After the
conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s iconic Dark Knight trilogy, I felt it was
time for Batman to retire from the movies for a while, but I was also open to
the possibilities of new theatrical ventures with the capped crusader. Then
with the rise of Marvels cinematic universe, Warner Brothers aimed to launch
their own universe themed around the heroes of the DC comics. It wasn’t long
before Batman made his return to the big screen in the 2016 movie “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice”.
Now while this film can be sited as a launching pad for Batman’s new film
series set in the DC cinematic universe, it’s also a sequel to the 2013 movie “Man of Steel”. In many ways it’s also a
theatrical teaser trailer for a new “Justice
League” movie, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The point is, this is
going to be very different from all the other Batman movies, and thus I’ll be
reviewing it a little differently. I’ll start by saying that I had no real interest
in the new DC cinematic universe, and truthfully, I still haven’t even seen the
2013 movie "Man of Steel". That’s not to say I have any animosity for DC, but we have
so many superhero movies as it is, and another cinematic universe just seemed
like too much to swallow. Maybe in twenty years, it would have been a great
time to launch this franchise, but I personally think it was too soon. However,
the first live action Batman crossover with Superman was genuinely tempting,
and I just couldn’t pass it up.
The movie kicks off on a high note with
an opening credit sequence that’s paired with two flashbacks, the death of
Bruce Wayne’s parents, and him as a boy discovering the bat cave. While it’s
exhausting for us fans to see these same flashbacks on film again, they were
undeniably shot and scored beautifully, and I loved that they were intertwined
with the opening credits. Seriously, a Batman movie with an opening credit
sequence is a special treat I thought I’d never have the privilege of seeing
again. Then we get a recap of the climax from “Man of Steel”, in which Superman battled an alien invasion in the
city. The difference this time is that it’s shown from the point of view of
Bruce Wayne, who’s on the ground and trying to help as many people as he can
amidst all the destruction. This scene was outstanding, and honestly, it’s my
favorite individual scene in the movie. I loved seeing a massive city invasion
from the point of view of the ground people, and it highlighted Bruce Wayne the
man as a hero, just charging into danger in an effort to protect and save
whoever he finds. We also see that do to Superman’s negligence during this
battle, many innocent people were either killed or severely injured, and now
Bruce Wayne see’s the man of steel as a threat that needs to be taken care of.
At this point, I was viewing "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" as a perfect five-star
movie. These opening 15 minuets were just gold, and I was very excited to see
what was going to happen next. Then the actual plot kicks in … and it’s a slow
decline from there.
Superman is framed for killing people
on the other side of the world, and it leads to political unrest and tension as
everyone is debating if Superman is either a hero or a danger to mankind. While
Superman’s love interest Lois Lane is hard on the
case to prove his innocence, Batman is convinced that Superman is a threat that
needs to be destroyed. By contrast, Superman views Batman as a dangerous
vigilante that’s doing more harm then good. Enter the villain Lex Luthor, who
through the power of unexplained plot conveniences, takes note of the feud
building between the two, and stages certain events that would lead to these
two titans fighting to the death. If that doesn’t work, he also has a backup plan
to create a doomsday monster to kill our hero’s. Beyond that, Lex Luthor’s
motivations are left surprisingly vague, as are several plot details in this
film. It’s as if a deep political story and intriguing character arcs are all buried
under a generic and meandering comic book plot. Seriously, this film is trying
to be so many things at once, and just feels so empty and lifeless as a result.
The pacing is inconsistent, the story is all over the place and it just feels
like a mess. There is thankfully an extended cut of the film called the “Ultimate Edition”, which definitely
streamlines this movie in a more coherent manner, but weather or not it can
pass as “good” is still up for debate.
