“This is how it starts, the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness;
turns good men, cruel”. I believe Alfred (played brilliantly by Jeremy Irons)
perfectly summarizes my emotions as I saw these once beloved beacons of hope
turned into sad, depressed murderers. I felt helpless that I couldn’t do
anything about it as I treaded through the long muddled story. Now to be fair,
this movie had a very huge task to pull off. Not only did it had to introduce
Batman to the current DC Extended Universe, introduce Wonder Woman in her big
screen début and set-up Justice League, while living up to the hype of ‘Batman
vs. Superman’ that have kept fans eagerly waiting for decades. It seems that
the problem is pretty straight-forward, it tried to be too many things at once
and an off-beat direction for these heroes made everything fall flat (for me).
The story has an interesting premise though. 18
months after the events of Man of Steel, Superman is out into the world. And
with the destruction he has caused, everyone is not very happy. And that
includes Bruce Wayne, who we see driving through the debris as Superman and
General Zod fight, only to see his office building collapse before his eyes
with dozens of his employees falling to their deaths. When Wayne looks up
at the flying gods, while comforting a child who just lost her mom in the
incident, he boils with rage. This gives such a good set up for Batman’s stance
in this movie. The way it is shot is genuinely terrifying and makes us feel
emotion despite being a re-tread of the fight of the last movie. I just wish
that this kind of execution remained consistent throughout the movie.
Nevertheless, it was a mess. Very early on it
awkwardly starts to cut in between all these storylines and subplots that can
really make finding a clear narrative rather tedious and confusing, and it is
not an excuse for a ‘complex’ story. As you must have seen other reviews, I too
agree that a lot of these scenes could have been cut to make time or replaced
with scenes that more clearly forward the story (especially the Pa Kent scene).The
Justice League tie-ins also are pretty lazy and are just dumped on you all at
once, that breaks the flow of the movie right at its peak of conflict. All the
character motivations except Batman’s were pretty thin, and a lot of the time
people are left filling the blanks which causes all sorts of ambiguity that can
change how you perceive the story. It also has these wonky character arcs that
no have no sense of progression and just somehow happen. Ultimately, it’s a lot
of great ideas but the movie wasn’t able to work with them in a cohesive manner or really tell them in the best way possible. It has too many things going on and each one of them is
given equal importance (rather than appropriate importance) so that nothing can
really stand out from each other that can show you, “Yes this is what needs
your max attention.”
However, when it comes to the visuals, which is
clearly where Zack Snyder’s expertise lies, is great. I was so happy from the
trailers that I saw Snyder’s Watchmen-esque flair return to a great
degree, which I believe was sorely missed for the most of Man of Steel.
It feels so relieving to have some colour in this movie even though it gets
really muted at places. Larry Fong’s cinematography allows each shot to move
fluidly that makes those action scenes just that much better and no awkward
zoom-ins like MoS. One big advantage of having all these different heroes is
that they bring their own distinct tones with them which makes for great visual
variety and sonic variety in the soundtrack. The presentation here is awesome.
However, if one criticism has to be made on the visual side is that the CGI,
though much better than Man of Steel, still feels inconsistent at places
and the 3D ruins everything. But this movie is technically well made through
and through.
To be honest with you, I was not one of the Batfleck
haters. Sure I was surprised when it was announced but knowing from films like
Argo and his love for the character, I was pretty confident he would pull it
off. And by heavens does he make a great Batman. To quote Kevin Smith ‘This is
by far the most cinematic Batman we have seen’. I mean he looks Batman, he has
the physique of Batman and he has the presence of Batman. And that costume is
just exquisite. He portrays a great Bruce Wayne as well with a suave
playboy-ish charm while also letting us know just how much he doesn’t want to
be at those parties and is just there for the information he can gather. Anyhow,
I still think the movie did not allow Affleck to fully stretch his acting
muscles. When an on-screen Batman looks so much like the comics it leaves you
even more flabbergasted when he outright starts using machine guns and kills
people left-right-centre. And no, it’s not because I’m not willing to accept
any new interpretations of the character, and we have seen him kill before
(however it must remembered that those were more tongue and cheek than this).
But I at least want a clear justification for it. Sure it can be argued for
that the Robin suit scene or the fact he is an old embittered Batman is it, but
I still think it can be explained just a bit more concretely. Also it’s
confusing that some thugs he would kill while others he would brand. Also the
killing is just outrageous with exploding cars and Gatling guns. I would say that
instead of Batman just killing efficiently, him being excruciatingly brutal in
his action leaving thugs in agonising pain would’ve made for a much scarier
version of the character by giving thugs a living hell than a swift death. But
it’s subjective and I’m still stoked for a solo Batman flick.
