Last week, The LEGO Batman Movie opened, and, by all accounts, has been a massive success: It made back it's budget in less than a week of it's premiere, sports a 91% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and ranks as one of the best Batman movies ever.
The success of the film puts D.C. and Warner Bros. in a strange spot, because, while they are the studios behind LEGO Batman and thus benefit from the film's success, they are also creators of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), a series of super-hero films that, at best, are critically mixed films that alienate hardcore fanboys and newcomers alike, and at worst is Suicide Squad.
The fate of the DCEU has been hotly debated since the release of the first film in the franchise, Man of Steel, in 2013, and debate seems to grow only more intense with each subsequent release. Each film makes die hard fans dig their heels in, and double down on their support of the franchise, but also leaves critics more and more burnt out.
With the release of The LEGO Batman Movie, the question becomes even more prescient, as it seems Chris McKay, Will Arnett, and Zach Galifianakis can do more in a cartoon based on children's toys than Zack Snyder, and academy award winners Ben Affleck and Jared Leto can do with 250 million dollars.
One of the biggest things LEGO Batman has going for it, is that it's the first superhero movie in recent memory--and I'm talking since like, The Green Lantern--to be self-contained. Sure, it's technically a spin-off of The LEGO Movie, but in the world of MCU's with 23 announced films, and 13 announced T.V. shows, the fact that The LEGO Batman Movie follows just one measly story-arc is insanely refreshing. The film doesn't need to tie into anything that isn't relevant to this plot-line and it doesn't need any extraneous scenes to make sure you know what to look out for in the next movie. Based on the success of the film, there will almost certainly be a sequel, but the movie doesn't necessitate one. If next week, LEGO went under, there are no scenes in this film which would lead future viewers to say "ah that scene with zero context is the set-up for the sequel that never happened."
Which is almost the entire point of the DCEU thus far.
Credit where credit is due, Man of Steel is relatively self-contained. It's a film that sets up Superman's origin, pits him against one main challenge, and focuses on the chaos that ensues. However, with Superman's inclusion in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Kryptonian's first film retroactively becomes a two and a half hour setup for BvS, as so much of what happens in Man of Steel directly impacts the events of BvS. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in theory, but it gives BvS a bit of an crisis of identity, in that in can never really decide whether it's a sequel to Man of Steel, a standalone spin-off, or the setup to Justice League.
When faced with the question of purpose, Snyder and his team seemingly say just say "yes" and try to make the film function in all three roles, giving it the impossible task of pushing forward Superman's story, Introducing Batman, Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor, creating Doomsday, killing Doomsday, foreshadowing mullet Superman, teasing future aspects of the universe like Cyborg, The Flash, Aquaman, The Joker, Darkseid, a Wonder Woman prequel, a Batman Sequel, and a Robin that will either die in a flashback in the Batman sequel and/or a Batman prequel that will establish the death of Robin.
The second 2016 film tasked with expanding DC's filmic universe Suicide Squad has a very similar problem. Because this film takes place in the same universe as the other two films, The first hour-or-so of Suicide Squad is spent making sure the audience knows not just the cast of this film, but why it's "important" that these films tie in to BvS (spoiler alert: it's not). The only explanation relevant to the plot for why the films share a universe is that Deadshot has had run-ins with Batman, and the titular Suicide Squad is assembled, because Superman exists.
While the "assembling a team" trope is nothing new to movies, when character bios range from twenty-minute intercut flashbacks to simple one-line explanations like "that's slipknot, the guy who can climb anything," it makes for an uneven first act. Couple this with the 20 minutes worth of "hey, don't forget BvS happened!" thrown in, and it seems the film can't be bothered to establish whether its a parable about abuse in the prison system of an all powerful, tyrannical government, or a film lighthearted and quirky enough that a bloke named Captain Boomerang who drinks Foster's and plays with stuffed unicorns can be a major player. Because of this, the tone of the film shifts dramatically based on what is convenient, going from light and silly when they want to give the audience a laugh, to brooding and overly-serious when trying to ratchet up the drama, making almost every line in the film unearned in some way.
Knowing exactly what the film should be is probably the biggest strength of The LEGO Batman Movie, and is the biggest reason Arnett's film beats out Batfleck's. Where Dawn of Justice fails in its portrayal of Batman is in that it doesn't have a unified vision of what Batman is supposed to be about, but insists that it does. This Batman outright kills criminals in several instances, which is something that Batman is pretty explicit about not doing. And yes, while it's naive to think that the violence that other iterations of Batman inflict on their enemies wouldn't be fatal, Snyder's Batman kills openly with guns and flamethrowers. I could go on about this, but the biggest issue with this portrayal of Batman isn't that he's atypical--Arnett's Batman is a borderline bastardization of the character for laughs--but it's that he's atypical with no justification. This is to say that this Batman is simultaneously a general wash of all of the Batmen out there, while trying so, frustratingly hard to be Frank Miller's very specific deconstruction of the character, that it's putting a square peg in a round hole and telling your audience you've made a triangle (a triangle that takes itself way too seriously, might I add).
Arnett's Batman works so well because, despite the fact that it's a parody of the character, LEGO Batman's depiction picks a few key aspects of the character and focuses on them exclusively: mainly his loneliness, and the arrogance required to think you alone can be the sole savior of an entire city. Even though these characteristics are invoked in order to poke fun at the Batmen of old, the film works because it has a motivation to do so and an endgame in sight. The story starts out with Batman being an arrogant, lone wolf, makes those ideas central to his character, and then makes those very characteristics the reason for the conflict. And it works. The film chooses key aspects of the Batman character that only become funny because they're ratcheted up 10,000%. The film isn't funny because not because it changes Batman's character, the film is funny because it enhances Batman's character, leaving everyone's fantasy of being both insanely rich, and a superhero to parody it's own lunacy, on it's own terms.
The LEGO Batman Movie is the rare fun-house mirror that, by distorting it's subject, makes it look even better. By using Legos, Will Arnett, and above all humor, to show all the absurdities and flaws that exist naturally within the character of Batman, The DCEU depiction of the character pales in comparison by latching onto the absurdities, planting it's feet even more firmly and ultimately forsaking the character it seeks to preserve.