Let’s first look at Batman, as he was one
of the most divisive elements of the film for me. This is arguably the darkest,
and most dangerous Batman we’ve ever seen in a movie thus far. He has no moral code, he kills people without
mercy or regret, his methods of fighting are intensely brutal and he even
brands his victims, which we later learn is an invitation for other prisoners
to kill the guy. In short, this version of Batman isn’t a “hero”, he’s just
really messed up. Now I’m all for a different interpretation of Batman, but I
feel this approach robs the character of his greatest strengths. Personally, I
always saw Batman as a guy so skillful, he could take out a room full of
criminals through stealth tactics, and not brut force. Also, seeing Batman use
a gun felt very off putting, not just because of the moral implications, but
because Batman was always skillful enough to take out his enemies without using
something as basic as a fire arm. I also didn’t care for the design of the
costume, as it just felt very plain and generic. Having said all that, Ben
Affleck surpassed my wildest expectations in the role, not so much as Batman,
but his Bruce Wayne was outstanding. It’s hard to describe, but Ben Affleck
brought so much wait, grit and even a charm to Bruce Wayne. I actually think
this is the very first time I was more engaged by Bruce Wayne’s presence then
Batman’s.
Jeremy Irons was also extremely charismatic as
the butler Alfred. He came off less like a father figure, and more like a close
friend stuck in a bad place. Out of respect for his master, he’ll keep all his
depression buried under a lair of dry sarcasm. Both Alfred and Bruce actually
share some witty banter, which I really loved. Unfortunately, a big issue I had
with Batman in this film was just how inconsistent his present-day story is. The
people of Gotham seem to view him as this terrifying and mysterious figure, and
the press don’t even refer to him as “Batman”, he’s just “the bat vigilante of
Gotham”. This gave me the impression that Batman was in his early years of
crime fighting, but upon further viewing we discover that this is a war-torn
Batman who’s been at it for at least 20 years. There’s even a beaten-up Robin
costume in the bat cave covered in Joker graffiti, which means he’s even had a
lengthy time with a side kick already. So, why then is the public treating him
like something new? There’s even more inconsistencies to this characters set up,
which is especially noticeable in his introduction scene. A swat team walk in
on Batman doing his work and immediately open fire on the guy. This suggests that
he’s not yet allied with the police force, yet for some reason the city already
has a Bat signal that’s used to contact him … so what the heck? The writers really
just needed to sit down and decide if this was a Batman origin story or an
aged Batman returning story.
Now let’s put Batman aside for a moment and
look at Superman. In general, I’ve truthfully never been a fan of Superman, but
that isn’t to say I don’t respect his status as a cultural icon. He’s
rightfully earned his reputation as arguably the most iconic superhero of all
time, but he’s just never given me anything that I’ve been able to build a fan
base around. For my personal tastes, his movies, even when at their best have
never surpassed “okay”. I did like the 90’s animated Superman TV series, but
even that’s never really stuck with me over the years as a personal favorite.
More to the point, even for a non-Superman fan, something felt very off-putting
about this portrayal of the character. Henry Cavill seems like a good choice to
play Superman, but the performance, or perhaps I should say direction, just
feels like another Batman that’s dressed up in Superman’s costume. Seriously,
there is nothing optimistic about this guy at all, and he spends the majority
of the film just brooding his way from one scene to the next. I don’t even know
what Superman’s goal is in this film, he’s just there, while other characters
debate and discuss him. I actually felt that Lois Lane was playing a more
active part, as she was at least trying to accomplish something. Also, I have
to give credit to Amy Adams for giving a consistently engaging performance,
even though her character wasn’t written as anyone particularly interesting.
Another big issue with this film was a
noticeable lack of villains. In fact, this might just be the very first Batman
movie to feature no villains from his Rouges gallery. All we have is this
movies really odd portrayal of Lex Luthor, and his vague motivations. I’ll give
Jesse Eisenberg some credit, he’s at least committed to the role, he’s trying
to make this something unique and maybe even menacing in his own way, but the
result was far more annoying then intimidating. I will say that the supporting
players are all good, we have some “Walking
Dead” alumni in select parts, as well as recognizable Matrix cast members,
including Laurence Fishburne, and he always delivers. Speaking of smaller game players,
the most annoying aspect of the film is when it teases to the Justice League.
