12 Most Underrated Things In DCEU Movies

The DC Extended Universe(DCEU) has sure had a bumpy start. After starting well behind the eight ball in their battle with their rivals over at Marvel, a series of poorly thought out decisions hindered their ability to develop their own successful film universe.

Christian Bale's lack of desire to return to the role of Batman definitely put a dampener on their plans for the franchise, especially with the intent to maintain the darker tone of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. The decision to press forward with a Justice League movie without putting the necessary groundwork in place was a mistake that always appeared to be a risk not worth taking.

Things are thankfully looking up now for the DCEU, in spite of the hinderance of the current world situation causing delays to the release of future projects. The move away from trying to establish a connecting universe has paid significant dividends, in particular with mega hits Shazam! and Aquaman. These two films manage not to feature on this list, as they very much exceeded expectations on all fronts.

Instead we're picking through the not so well received DCEU film entries, and highlighting those moments that were in fact much better than we first remembered. Be it quality characterisations, amazing fight sequences or a great speech(no, "Save Martha" didn't quite make it) there is in fact some great moments to be explored.

The one entry for Wonder Woman on this list, a film that is widely regarded as the one successful DCEU film of the 'pre Justice League' era. Despite this, the final act has been widely panned, largely due to an unnecessarily over the top CGI fight sequence between Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and David Thewlis' Ares. The dialogue from Thewlis' character proved particularly grating during the action packed scene, with a grab-bag of the worst villainous cliches.

What is lost because of this is Ares' outstanding speech before his final battle with Diana. Thewlis is brilliant in his delivery, his smug analysis of human behaviour making Ms Prince seem out of her depth and making her efforts seem incredibly futile. Ares' insight that humans have a compulsion to fight irrespective of the situation is one that has proved all too true throughout history and effectively sums up WW1.

The speech also addresses the one significant flaw of the film's first two acts, which unfairly casts the allies as the good guys and the Germans effectively as villainous Nazis. The final speech from the British speaking 'God of War' is much more in fitting with the ethos from both sides of the first World War, with war seen as somewhat of a glorious adventure.

This is also in line with Diana's initial mindset, and this speech proves a perfect endpoint to the film- which makes it such a shame that the tacky CGI fight was stuck on at the end.