Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

When the world questions the potential threat of an all-powerful Superman, a figure rises from the shadows and rubble of the chaos created during the battle in Metropolis. Bruce Wayne believes that leaving the absolute power of Superman unchecked will only lead to the destruction of mankind. So, using his own unchecked power and dawning his own cape and mask, he sets out to take on the Man of Steel. With the two superheroes so focused on one another, a new potential threat arises in the form of the Joker Lex Luthor who wants the two to fight for some reason.

Before I begin, I want to establish a few things. Number one, I am not a ‘Marvel Fan Boy’. Only people who do not read comics think that they have to choose sides. We live in a world where we can enjoy both sets of comics and both sets of characters and I love them all. Superman is my second favourite comic book character of all time, just behind Spider-Man. The Joker is my favourite villain in all media. Batman’s dynamic with the Joker and many of his other villains is what I consider the best in all of comics and possibly even movies. I have read so many graphic novels of the two characters, played the Arkham games and love both of these characters to bits. That is why it hurts all the more when someone who clearly does not understand the essence of Superman is asked to make a multi-million dollar film for Superman called Man of Steel and then, after doing such a bad job at it, is asked to come back to make another movie of Superman fighting Batman.

"At least it can't get any worse"

Sitting at a rating of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a huge waste of potential. There were clearly some very good ideas that Zack Snyder had for the film that I could have loved. Unfortunately, it was badly executed and paced. With so many storylines going on at the same time, the scenes just didn’t seem to connect with each other. It was better than Man of Steel, but that really is not saying much. By the way, although it is supposedly PG-13, this is not a film for kids. To make things easier, I’ll split up the review to positives and negatives about the film and also add in things I felt where just…‘meh’. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything that isn’t already in the trailers.

Positives:

      1)    Ben Affleck

That awkward moment when you are
a better director than the person
that is directing you.

Ben Affleck did a good job playing Bruce Wayne. One problem I had with Christian Bale’s performance was that although he was quite a good Batman, he doesn’t really portray Bruce Wayne well. When Affleck was first cast, I thought it was a horrible decision. However, he has proven me wrong and I really enjoyed his performance. He may, in fact, be my favourite Bruce Wayne on film. As for him playing Batman, it is quite difficult to determine. Batman in full costume doesn’t really appear a lot in the film but I do have hopes for his upcoming films. Batman’s fighting style was also filmed very well. The problems I had with Batman are not Affleck’s fault and therefore cannot be attributed to him.

      2)    Opening Credits & First 20 minutes

The opening credits of the film caught me by surprise. It was Zack Snyder at his best, using visuals to tell a story. In fact, it was very much reminiscent of the opening credits in Watchmen. It hooked me in straight away and the first 20 minutes of the film really felt like a foundation for a strong film. But come to think of it, so did the first 20 minutes of Man of Steel.

      3)    Addressing some problems in Man of Steel

The main plot of the story involves addressing the problem most people had with Man of Steel, which is that Superman pretty much destroyed the whole of Metropolis and Smallville. The scene with the senate hearing shown in the trailers was very good. Although they clearly did not make that first film with the intention to address it in this way in the sequel, DC was willing to listen to its fans and tried to fix the problem by addressing this issue. Props to DC for that.

      4)    The build up to the fight

The fight was coming. Everyone knew that. We just didn’t know when it would happen and the film did a relatively good job of building it up.

5)   Superman saving people
There was only one short montage in the film where Superman actually saved people. That was good.

Meh:

      1)    Wonder Woman

I know Wonder Woman is being praised a lot in other reviews but I have a feeling that that is because we all just wanted to see Wonder Woman on the big screen so much that we were willing to accept any iteration of her. First of all, I don’t think Wonder Woman was well casted. Gal Gadot just played ‘the woman’ in the film until it was time to put on the costume. In her defense, however, she had very little screen time and the very few scenes that she had in combat were done relatively well. As to what her character’s role is in the grand scheme of things remains to be seen.

