerily similar, but everything else feels stolen from those films too: the insects feel like the lizards from that first Avengers film, the quips feel like Whedon is ripping himself off, the stakes feel like Thanos in miniature. And not only does it feel like a weaker carbon copy, but some of that CGI is pretty weak, too. There are times when it feels like the film is basically animated in the early stages and it’s pretty grating on someone like me who remembers The Dark Knight.

The irony of it all is that DC seems to have invented the whole “Mother Boxes” thing or, at the very least, published their comics with the idea the year before Marvel began releasing the “Infinity Stones” comics. Now, I’m not comics expert – I don’t know to what degree comic writers steel from each other – but it sure feels as though Marvel copied DC, and not the other way around. The problem for DC, in addition to their very inferior product, is they just didn’t see the potential in the story like the people behind the MCU did. And so now it feels like they’re ripping off Marvel.

Though I will say that, had this particular film just come out before most or all of the MCU films, I’m not sure this movie would look that much better, because it sucks and not all of that suckiness comes from how similar it is to the Avengers films.

4/10

Note: When I was watching this for a second time, as part of are Batmanathon, I learned that the mythology behind the story here comes from a Marvel writer who defected to DC. No wonder this movie feels like cut-rate Avengers.