Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

***WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Okay I saw this movie three weeks ago and I have never had to sit back and think about a movie more before I reviewed it. Not because the movie is a thinker, but because I had to sort out my emotions and thoughts before really committing to sitting at my keyboard to type this review. This movie was decisive to say the least. This movie was getting ripped apart by critics, on social media, and by everyone I knew personally who saw the film. There's been a lot of things said in the press by those involved with the film, and there's even been talk of releasing the extended R rated cut into theaters early. This has been a strange film to talk about but I'll give it a shot nonetheless. I should probably start from the beginning and share my opinion of the DC Cinematic Universe. This movie was opening behind an already questionable legacy. Marvel had created their cinematic universe that was raking in billions of dollars and warming the hearts of comic fans across the world. Finally the characters we grew up loving on the pages were coming to life in front of us. DC naturally wanted a piece of that. Well the rights for Superman were almost up and it was time to rush out a new Superman film. Enter Man of Steel. Directed by the visionary director Zack Snyder and written by David Goyer, we were introduced to a modern, more dark and surreal take on Superman. There wasn't a lot shown before the movie came out, not a lot of trailers and the teaser didn't even give us a good look at Superman. So the movie finally comes out aaaaaaand people HATED it. Okay not everyone, but when this movie comes up in conversation, it's usually to tear it apart. Now the film has it's defenders. I personally think these people are in denial and are just die hard Superman fans that are trying to grasp onto the fact that "Well this is the only Superman movie we have right now." Guaranteed if a better Superman reboot happens in the future then Man of Steel will become more forgotten than Superman Returns.

Now my personal experience with Man of Steel is that I just hated the film overall. Not to say I hate every part of it, there are some good moments, but overall I thought the movie was just very poorly written. That's something to remember because Zack Snyder takes a lot of blame for these movies, and some of that definitely comes from what he says to the press about the decisions made, but my blame lays directly on Goyer. Honestly Man of Steel is a film that from a technical stand point is made very well. Yeah the film is very gray looking and there's some stale acting but the direction is fine. It's the writing that makes me cringe at the very mention of Man of Steel. I understand that this was a rushed film because of the rights situation but the story is just bad. The opening segment on Krypton is easily my favorite part of the movie, and then the rest of the movie is downhill. The killing of Zod, which seems to be the biggest point of contention with this film next to the mass destruction, is honestly the part of the movie I have the least amount of problems with. The conflicting messages from his two dads, the hamfisted way he gets his suit (it just happens to be on Earth already and why does a space suit have a freaking cape?!), and just the utter seriousness of the film drag me out of the experience screaming for my money back. This isn't a review for Man of Steel however (I might do a retro review on that at a different time) this is a review for it's sequel. So was Batman V Superman a better film?

Holy fucking shit (pardon my language) this may have been the worst movie I've ever seen. Sorry I can't even bury the lead on this. Now just bear with me because I know this movie has betting getting a lot of hate (and whether deserved or not) and I just ask for you to let me defend my point. Going in I was so hopeful. Ben Affleck seemed like a great Batman, the movie looked exciting, and while I questioned the casting of Luthor I was trying to remain hopeful. Now let's be clear. To me this is a Batman movie that happens to feature Superman (and Wonder Woman but we will get to that). The main character of the movie is Bruce Wayne and he's the one that does everything to move the plot forward. I would say even more so than the villain of the film. To me this is a positive because honestly Batman is the best part of the movie. Ben Affleck does a great job, this Batman looks great, and the action scenes where he is beating up goons are the best action moments of the whole film. The biggest problem here is the way the character is written. Let's just get it out of the way. Batman straight up murders multiple people in this movie. Now I heard this going in so I was ready for it, and I counted. Excluding the dream sequence (because that doesn't count and lets face it, it's a different world and during war time things change.) Batman kills at least five people. That's being very generous. He blows up two cars that each have at least a driver and shooter, and then he shoots the gas tank of a flamethrower strapped to someones back who for sure burned to death. This doesn't even include the criminals that he brands before they get sent to jail which the news says is basically a death sentence from the other inmates. This Batman is basically the Punisher and a sociopath. To be honest I was on board with the whole branding idea. It's different and not that bad of an idea but the fact that they say prisoners with these are murdered by the other inmates, why would Batman continue to do it? Wouldn't it just martyr the criminals?