      2)    Alfred

Jeremy Irons did a pretty good job playing Alfred in the film. Unfortunately for him, he was following Michael Caine who, in my opinion, was one of the best Alfreds we ever got on film. Irons was alright. That’s about it.

Negatives:

      1)    Lack of respect for the characters

Yet again, Snyder shows that he is either ignorant of or has no respect for the original characters in the comics. Relegating Superman to a thug that always frowns for the first half of the film, turning Lex Luthor into a Joker-wannabe, having Ma Kent advice Clark to just forget about this world and making Diana Prince act like Selina Kyle are just some of the atrocities he and his writers commit. Remember when people were saying Superman will have learnt his lesson about killing people in the last movie? Nope. He doesn't. He still throws normal human beings through like three walls at full Superman speed. Oh ya, and apparently, Batman kills low-level henchmen now. That kind of sums it up perfectly.

      2)    Lex Luthor

"Hey guys, let's make Lex as different
from his comic book counterpart as
possible...starting with the hair!"

He gets his own category. Lex Luthor is one of the most iconic villains in DC comics. He is a smart and arrogant man who is constantly concerned about how he looks, charming people to thinking he is good and always claiming to do what he does for the good of mankind. What he is not is the Joker. He doesn’t talk in weird ways and cryptically tell people things and act creepily with women. The iteration of Lex Luthor in this film is one of the worst changes of an iconic comic book character that I have ever seen on film. In the film, Lex did not seem to have a solid reason for doing most of the things he did. He didn’t seem like he was trying to help out mankind. He just wants Superman to die and the two heroes to fight. It’s all just about chaos. He just shows up and creeps people out.  Sound familiar? Because that’s supposed to be the Joker. This misrepresentation of Lex Luthor can be attributed to both the misunderstanding of the characters by the writers and the acting of Jesse Eisenberg who seems to only be able to play the same character in all his movies. Together, they made the most cringe-worthy and horrible excuse for a comic book character in a film I have seen since Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And the last scene with Lex was just so embarrassing. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor is without a doubt the worst part of the movie.

      3)    Character motivations

Lex Luthor was pretty much that
Jimmy Kimmel character.

The importance of what is happening on screen can only be felt if the characters have motivations that make sense to the audience. In other words, Batman and Superman need to have a good reason to fight. Otherwise, it’ll leave the audience feeling like the fight is unnecessary. Unfortunately for the film, that is exactly how the fight between Batman and Superman felt. A lot of the fighting was completely unnecessary and we as the audience just felt like if the heroes would just open their mouths and say three words to each other, they wouldn’t have to fight. This causes the audience to be disconnected from the fight and not really care about it. Another example is found in that famous scene in the trailer when Lex goes up to Bruce and Clark talking and says, “Bruce Wayne meets Clark Kent” like it was a big deal when in the logic of the movie, Clark Kent is a nobody reporter. So it shouldn’t be a big deal at all. The lack of proper character motivation is shown most in a scene in which Lois Lane, for no apparent reason, drops something into some water. It shows that the writers and director put no thought into the motivations of their characters and just had them do things so they could progress the story. That is lazy writing, and on a multi-million dollar movie, that should not be acceptable.

      4)    Score/ Soundtrack

Hans Zimmer is responsible for some of the greatest and most iconic soundtracks in recent memory. In fact, his soundtrack is sometimes the only positive thing audiences can take from the films he is involved in. I do not understand what happened to him in this film however. I’m not a person who ever notices the score of a film but even I noticed this one. And that isn’t a good thing. The score sounded messy and overly dramatic at times where the film was not trying to be. The music kind of clashed with each other and felt very unnatural. I understand that every character needs to have their own character theme but it was so blatant and they just didn’t blend well with each other. Lex Luthor’s theme was clearly very Joker-ish and kind of silly. And don’t even get me started on Wonder Woman’s jungle theme and how it clashes with everything. Not a good score by Hans Zimmer this time and that is amplified by how badly it was used in the context of the film. I hope this is just a one-off thing for him.

