Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice Film Review

Okay, so it’s come down to this.  I feel that we are so far removed from the initial theatrical release of the film that I can actually talk about it without fear of spoiling it for anyone.  If you still haven’t seen it, buy or rent “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and watch it before you keep reading.  You’ve been warned.

Also, we’re going to cover the theatrical version of the film here today, because that is what is going to be determined by many as cannon for the film franchise.

But like our titular heroes I’m not tackling this alone.  I’m pulling assistance from William Dilbeck, who, despite my insistence has staunchly refused to start his own blog, likely because he has better things to do with his time.  At least so he says.

So let’s talk about Ben Affleck as Batman, which kicking off had to be the most (later second most) controversial thing in the movie.  Will?

“He’s a decent Batman.  Better than bale in some respects.  He’s more believable as Bruce, but his story line was better, and that’s not Bale’s fault.”

This is true.  Ben Affleck had a lot more creative influence when it came to his interpretation of Bruce Wayne/Batman than Bale likely ever did.  Through his working relationship with Zack Snyder he was allowed to give Bruce more depth and a wider range of emotions.  I think it’s also important to note this was meant to be Bruce 20 years into being Batman, while the total time in the suit that Bale’s Batman had was about 11, maybe 12, nearly twice as much time.  Further, this Batman never gave up the role so he comes across as more driven than the previous incarnation.

Next up is the MOST controversial role in the film, Jessie Eisenberg’s unapologetic portrayal of Lex Luthor.  Serious he has not apologized for this performance, and I for one won’t ask him to.  Eisenberg was compared by a lot of people to the Joker, in that his mannerisms seemed overly silly and his motivation didn’t make any sense.  At least if you don’t put certain elements into context.  Again, this is strictly from the theatrical cut.  Admittedly the performance was hard to swallow.  Will said “I didn’t like 40% of him.” This is fair, considering we’ve got over a dozen other actors who’ve portrayed the same character over the years to compare him to.  Yet one cannot escape that there has never been a portrayal like this.  While Gene Hackman’s Lex may bleed over into Kevin Spacy’s incarnation and there into Michael Rosenbaum’s, nobody played Lex like Jessie.  Also, if you consider Jessie’s body of work, could you imagine him trying to play that character, the cold, calculating business man?  He played Lex the mad scientist, which is something they’ve pulled away from over the last few decades up to the point that the character trait is more incidental than defining.  He brought it back in full force, and you can see his manipulation throughout the entire film.  He actually is the smartest person in the room when you think about it.

Mad Max, starring Batman?

 

Then there his motivation, which many have described to be completely non-existent, but it’s actually right there in the movie, if you are paying attention.  Remember that dream sequence Bruce Wayne had about Superman in the desert?  The one with the “Omega” symbol burned into the ground and parademons flying around?  The symbol and the parademons have nothing to do with Superman, and by proxy there should be no reason Bruce would have them in his mind.  If the nightmare is Bruce’s own psychosis playing on his own fears of Superman, then shouldn’t the burned mark in the ground been the Superman symbol?  Shouldn’t those have been modified human soldiers or Kryptonians flying around?  Yet there we have everything that reaches back to Darkseid and his crew.  The dream, if you think about it, wasn’t from Bruce’s mind, but rather it was sent to Bruce’s mind.  And Lex had a similar dream.

If you consider the dream to be ramping up Batman’s fear and hatred of Superman, then if Lex had a similar dream, then you can draw the reasonable conclusion that he’s being ramped up to by an outside force.  In his final scene, Lex even alludes to being manipulated by forces “beyond the stars”.  They couldn’t quite bend Bruce, but they broke Lex.

Again, that’s all in the theatrical cut, but it was ignored due to Eisenberg’s performance.

They understood that I was bat-crap crazy, but never why...

