I think the first act of the movie was all the more frustrating to me because content-wise, it
was the most interesting stuff, yet I felt like the music/editing was creating this huge barrier and just getting in the way of me engaging with it. Those elements are so crucial. In terms of editing BvS felt like a movie that had been lobotomized, this movie felt like a bit of a Frankenstein's monster.
The one thing I hoped after seeing the last couple of trailers for this movie was that it wouldn't continue the trend of trying to copy Guardians and just insert random pop songs all throughout the movie. I really believed they wouldn't do it, and obviously they just went full tilt with it. Even with Guardians, while the Awesome Mix was worked into the plot in a way that tied in with the emotional core of the movie, I still thought that movie abused it and it felt slightly manipulative at times. With SS, it felt like it was taken a step further and just yanked me right out of the movie.
I honestly think a big reason I find myself being hard on this movie and all three DCEU films so far (and why I suspect critics are too) is just that they aren't doing enough to justify their existence in an already oversaturated market. Do I think Suicide Squad is honestly worse than some of the lesser Marvel films? Nope, not at all. DC's latest output is just shining a light on the fact that superhero fatigue IS becoming a thing, and trying to take a seat at the cinematic universe table while releasing movies that have these fundamental issues only exacerbates that. I think it's a cumulative effect we're seeing.
I feel the same way, which is part of why I'm not in any huge rush to see it again despite enjoying it. But I also feel like now that I know what it is, I'll just be able to continue enjoying it for what it is.
It's weird, because while I could easily recognize and identity the glaring issues and flaws SS has (the *****fied/hack-job/trailer editing being the most abhorrent), it's almost as if those issues bothered me less because I also saw that there was a great movie in there before it got all ****ed up and I wasn't mentally blaming the filmmaker for all of its shortcomings.
I kinda know what you mean, but in this case I was just mentally blaming the studio, which isn't any better for me...it may have been even more frustrating. At least with BvS, I can look at it and say that it's a Snyder film through and through (even with it being chopped down) and know that I simply am not a big Zack Snyder fan. I also think that movie was probably just fighting an uphill battle with everything it was trying to accomplish in one film.
With SS, it's just hard to shake the feeling that it was under-thought at a script-level and overthought in post. Feels like they missed what should've been an easy layup here. But in a way I'm glad there does seem to be a bigger break between fans and critics than there was with BvS. It shows that audiences still do make up their own minds and aren't just blindly following reviews, which is important. I don't have a problem with anyone enjoying the film. There's a subjective side to the moviegoing experience and that counts too. The critics have a voice, and the audience has theirs...historically the two have not always aligned. I do think that in the cases of BvS and SS, the RT scores are definitely much lower than some other movies that I find worse, but at the same time I really don't have it in me to defend what I feel is mediocrity at this point.