      5)    Pacing and Arrangement of Scenes

These two things usually go unnoticed by most filmgoers but they are so important to the overall ‘feel’ of the film. Many critics called the film a mess and that is very true. That is mainly because of the lack of proper pacing and the mismanagement of the arrangement of the scenes. Scenes that happened back to back never seemed to relate to one another and seemed just randomly thrown together so the audience would not forget what a character is doing. Kind of like some TV shows. It also doesn’t help that there were so many storylines and character arcs going on at the same time. Lois Lane’s, Wonder Woman’s and the Daily Planet’s story arcs felt completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things and could have been cut from the film completely.

If you think this was a huge change
from the comic, you haven't seen
anything yet.

Ultimately, the whole film can be summed up in what I said at the start. A waste of potential. I do think that it deserves more than the 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but that still doesn’t say a lot. They had some great ideas but wasted it on creative talents who have no respect for the source material. Don’t even get me started on what a waste Doomsday was. DC has a whole set of films coming out and as much as I’d like them to change the overall theme of their films, I know it will not happen. Therefore, I have a different suggestion for the producers at DC: get rid of Zack Snyder and David Goyer and bring in someone who actually cares about these characters that your company owns. We are, after all, talking about the same two guys that thought it would be too lame to call the Kal-El character, “Superman” in the Man of Steel movie. They are the same two guys who are defending their decision to have Batman take out a machine gun and shoot at low-level henchmen in this movie. These two guys have no respect for the source material; they only care about how ‘cool’ things will look on screen. There is a lot of talent out there that would be capable of doing so much more for these characters. Just get someone who actually loves these characters that, in all honesty, have much more potential than the characters in Marvel.

I wish I could say that I can see a possibility of greatness for the future DC films, but Man of Steel combined with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice really does not give me a lot to hope for. Don’t even get me started on ‘gangster Joker’ in that Suicide Squad movie that looks like it’s heading down the same path as its predecessors. I didn’t hate Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice but I didn’t like it either. But I do really hope to see a movie one day where Superman is actually a good guy and a hero instead of a person that’s angry with the world and pretty much hates people that aren’t his family or Lois. Or does Zack Snyder think that’s too lame for modern cinema?

After Credits Movie Rating: 5.5/10

 

[Warning: Spoilers ahead]

The ending. First of all, it was waaaayy too soon for it to happen. It should have happened in the second or third Justice League movie when Superman has been established as a beloved character to the people. But no… DC HAD to put up something to beat out Marvel's Civil War. They HAD to kill someone off. The ‘Death of Superman’ story arc is one of the most iconic Superman storylines ever. And Zack Snyder decided to waste it on the last 30 minutes of a film where Superman shares half his screen time with Batman. And it was hardly even sad at all since everyone already knows that he is coming back for the Justice League. In fact, they teased him coming back about 10 minutes after he died. This film is the first time the general audience will experience the important death of this character and the film wasted it with a misunderstanding of why the death was so significant and sad. Superman is supposed to die as an ultimate sacrifice because there was no other options that could kill Doomsday after the Justice League had failed. It was supposed to symbolise his relationship with his city and his love for the people. But in this film, the people hated him and he seemed to hate the people. The only person Superman seemed to love is Lois and his mother. And that final scene seem to only show his love for Lois since they were fighting in an empty area where no one else would actually get hurt. Also, the three superheroes seemed to be handling Doomsday quite fine. I know that they tried to nuke him and they said a thousand times that he was indestructible, but the audience didn’t feel that. In fact, they were only fighting for like 15 minutes. It didn’t feel like a last ditch effort and a necessary sacrifice. It felt unearned and wasted. Yes, they can always redo the death of Superman again on film, but it will never be as impactful as the first time the general audience saw it. Again, a waste of potential.