 

Superman was a different ball game all together and, probably the shortest changed.  It’s been long said that Superman is difficult to write and that shows here because he becomes an incidental character in his own sequel.  Set less than 2 years after Man of Steel, even though the film was released 3 years later, they talk about “Superman’s impact” on the world, but they don’t show it until AFTER they talk about it.  If they played it logically they would have had the sequence where Superman is going around saving the day across the globe, and then follow it with news footage of the fallout from it, then talk about whether or not he’s doing any good here.  I know that in the extended version they have Lex manipulating events to make Superman look bad, but they really don’t need to.  I thought the way it played out made sense in the context of the film.  Superman’s presence, even if it was just to save Lois (here I go again) Lane could be seen as an act of U.S. military aggression.  He’s an American superhero and during his debut worked extensively with the U.S. military to halt the Kryptonian invasion.  But since they never talk about that part in the film, it’s hard to draw that conclusion.  Which this is part of the problem with the portrayal of Superman in the film, you don’t feel his real impact on the world.  You don’t get this sense of how he’s this major hero to a lot of people.  They talk about it, but they don’t really show it, at least not for Metropolis where his memorial is supposed to take place.  Instead they kill of Superman using the “Death of Superman” concept but it doesn’t feel like they earned it.  They didn’t earn the right to kill Superman in his second movie.  Had there been a film in between which showcased his selflessness in fighting for earth, maybe we could push the death a little easier, but when you give the second named character in the title minimal screen time, you haven’t earned that right.

Going back to motivation really quick, Batman’s chief argument is that Superman doesn’t consider the collateral damage to his actions.  Which is a hypocritical argument coming from a guy who killed a truck driver, blew up hundreds of thousands of dollars of property, and mercilessly obliterated a dozen henchmen, all to steal an element that would help him eventually kill Superman?  Of course Superman stopped him and tore up the batmobile, he was on a rampage through the city.  Who knows who else would have died because he wanted to “defend the world” from Superman.

On the flip side of that, Superman doesn’t seem to care that much about collateral damage.  Take that sequence where he saves Lois in Africa.  He flies over two dozen dead bodies, and doesn’t wonder what happened.  Not to mention the guy holding the gun to Lois’ head.  Sorry you can go through two walls why being propelled by a battering ram and survive.  Maybe if he’d spared that one guy he could have gotten to the bottom of why all these guys are dead.  The scene at the hearing where the bomb in Lex’s wheelchair blows up, he later complains that he didn’t know if he just didn’t see it, or if he didn’t look for it.  That’s a fair question Clark because you know you are hated and bombings in government buildings happen a lot.  So…you didn’t look for it because for just a moment you didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Your argument is invalid

 

Let’s talk about something awesome…Wonder Woman.  I laugh at the haters when they found out Gail Gadot was playing Diana Prince in this film because it was all “she’s too skinny, she’s too little, she has no acting experience” then she shows up in the film, plays Bruce for a sap, does some actual detective work, and then jumps into the big monster fight at the end, and just dominates that battle field.  She made Batman look completely ineffective and Superman look like a punching bag.  She was the only one able to make a critical strike on Doomsday and restrain him.  With Wonder Woman, she didn’t talk much which made you pay attention when she did, and Gail’s facial expressions were just on point.  Plus they gave her some incredibly awesome music.  This is a Wonder Woman we’ve waited 75 years to see.

You've forgotten what your argument was

 

This might be the part where I address how Lois was either annoying, useless, or caused more problems than she helped fix…but that’s Lois Lane in the films.  I wish I could give her more credit or say that Amy Adam’s performance was amazing, but it was very “second verse, same as the first.”  Amy is a great actor, but she wasn’t given that good of a role here.

Maybe next time, Amy.

 

The cameos of Flash and Aquaman were pretty cool, though I was disappointed with the cameo of Cyborg.  I don’t know, when you had the other two actually doing something on screen, it seems kind of a letdown not to have Cyborg equally awesome.

Sonic...he can really move!

 

He's got an attitude...

So in conclusion, would I recommend this movie?  Only if you are willing to give it a shot, an honest to God chance, and you allow yourself to think about what’s going on.  If you want something to just munch popcorn to, you probably won’t have that much fun, because it’s going to ask you to think.

Do you need the Ultimate Edition?  Eh, probably not.  It doesn’t add that much to the story itself.

Part of this review was brought to you by William Dilbeck, author of the Lake Haven Chronicles, which you can find here:

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Dead-Lakehaven-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00JLPG8HE#nav-subnav

Please check it out.

Until next time…Thanks for reading.