Solo said:
This trailer played poorly at my TDK screening. Then again, everything did. Terminator, Body of Lies, this, nothing got a reaction.
There is hope.
I really can't see this crossing over significantly. They clearly tried to evolve the look (especially the costumes which in the comic look lame and terrible for a reason) but not enough to make it not look like the cast-offs outside Joel Schumacher's Costumeporium.
So, for starters, everyone looks lame. (Except Doc and Rorschach, because, well, you can't fuck those up.) In addition, I really don't think the primary color juxtaposition of the book in terms of themes and costumes and characters and everything is going to translate in such a condensed form. The problem, like so many comic movies, is they're being almost too literal, and it falls flat.
The reason a movie like The Dark Knight is so successful is because it adapts the core concept of Batman into something that works as an actual film. Visually, thematically, storywise, etc.
Now, of course, at this point all we have to go on is the visuals and kinetic approach to the filmmaking, but those are clearly stuck in the limbo between trying to stay true to the source material and trying to find something that actually works as film because, newsflash, two different mediums.
Again, that one shot of the Comedian at war is just flat and ridiculous in all the wrong ways. I'm not saying Snyder doesn't get it. I'm sure he has an enormous amount of reverence to the source material (obviously).
Unfortunately it's the source material itself and its inherent existence and functionality
as a comic book, that is getting in his way.