It’s all blatant set-up for another film, it has nothing to do with the story,
and seeing all the big hero’s like Aqueman, Cyborg and the Flash introduced
through an electronic email presentation was just embracing. Now having said
all that, the introduction of Wonder Woman played by Gal Gadot was absolutely
my favorite part of the whole movie. Granted she isn’t even in the film for
very long, nor is she written into the film very well, but still she absolutely
thrilled me whenever she was on screen. Gal Gadot shined in the role, she had
terrific chemistry with Bruce Wayne, and it was just plain awesome to see
Wonder Woman fighting for the first time in a live action movie. Also, her
theme song was freaking amazing! It’s actually kind of ironic that neither Batman
nor Superman have any stand out music tracks in this movie, yet Wonder Woman
has a score that left me exhilarated.
Let’s talk about director Zack Snyder and
his vision for this film. This is a guy who’s resume consists of directing
movies adapted from graphic novels like “300”
and “Watchman”, as well as other
comics translated into the early DC cinematic movies. Needless to say, he has a
distinct style and approach to visually bringing comic books to life on screen.
In the case of “Batman V Superman: Dawn
of Justice”, it probably has some of the most absorbing comic book imagery
of any theatrical Batman movie. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the color scheme at
all, as it was dark in the most boring and joyless way. There’s a real emphasis on dirty grays, ugly greens and it's just very unpleasant to look at. I should
also note that Snyder has an eye for recreating classic stills from the comics
and graphic novels. In the case of this film he visually recreates several
iconic images from "The Dark Knight Returns". This is theoretically an inspiring
direction for the film, but unlike the aforementioned “Watchman”, “Batman V
Superman: Dawn of Justice” is only based on the comics and not a direct
adaption the novel “The Dark Knight
Returns”. Because of this, some of the recreated imagery are only there for
fan serves and have no real barring on the story.
Truthfully, I think Snyder got so excited
to visually recreate his favorite comic book moments that he forgot to give
them any meaning or purpose. For example, this movie recreates the famous dream
sequence in which Bruce Wayne is attacked by a giant bat monster, but it’s done
without any of the build-up or subtext that was conveyed so effectively in the graphic
novel. Also, Snyder’s visual style doesn’t always match with the films tone,
which is trying to feel down to earth like Christopher Nolan’s previous Dark
Knight trilogy. That’s not to say a film of this sort can’t do both, but
there’s really no segue between the two styles. At one moment we’ll be seeing deep
real-world debates, immediately followed by these really bizarre and overly
stylized dream sequences, some of which are real dreams and others are
supposedly happening. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve wanted to see
artsy dream sequences in a live action Batman movie for years, but they just
weren’t handled that well, and most of them just felt like teaser trailers for
potential movies like “The Flashpoint
Paradox”.
Another thing this film could have
benefited from was more of a balance between the action sequences and
everything else. Seriously, the first two hours of this movie just meander on
and on with very little excitement, and then the last hour is like a four-part
climax in which all the spectacle is back to back and it just feels exhausting.
If the filmmakers somehow organized the scenes around a little, I think we
would have had a more engaging film. Now despite my criticisms of Batman’s
violent nature, I’d also be lying if id didn’t find his action scenes to be
deeply thrilling to watch. There’s a riveting car chase with the new Batmobile
on the dry docks, and it’s unmistakably a feast for these eyes, with machine
guns, and epic crashes. Both the new Batmobile and the new Batwing admittedly look
more like robotic weapons from the future setting of the “Terminator” movies, but I’ll take them. Oh yes, let’s talk about
that unforgettable warehouse battle. Again, just putting aside the ethics of
the character, this has got to be one of Batman’s greatest stand out action set
pieces of the whole franchise. It’s relentlessly fast paced, with brutal hand
to hand combat and Batman pulling off incredible stunts. My only problem once
again is that it’s sandwiched in-between all the other action mayhem of the third
act, and I wish it could have stood apart during all the talky scenes of
earlier.
