Yes, I suspect BvSDoJ will be interesting (if we are lucky), and well-crafted (ditto) … but not entertaining. Your Mileage May Vary.
Note: I don't necessarily need Aquaman busting out jokes — the Batman: The Brave & the Bold Aquaman ("Outrageous!") was a hoot, the Justice League Aquaman was fierce and grim. There's room for both in the world.
The trick, at least for me, is striking a balance: taking the material seriously, using human (or superhuman) drama and emotional stakes, but keeping some wry wit, some irony, a smidge of comic relief out there. That keeps everything from being a shouty, pouty-face slugfest.
The Justice League cartoon is illustrative of this (as is most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but let's focus on a DC-related property). The stories told there, especially in the Justice League Unlimited seasons, were, on the face of them, pretty grim. Heroes in an orbiting space station, lording it over humanity, a massive laser weapon ready to smite any terrestrial foe. Human governments mistrusting — and conspiring against — those metahumans, creating contingency plans if they get out of hand, betraying their trusts. Conflicts manipulated by adversarial egos, great power struggling with great responsibility, protectors of humanity questioning whether they have gone horribly astray, or acting with zealous and misguided determination.
Pretty serious stuff, right?
But it's leavened as we go along. Flash is always making dumb jokes, sometimes unintentionally. There's some soap operatic relationship issues. There are occasional mid-melee quips. There are heroes who are less-than-grim-gritty, even a little naive in their young attitudes. There are breaks from the conflicts, the devastation, the betrayals, the slugfests.
And it's a cartoon. But it's not cartoonish.
Look at another cartoon, Teen Titans. There are episodes and stor lines in there that are utterly gut-wrenching. Robin's obsession over Slade. Changeling's doomed love for Terra. Raven's psychodrama over her demonic parentage. One of the first episodes was a horrifyingly grim tale of what would happen to the team if Starfire were to disappear, and the results for each of the heroes was not at all pretty.
But through it all, there was a fundamental joy in the camaraderie, the teen zaniness, the innocence that made the drama more poignant and more endurable at the same time.
Another non-cartoonish cartoon (something that become all the clearer when the "teen zaniness" became the only part retained in the "Teen Titans" reboot … ugh).
Look at Young Justice, the replacement (irksomely) for Teen Titans. The darkness and threat there got awfully thick on the ground, especially in the last season. But there were always enough moments to smile at to keep it from being abysmal and unrelentingly dire.
Heck, Shakespeare wrote some pretty freaking grim stuff, but he always had some comedic elements in the most dour of his plays, to keep the groundlings from crying into their beers (or throw them at the actors). Joss Whedon wrote the book on modern super-heroic tales with Buffy the Vampire-Slayer, which played every tragic trope suitable for TV, with enough wry comments and ironic self-awareness to keep it from being too utterly depressing or grim-gritty.
When I look at the clips from BvSDoJ, I see epic loss, tragedy, conflict, violence, grimdarkness that all add up to Utter Seriousness. There's not a smile to be cracked, not a joke to be made, not a quip to be tossed. It's all grand and epic and fully of people scowling and yelling and punching each other.
Maybe it will be incredible. But I suspect it will be a sadly one-noted "very serious" and appeal mostly to the folk who will ignore any flaws if they can see stuff "blow up real good" because of super-heroes.
I hope I'm wrong.
Jesse Eisenberg Promises Dawn of Justice Will Be “Very Serious,” Not “Cartoonish”
Well said, and I agree with you 100%. With Marvel, even in the trailers, you could see the snarkiness and humor that was waiting in the film. DC hasn't figured that trick out, which is odd because, as you pointed out, they saw it work with the cartoons. Heck, even Marvel's Daredevil, which might the grimmest, grittiest thing they have at the moment, manages to find time to include some humor and levity.
+Marty Shaw Yes — if you are really waning to go dark and grim and bloody, Daredevil demonstrates how to throw in enough lighter moments to keep it from being unrelenting.
Unfortunately, DC/WB's cinematic arm appears to have little to no respect for the animated arm (heck, sometimes the animated arm doesn't seem to, either). It's a shame.
I haven't seen anything that shakes my intention not to see this in theaters. As with Man of Steel, it seems like something to put on at home and half-watch while I'm playing Splendor on my phone.
Well, there’s a rumor it will be better than MoS.
So: $4.75 and a couple of hours dedicated to it when the right mood hits. That might take a while.