Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice Review
Originally Reviewed March 25, 2016
What is the one thing that movie are meant to do? Tell a compelling story. That’s their purpose. And Batman V Superman has a story, it’s just no0t a particularly good one. The basic plot, and I won’t spoil any of it here (see our review discussion video, coming on the site and youtube shortly, if you want those), is exactly what you’ve seen in the trailers. Batman/Bruce Wayne has a reason to think that Superman is not good for earth because of all of the destruction caused by that final fight in Man Of Steel (more on that in a moment). Superman is continually doing heroic things and for some reason this pisses off Lex Luthor, who then hatches a plan to have Batman fight and kill Superman.
The issues with this story are abundant and quite problematic to the whole of the product. First, No character here has any motivations for any of their actions, outside of The Dark Knight, other than to drive the plot forward. And then there are tons of plot holes. Again, I won’t go into spoilers, but there are quite a few of them. Part of the problem is that BVS is trying to juggle too many things at once. At points it is trying to set things up for the DC Cinematic Universe. At other points it is trying to be the sequel to Man Of Steel. And almost the entire first act of the film is setting up Batman. It is trying to do three different things at once and it flubs almost all of them, the one exception being Batman. And it does come together in parts. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there’s a good movie to be had here, the finished product however is not it.
With Characters littering the screen and being the driving force for the story, then they must be good right? As I stated in my opening, it’s a little of both. Let’s not mince our words here, Batman and Bruce Wayne are the absolute BEST parts of this movie. Ben Affleck’s Batman is brutal and willing to do things that we’ve never seen any of the other Batmen(?) do. And his Bruce Wayne is a relentless, smart, and charismatic detective. He plays every scene with nuance and commits to the character in every single facet. Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor is just as compelling in my opinion. He is unsettling and creepy as all hell. He doesn’t have motivations for hating Superman, which is a strike against him, but that doesn’t stop him from being different and as fantastic as I thought he would be from the trailers. Henry Cavill is still underwhelming, with one good sequence in the entire movie, and it feels almost as if Wonder Woman was an afterthought. Gal Gadot is awesome once she becomes Wonder Woman in the final act of the film but serves no purpose than to be eye candy for the entire first two thirds of the film. The remainder of the supporting cast runs the gamut from passable to fantastic, including the reliably great Amy Adams and Scoot McNairy.
The technical aspects of the film are all pretty much the standard Zack Snyder fare. The film has a very distinctive look and feel to it. From the bombastic music to the incredibly beautiful coloring, the film just reeks of Snyder’s touches. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. If there is one thing that I think Snyder does well it’s action sequences and making gorgeous visuals. The first third or so of the movie rather boring looking but once things start taking off we get to see more and more visually stunning sequences until the third and final act when the film becomes an all out assault on the senses and even though that sounds off putting it isn’t. It’s the complete opposite. I could’ve watched that final act for forever. The action is pumped up and firey, the camera work is bright, colorful, and doesn’t miss a beat. It’s damn near perfect for what the movie tried to set up for the first two hours to horrendous effect. The only problem is absolutely atrocious CGI of Doomsday. For everything that the third act of this movie does, it is quickly eroded by the awfulness of Doomsday.
So I’ve actually said quite a lot about how good Batman V Superman is, and you may be thinking that I think the movie is pretty good. Well I haven’t really gotten to my biggest complaint about BVS and that is that it just isn’t much fun. I don’t want to compare this film to anything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because they are just two completely different things. The MCU and the DCCU(?) are just as different as the comic books that Marvel and DC produce. Neither are trying to do the same thing. However, I feel like Marvel has an entire team that just GET IT. There are serious stories that take place in that universe and the stories are quiet dire in several of their movies. BVS, like Man Of Steel before it, just takes it’s self too seriously. It goes for Shakespeare and ends up, instead, with something more akin to Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. I’m not saying that Snyder and Co need to follow Marvel’s lead, because that would just as detrimental to the films as continuing down the road that they’ve started, but someone needs to let these guys know that movies are supposed to be a form of entertainment and therefore should be wrapped up in their own self important drama.
Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice isn’t as bad as the haters will have you believe. There are some genuinely fantastic things in the movie (I can’t wait to see the stand-alone Batman and Wonder Woman films). Batman V Superman isn’t as good as the fanboys will tell you either. The story is a mess, Doomsday looks completely awful, and the entire affair really isn’t very entertaining. If you’ve made up your mind before you’ve even seen the film then it won’t do much to change your opinion probably, but if you can go in open minded you may just enjoy the little things and be as hopeful as I am for what’s forth coming.
Rating: 5.1/10
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