Lets finally talk about the big showdown
between Batman and Superman, which was marked as the big action highlight of
the film. Unmistakably, a lot of us fans have been waiting to see this battle
dune in live action and on the big screen for years. This was it, the classic
showdown between two of the biggest titans in comic book history, but
personally … I was very disappointed with the outcome. First of all, for a
movie that’s literally titled “Batman
Versus Superman”, this should have been the films big finale, but for some
reason it’s only part one of this obnoxiously long 4-part climax. Even on its
own it still doesn’t work as either an exciting spectacle or as an emotionally
driven fight between two hero’s. Everything about this battle just felt so
empty, lifeless, and surprisingly dull. It’s set in this ugly abandoned
building, and their methods of fighting don’t even come close to complementing
their individual strengths. Most of the fight is spent with Superman blindly
walking into mechanical traps, and then Batman just tosses him around like a
rag doll. Superman also has numerous opportunities to explain the situation to
Batman, but he just keeps on fighting.
Then there’s the whole realization that
both heroes have mothers with the same name, which snaps them out of their fight.
Obviously, this was supposed to be the moment for Batman to realize the
humanity of Superman, but it just isn’t handled very well. First of all, if
Superman’s mother was named Lucy or any other name, Batman would have proceeded
to kill him on the spot. Second and most important of all is that they don’t
stop fighting because they learned anything about each other or that they were
wrong about one another, it was just a big, on the noise coincidence, and now suddenly
their both best friends. Now things do get good again once they both calm down
and work together. Realizing he has to contend with two superheroes now, Lex Luthor
moves on to his second phase, which is unleashes a giant cave troll monster on
the city. Both Batman and Superman are soon aided by Wonder Woman, who all lead
the beast to the abandoned Wearhouse district to make a final stand. I’ll
admit, seeing Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman on screen together for the very
first time, and fighting in this big epic showdown is any comic book fans dream
come true. Granted, this fight has nothing to do with anything that came before
hand, and the monster is also kind of stupid looking, but I’m not going to
pretend like I didn’t have a blast watching this battle go down. I loved seeing
Wonder Woman use her lasso, and it was really cool to see Superman punch the
creature into outer space. The only thing I didn’t like was Superman’s supposed death, which
was annoying because even without the knowledge of the upcoming “Justice League” film, I knew he wasn’t really dead for good.
Upon its release, this film was absolutely
slammed by critics, while the fans just seem to view it as “okay”. That’s
mostly how I feel about the film, but it’s also very sad to think that the first
live action crossover between Batman and Superman couldn’t surpass “okay”. Honestly,
it felt like at least nine different movie scripts were all thrown together
into one film, and that’s my biggest issue with the movie. For as stupid as 1997’s
“Batman and Robin” got, it was at
least consistent with its own identity. “Batman
V Superman: Dawn of Justice” has no identity of it’s own and is just an
obvious, desperate attempt from Warner Brothers to ketchup with Marvels cinematic
universe. It crammed multiple film projects into one, without taking the time
to make this a good movie on its own first. Now as a long time Batman fan, I’ve
still yet to see a theatrical movie that I legitimately hatted, and for all its
obvious problems, I certainly didn’t hate “Batman
V Superman: Dawn of Justice”. It’s probably my least favorite of the Batman
movies, but I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, as it certainly had some highlights
and powerhouse moments. I realize my feelings for this film have been all over
the place, but that’s what the film is like in a nut-shell. Maybe now that the
DC Cinematic universe has its foot in the door, it can calm down and make
better stand-alone films. I’m actually kind of interested to see where this new
Batman series will go next, and I’m especially excited to see Ben Affleck
resume his title role as the current Dark Knight.
I give “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” 2
stars out of 5. Now that I've talked about one of the more recent movies, lets go way back to what it technically the very first film in the franchise, "Batman: The Movie" is next.
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