Now I've seen arguments out there saying "Hey man, this is just a harder Batman and at the end of the movie when he decides not to brand Luthor that means he's changed." That would be all well and good if the very idea didn't go against every single ideal that Batman has ever stood for. Remember that little boy who saw his parents murdered in front of him and swore not to ever let it happen to anyone again? Yeah that character is nowhere to be seen in this movie. I mean they already ruined Superman in Man of Steel so they might as well ruin Batman too. And this is an older Batman we are seeing which means he's been killing for a lot longer than he wasn't. They even establish that a Robin has died on his watch so what kind of Batman goes on killing after losing his partner. A maniac that's who. I honestly don't understand any real comic book fan who can defend the killing. As a fan I am completely offended by that. It's a shame Affleck was so good and then saddled with being the murderous Batman (just like Michael Keaton). I hope they can move past this and we get a real Batman in the announced stand alone movie because I think he's great and want to see what he can do if they do the character right.

Now let's look at the rest of the characters and start with Superman himself. Now I've always thought Henry Cavil has the perfect look for Superman and that carries over here. His acting however is kind of flat. There's no distinction between his Superman and Clark Kent (which has very little screen time anyway) and it's amazing how in the first movie when he was in hiding from the world Lois Lane is able to find him and deduce his identity yet people seeing him on a regular basis can't put two and two together. It's honestly more ridiculous than it ever was in the books. Cavil is fine here but just isn't going to stand out. Amy Adams is however completely useless. She serves to be Superman's second weakness and nothing else. She has way too much screen time in this film  and her sub-plot is maybe the most pointless thing in the movie next to Wonder Woman. Again we will get there bear with me. I didn't particularly love Amy Adams as Lois Lane in MoS and my feelings carry over here. If she was given something more interesting to do I might have cared more but tracing a bullet back to Lex Luthor doesn't really matter in the end and serves no purpose to move the plot since it really just ends up focusing on Batman and Superman. Looking to some of the more minor characters now, I have to talk about Alfred. For one the casting of this whole DC film franchise has left me scratching my head. We have a 30's Superman and then we cast a late 40's Batman, a seemingly 20 something year old Luthor, and then in Suicide Squad all of the villains seem about in their thirties (except for an older looking Deadshot) and then we jump back to Batman v Superman and The Flash seems like another 20 something kid. Now we go to Alfred. Alfred honestly looks the same age as Bruce Wayne but if he grew up a heavy drinker and smoker. Not only that but the writing for this character is just awful. We are coming off a great and emotional Alfred with Michael Cane and while I in no way claim that Jeremy Irons is a poor actor because he's doing the best with what he's given. However all he's given are unfunny quips about how Batman has been on a suicidal mission for years and is too old. They look the same age! It just boggles my brain.