On the other side of the ring, Henry Cavill isn’t given
much to play with Superman. This is surprising because he atoning for the
events of Metropolis could have made for some real moral dilemmas and a serious
commentary on the super-man. There isn’t any difference when he plays Clark
Kent and Superman and somehow has no charisma whatsoever. It is sad because I
honestly think that he is a good actor who can get to near- Christopher Reeve
levels if directed well. The Dr. Manhattan approach to Superman is a clever
concept on paper but he comes across like a victim of circumstance a bit too
much and is always avoiding people when he should’ve been actively trying to
defend his stance. Yet we got a really ignorant Superman who doesn’t want to
give a damn about humanity….until he just does at the end, somehow. Yes,
Superman shouldn’t be an unsullied symbol of hope. However, the whole point of
Superman is that he tries, no matter the odds stacked against. He is the guy
you can depend on. Sometimes he may succeed and other times fail, but he still
tries and never gives up. It’s what makes us look-up to this guy. It’s what makes him a hero.
I was pretty surprised how much I liked Lex as what
he was, even though I didn’t like him overall. At least he doesn’t have a real-estate
plan this time. And he has some good interactions with Holly Hunter’s character.
And that’s where the good stuff mostly ends for me. I wouldn’t place blame on
Jesse Eisenberg more than on the characterisation. His motivation is also
pretty confusing, again making us fill in the blanks (in a bad way). But in
this case, I would blame the poor dialogue writing, which is a culprit for a
lot of the vagueness in the movie. The fact is that we have come a long way
from ‘mad-scientist’ Luthor to a much more high-profile and infinitely more
intriguing version of him in his more White-Collar demeanour; a cool and calm
intellect that serves as his edge over Superman. This version of Lex just comes
across as more of an annoyance than a threatening ‘villain’. ‘Granny’s Peach
Tea’ was a good one though and more moments like that could have made Lex more
cunning and manipulative as we hoped he’d be.
The supporting characters are generally good here.
Among them the most prominent would be Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot was okay in it
enough for me to be curious about her solo movie. Laurence Fishburne as Perry
White was also good but the awkward editing places him at really off times
where you can’t appreciate it. Lois Lane was made into a damsel by having Supes save her so many times that it makes him look like her stalker.
They try to give her a subplot but in all honesty it seems so filler when we
could see more tense banter between Clark and Bruce. As mentioned before, I liked Jeremy Irons as Alfred. I saw more of a camaraderie between him and Bruce rather than a father-son dynamic, which is admittedly fresh.
That brings us to the actual Batman vs Superman
portion of the movie. Surprisingly there isn’t much confrontation, just 3 scenes,
one of them being a 7 min fight. I believe almost everybody expected a conflict
of ideologies. So I was disappointed to find out that it’s very much an
externally manipulated confrontation rather than self-motivated. But to be fair,
hints of it do appear, especially through Batman’s motivation. However, I don’t
think they really built up to it rather well. The only one great dialogue is
between Bruce and Clark, which we have already seen from the trailers. I really
wanted more of it. The motivation behind Superman as I said was pretty weak and
the movie also tries to ruin Batman’s as well with pretty much making him an
impulsive killer at that point. Also they went for the Kryptonite route which I
get you don’t have many options when you are fighting with Superman but since MoS
was pretty proud to have a kryptonite-free story, I was hopeful that they
would find a new twist. But they do find a new twist in the resolution of this
fight. It makes sense while being really underwhelming at the same time.
Okay so the story isn’t the best, neither are the
characters in my opinion, but is the action good at least? Yes, though there isn’t much of it. As mentioned before the main fight is 7 mins.
It’s ok but I wasn’t satisfied enough. I was looking for more choreography and
more tension ‘in-the-moment’. My favourite action scene, like most, would be
Batman in the warehouse. Well-orchestrated and at the moment I did not care
whether he killed or not because at that moment, the person on the screen, was
Batman. It was glorious. Then you have the main so- called ‘trinity’ fight with
Doomsday. The disco eyes of Doomsday were becoming a bit sensory-overload and
the shoddy development all throughout the movie did not truly invest me in this
fight. And by the time the ending came it was already running way to long and I
just wanted it to finish.
Maybe it is my fault that I had too big expectations
from this movie. However a movie called Batman v. Superman should have been
better than we what we got, regardless whether it’s for fans or not. Or maybe
it shouldn’t have been called that in the first place. I hear people say it’s
for comic book fans, and I will not claim that I have the most extensive
knowledge in comics. However, I don’t believe that merely referencing comic
book material or imagery while you ignore the core of these great characters,
true justice to the source material. And at a lot of parts it relies too much
on your prior knowledge of comics (which is probably why I missed out on so
many subtexts). It should work as a movie first. I do presume though that
ultimately all this will be a sort of ‘redemption’ arc for these heroes and
that by Justice League we will truly see our heroes in their classic forms. And
if they handle it well, it could be pretty damn great.
So do I think this is a bad movie? No, not at all,
because movies like The Last Airbender still exist. Do I think it it’s
the best thing ever? Since I appreciate classic DC and that the movie has some
general filmmaking flaws, not that much. But movies are subjective. I’m just
giving my opinion as unbiased as I can be. I’m still pretty curious for a lot
of the upcoming movies as now we can finally see what other filmmakers can
bring to this franchise. I also respect Zack Snyder and team in giving us a
very different and bold vision on the big screen. That being said, I really
want to urge the creative team behind this DCEU to have a little more faith in
their characters as they are, because I believe the Justice League are not
supposed to be brought down to our level and reflect our society too much. For
me, Justice League represents the best of what humanity can be and who we can
root for as champions of the Earth.
