Batman V. Superman Review

Giving the reins to an entire franchise to one person is a very risky thing to do. Done successfully (Peter Jackson, JJ Abrams, etc.) the franchise can be both critically acclaimed, while also being a box-office success. However, when those reins are run by an inconsistent director and a director that lacks talent; it could be disastrous. Zach Snyder has had a track record of creating over-stylized movies with no real substance. Man of Steel was panned by critics, while somewhat hitting a soft spot with the fans. This movie is no exception, as these great cinematography moments aren't ever fully appreciated with terrible screenwriting and a lot of easily fixable inconsistencies. His inability to grow in these areas has transferred over to Batman V. Superman. It's not worse than Man of Steel, which I hated, but it doesn't really do much besides shoehorn in heroes/story arcs we don't need and conflicts that are all of a sudden resolved with no explanation. These negatives towards the movie are just way too high for a man of the comics to like, or even fans of the original (Man of Steel).

Batman has had it in for Superman ever since he destroyed one of the Wayne Towers. This caused a couple of people to die in the building that he knew. He also is afraid of what Superman can do and is capable of. Superman has to deal with both Batman and society. As even society is afraid of what he's capable of. This creates conflict with Lex Luther as well, because his ideology is that Superman isn't a god but a devil. All this conflicts come together as the two heroes duke it out Gladiator system. It's at this moment that Superman seems like everyone is against him. Though a Lex Luther is cooking up something for Superman, that will be ten times more powerful than any threat Superman has come across before.

The main problem is that there's never anything to get attached to. Superman (Henry Cavil) is a wooden and a boring character. At least the character that's been created for these films. Batman is a person to get around but we don't know this kind of Batman. Especially with this Batman going around killing people left and right. His motivations are shy to us and never are shown. His well-known backstory is shown but we've already seen that in multiple adaptions. It just simply drags on and the majority of the beginning is only focused on Batman for some reason. A villain is created in Superman with the main villain in the shadows. It's obvious who the villain will actually be as Lex Lusher shows up. Batman (Ben Affleck) is the best character and it was great to see a good portion devoted to him. Though the wrong portion was and he descended into this annoying version of him. Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) is the weakest out of the bunch because he has nothing redeeming. He's an annoying crazy mess with some short of psychological decease because he's always twitching and producing creepy noises. His motivations are to kill Superman because he's a devil. Though there's never any conflict until he randomly pops up on the scene. It like the screenwriters didn’t have a reason for Luther to get mad at Superman, so they had to create this psycho version of the character to have some short of conflict. Making a villain just to be "psycho" with no context into why is the laziest writing possible. The only thing you get is that he's the "real" Lex Luther’s son. Nothing more than that.

There comes a point where comic book should expect more out of DC movies. DC movies have had a very rough past with films. They're usually bogged down by inconsistencies that ultimately plague some very great characters. The inconsistencies are ones that could be easily fixed and are created by lazy writing. The story is one big cliché version of a superhero movie. There's a threat, a conflict (Batman v Superman), and end battle. Watching the trailer would show you that. The main inconsistency is name of the title. The name of the title would suggest it's about the struggle between Batman and Superman. However, that's only ten to fifteen minutes of the fight and the fight is over something extremely dumb. Batman believes Superman should be stopped because he's fearful of Superman. That's fine and all but the movie goes on about this for a lengthy portion. The conflict between the character ends for a little bit and it’s all about societies struggle with accepting Superman. They’re fearful of him and Batman takes a short of backseat little bit. It then all of a sudden the picks up again when the capital building is bombed and Batman goes on a rampage to make Superman somewhat responsible. He transforms Lex's Kryptonite into a gas and a spear. His whole attention is to go and kill this man for doing something that's way in the beginning of the film. At this point, it doesn't really make any sense. The motivations behind it seem dull and aged.

So the fight happens without Superman's interest. He knows that he could easily defeat the man but doesn't want to. So the fight is all one sided and doesn’t really feel like a fight at all. Especially when Batman starts winning. It feels as if the tone has switched from hating Superman to hating Batman. The total switch in tone is very jagged. Batman is about to kill Superman when Louis steps in to tell Batman that both of their mothers have the same name. Fight over. That's it. This man was about to kill the God and stops because the names of their mothers are the same. Very strange and out of place. This leads to Doomsday and his lack of introduction. He's somehow created in the ship that Zod was using in the first film, in a government controlled facility, in a vat of goop, and from Zod's DNA. Lex creates it with no explanation. His powers are also never fully explained and it seems like he can pretty much do everything. He has electric powers, can shoot lasers out of his eyes, can grow back his limbs, etc. He doesn't even take advantage of those said powers that can just automatically charge with no source of energy. Superhero movies will do this thing from time to time and it's lazy writing. They can’t explain where the powers come from, so they don't. Lazy and very annoying.

Snyder seemed to not have learned again from his mistakes of the ending of MOS. Another fight begins with even more destruction than Metropolis in MOS. The fight is pleasing to look at but has no substance besides that this creature needs to be stopped. The fight also just drags on and on with things getting destroyed with CGI, things getting blowing up with CGI, characters in CGI, characters motions in CGI, etc. Just one big CGI cluttered mess.

BvS is an awesome premise given to a guy that's all about action sequences and lacks in everything else. His lack of character development in the film is so blatant and disconnects from the characters. The film is too cluttered with multiple story arcs being created and expanded on at the same time. It becomes a cluttered mess with a Justice League tie in as well. A Batman movie before this one would have cut down on this and there was no need for a Justice League tie in. Somehow Lex Luther is connected to it all and Darkseid is hinted at with no explanation. What audiences came to see, is only slightly in the movie for less than ten minutes. You add in the cliché, the overblown back stories, the overlong/CGI filled fight sequences, cluttered story arcs, missing explanations, inconsistencies, etc....it starts to feel like overwhelming

Overall, BVS doesn't even accomplish what it was set out to do. Its main focus should have been a disconnect between Batman ideologies and Superman ideologies. Superman should have been mad at Batman as much as Batman was mad at him. Doomsday wasn't needed and just dragged on the film. This could be true with the overlong backstory of Batman as well. Jesse and Henry aren't the right picks for their roles and the best thing about this movie is Batman. This cluttered mess doesn't take any strives to approve on its predecessor and only really slightly does. The only reason MOS was worse is because at least BVS had some good characters (Batman) and some good moments (Batman’s fight scenes). This movie will should only connect with fans that can turn a blind eye to these negatives.

I would say go see it if you're dying to see it. Those on the edge should just wait for the rated R cut and stay home.

4/10

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BvS 4/10

Man of Steel 3/10