Okay, I've covered the minor characters and the two leads. Let's talk about the villain. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. This may be the worst interpretation of Luthor that has ever been put to film. I would have taken the Smallville Luthor over this. Now there seems to be a lot of hints that this is Luthor Jr. but does that mean we will see a Luthor Sr. in a future film? I honestly doubt it. This performance is unlike any Luthor that's ever existed before and while some might praise it for being different . . . look, I'm a comic book fan and when I see a comic book movie I want to see my favorite comic characters brought to life on the screen. Not some character that's completely original and only shares the name. I'm fine with the change of a character as long as it's done in an interesting way but this feels like Eisenberg was cast specifically because of his Zuckerberg interpretation in the Social Network and they just asked him to do the same thing but with more smiles. Eisenberg was just terribly miscast and the character was poorly constructed on the paper and these two things collided into the worst kind of train wreck. Now I think that's all of the characters right? Did I cover them all? Oh wait! We have the Justice League! How could I forget the memorable introduction to the Justice League through videos sent in an email?! Let's work our way from least to most significant. First I'll look at Aquaman. I don't really know what to think about him yet. I've never cared much for Aquaman, even when the character is done well, he's just not that interesting to me so his brief appearance here doesn't do a whole lot for me. Next I'll talk Cyborg. At least we got a little more context with this one. We see him strapped onto a table, and we see his father dictating what's going on. It's an alright scene, given how terrible the Leagues introduction is overall. Okay now with the Flash, he for some reason get's two scenes. We see him stop a robbery on a security camera, and then he time travels in the movie and appears in the Batcave to Bruce Wayne to give him a warning. We really only needed one of these scenes and personally I hate the time travel scene. There's no context at all for what's going on, the casual fan probably doesn't even get it unless they watch the CW TV show which these movies ignore, and it's just excessive. Not to mention it's all just set up for the further film universe which there is already too much of in this movie. So the League member that gets the most attention in this movie is Wonder Woman. I will say, Gal Gadot is a great Wonder Woman. She is beautiful, she is dangerous, and I even like her bit of action in the movie. However, she has no reason to be in this movie. She doesn't move the plot forward at all, she never once interacts with Superman until the end battle, and she exists only to hint at the formation of the League and to set up her own movie. My biggest problem with her role in the movie however is we see her first meet Bruce Wayne as he's stealing data from Lexcorp, which Diana (WW) then steals from Bruce, only to give it back to him later because she can't get past the security, which leads Bruce to discovering her picture which implies that she is seemingly ageless, which THEN leads to her showing up in the final battle in her full warrior garb to which we see the scene in the trailer. "I thought she was with you?" Huh? Superman is meeting her for the first time but Batman has already met her on multiple occasions and has seen that there is something strange with this woman. Why on Earth would he assume she's with Superman?! I don't think they are ever in the same screen until this moment.

Now multiple times in this review you've seen me mention how things in this movie just seem to happen with no context or reason at all. That is pretty much the flow of this script. There's no real reason for anything to happen. Batman hates Superman because of the destruction he caused during the Zod fight and being all powerful so he wants to kill him even though he's done nothing but try to help the human race? Seems like a pretty thin reasoning but sure why not. Superman hates Batman . . . why exactly? Because he's a vigilante? Maybe hes a little too rough around the edges? But isn't Superman a vigilante too? Okay okay what about Lex Luthor? He also hates Superman because . . . I mean in the comics he always claims it's because he's too dangerous because he's all powerful but it's never really stated in the film. It's okay though, because Lex has a plan. He's going to get Kryptonite to . . . kill Superman because . . . I'm totally lost. I have no idea why Lex does anything in this movie or what his ultimate goal is besides killing Superman for . . . reasons.  This story is just nothing. There's the thinnest motivations and the story beats feel so forced. For instance a major plot device is done through an e-mail with Wonder Woman just sitting at a computer and reading an e-mail from Bruce. This is also where we get our Justice League cameos crammed in where Lex has so nicely gone through the trouble to create their logos. How did anyone think that having a character read important information silently off of a computer possibly be interesting? I also have to make a point to talk about the dream sequences which there are many. The future desert scene is the most significant. Everyone knows it from the trailer and yes, it's a dream sequence where Batman envisions of a future where an evil Superman has taken over the world. It's an interesting moment of the movie and the sequence itself is good, but the way we get to this scene is utterly insane. Now I kind of hope the extended cut has an extra bridge scene here but as it is in the movie we see Bruce sitting at a computer watching a progress bar (riveting movie making) and then we just get a hard cut to black . . . and that's it. No context to show that this is a dream, for all we know this scene is a time jump, because why not go that crazy at this point. The only way we get to know that it's a dream sequence is that Bruce wakes up in the Batcave at the end, which leads us to my next complaint. We get the Flash cameo where Bruce is woken by the Flash traveling through time and appearing as a bright electrical blur in the Batcave, trying to give Bruce a future warning. This scene is useless. None of the information given adds to this film and does nothing but show the Flash to hint at the future Justice League movie. This movie is falling into the same problem that Amazing Spider-Man 2 had in which it was trying too hard to expand it's universe in one movie rather than tell it's story. We could have lost Wonder Woman and the other Justice League cameos and used that time for more story telling and it would have done wonders for this movie.

So the name of the film is Batman V Superman so I guess it's time to talk about that aspect of the movie. The fight between the two is utterly forgettable. Batman spends a good amount of the run time trying to acquire Kryptonite which was created by the world machine in Man of Steel. He finally get's it by stealing it from Lex which leads to Lex using Superman's mother as a hostage and incentive for Superman to go fight Batman. Now if Batman wasn't such an asshole in this movie the whole fight could have been avoided. Literally they come face to face and Superman is trying to talk to Batman, to explain the situation, and Batman isn't hearing any of it and just attacks Superman aaaaand the fight begins, and boy is it lackluster. No part of the fight really stands in my memory except for how Batman's Kryptonite grenades look like fart bombs. I just don't understand the very idea of making this movie be about Batman fighting Superman. Actually I do understand. Zack Snyder probably read The Dark Knight Returns once and thought "Man I really like that one part where they fight." It just doesn't make sense in this movie at all. If you're going to name your movie after the fight of your two titular characters than that fight should be the best part of the movie. It is not even close. Not to mention the fight ends when Superman and Batman realize they both have a mother with the same name. Are you fucking kidding me?! Superman tells Batman to please save Martha and literally they are best friends two seconds later and it's team up time. It is the most ridiculous and hamfisted (second time I said this) way to make them allies. I knew it was coming because a friend spoiled it for me and I still wasn't prepared for how angry it would make me. How did this script ever get approved?! The one thing that amazing me is how me and a lot of my friends never thought about how their mothers had the same name before.

Well I feel like the only logical thing left to talk about is the end of the film. First we have Doomsday. This is a terrible interpretation of the character. They completely change his origin which is fine but he looks like a giant CG baby and no part of him seems like an all powerful threatening being that he was in the books. He never ends up looking how he's supposed to despite Zack Snyder assuring us that his appearance does evolve. Just barely Zack, nice try. The last fight just honestly feels like it's there and doesn't have one specific moment that stands out to me. The one thing that is something of a joke but is totally true is that Batman contributes almost not at all during the Doomsday fight until he hits him with a Kryptonite grenade. I walked out of the movie not remembering any one memorable moment from the Doomsday fight other than the camera work. You see it in the trailer when Wonder Woman jumps with the following zoom. Love that camera work in this scene but it's the only part of the film that has some interesting cinematography. The most daring thing I can say about this films ending (and really the whole film in general) is they actually kill Superman. They do the death of Superman as the ending which is was makes Bruce want to find these other heroes and build a team. That makes just as much sense as the rest of this movie. I give them credit for actually killing one of the titular characters (and leaving the hook telling us he's not actually dead) but by the time it happens it's just too little way too late.

I just can't believe this film exists in the form it does. It was no secret what the reaction was to Man of Steel so with so much riding on setting up the franchise it's just amazing that this was the movie we got. The fan reaction to this film honestly seems worse by comparison and I was really hoping that the way the handle the aftermath of Man of Steel would make me like that movie more. Well I do think Man of Steel was a better movie but not the way it was probably intended. This movie breaks concepts and logic so much I don't understand how any comic book fan doesn't walk away absolutely offended. Batman literally takes a knife and a point blank gun shot to the back of his mask, which react as if it's metal, but multiple times we see the mask pulled off and being 100% rubber and no amount of "Well it's just special Wayne tech" will convince me otherwise. I understood people defending Man of Steel from the sense of "Hey this is all we have right now" but there are too many good superhero movies at this point for me to accept this just for the spectacle of seeing Batman and Superman together in the same movie. They blew it. I have lost pretty much all faith in the DC film universe at this point and I have my fingers crossed so hard that they might break in hopes that Suicide Squad can bring me back. I can only give this movie a two out of five and point out that Batman fighting some goons is awesome, and the movie has a competent production. Everything else gets a massive thumbs down from me. I've never felt so disappointed in my life over a film.