Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - Written Review
***CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS***
So, here we are. This movie has
finally been released. Despite originally being planned for a 2001 release, and
at another a 2010 release, and then a 2015 release, Warner Bros have finally
released Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice - the second instalment of their planned DC Extended Universe. Batman v Superman is not only the sequel
to Man of Steel but also the reboot
of Batman and the prequel to both next year's Wonder Woman movie and Justice
League: Part One, not to mention setting up The Flash movie, Aquaman
and Cyborg. I think you can gather
that this film has a lot on its plate. Does it deliver though?
Well, that's a difficult
question to answer. The film presented here is one that is trying desperately
to be the launch-pad for a new shared movie universe, but also fix the mistakes
of Man of Steel, and try to be a good
standalone movie and it simply can't be all of these things.
I can imagine that there are
some people who will absolutely hate this movie, and I can imagine that some
will love it to pieces, but personally I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm not sure if
I can call it a truly great film.
Batman v Superman is
set 18 months after the events of Man of
Steel, and the whole world is completely divided on whether or not to trust
Superman. Despite his best efforts, Superman has become a figure of controversy
across the whole planet, leading to a hearing lead by Senator Finch into his
actions. Billionaire Bruce Wayne is one of those who does not trust Superman,
especially after his responsibility for the destruction of Metropolis, and vows
to find a way to stop the man of steel before he destroys the planet. As events
grow ever more tense between the world and Superman, Bruce discovers ties to
Lex Luthor - eventually pitting the dark knight up against the man of steel in
a fight to the death.
Put simply, Ben Affleck is
pitch-perfect as Bruce Wayne. Not only does Affleck capture the personality of
Bruce, but he looks amazing in the Batman costume as well. When Batman appears on screen, he looks like
he's walked straight out of a comic book or a cartoon, and his action sequences
are some of the best moments in the film. Batman is pretty brutal in some
scenes, and you can see why the Director's Cut is a 15. Most of his attacks
play out more as they would in a horror movie than in a superhero movie, and
anyone who's still bitter about Ben Affleck playing the dark knight is pretty
much guaranteed to be proven wrong. The new batmobile and batwing look awesome,
and Jeremy Irons makes for a pretty good Alfred. To be honest, the Batman stuff
in this film is some of the best Batman I have ever seen on film, and I cannot
wait to see Affleck's potential solo movie.
As for Superman, however, he is
oddly enough barely present in a movie that bases its entire plot around him. I
had hoped we'd see a more fully-formed Superman in this film, but all of his
interesting character moments seem to have been left on the cutting room floor.
Don't get me wrong, this film has much more of a definite idea of Superman's
ideologies and his life outside of being the man of steel, but Clark Kent just
never got enough screen time to make a presence. Which, given the ending of
this movie, is pretty baffling. The film has so much to say about Superman as
an icon, as a hero...but as a character it has very little. I understand that
there isn't a huge amount you can do with a character like Superman anyway, but
you'd think that Clark Kent would be a stronger character in his own movie sequel.
Oddly enough, Lois Lane seems
to have more character and screen-time than Superman, even if she appears when
there's trouble only because...well, she's Lois Lane. The rather contrived
nature of Lois being a part of the third act in Man of Steel is repeated here in Dawn of Justice and there is an incredibly dumb moment in the film
that feels like it's only present to rack up the tension further. Amy Adams is
good here, and her interactions with Henry Cavill as Clark really does make me
believe the romantic interest between the two.
But damn it was Laurence
Fishburne awesome as Perry White! While I think that Fishburne did a great job
in Man of Steel, his personality
seemed to be ditched after his first scene so he could tell the audience about
how important Superman is. In this movie though, he has some fantastic moments
with Clark, Lois and the other folks at the Daily Planet that just brings so
much life to his character.
And then we have Jesse
Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. He is pretty much the marmite character of the piece.
Some have absolutely despised Eisenberg's Luthor, but honestly I think he
struck the right balance between being a complete nut-case and a manipulative
and contemplative mental match for Superman. Some of the horrible things he
does in this movie really make you detest his character, and oddly enough the
"crazy quirks" Eisenberg employs actually work. This being said
though, I can understand some people hating him in this film. Although, if he's
the villain I guess you should technically hate him anyway... Point being that
despite my reservations, I liked Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. He wasn't too
annoying and actually has an interesting dramatic presence in the film.
Luthor's big scene with Batman brilliantly summarises his power of brain over brawn.
And dammit was Gal Gadot
awesome as Wonder Woman!
Oddly enough the characters in
this movie really clicked for me - with the notable exception of Superman - and
I think that's down to Chris Terrio, who writes some truly wonderful dialogue
in this film. While he's clearly not quite clicked how to juggle the
three-hundred-and-one plot threads this film has going, there are some truly
terrific scenes at the Daily Planet and in the Bat-cave.
Structually though, this movie
is a mess. There is a huge chunk of the movie that is just there to set up the
plot, where very little happens. In fact, the movie creates a whole new
Superman incident that almost replaces the battle in Metropolis from the last
movie as the reason for the US Government's concern about Superman. Wait, so
Superman being semi-responsible for the destruction of almost an entire city is
perfectly fine, but him beating up one guy - yes, one guy - in Africa calls for
a hearing? Before all this though we do get a truly brilliant opening sequence,
showing flashbacks of Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered, Bruce discovering
the Bat-cave and then Bruce trying desperately to save the people in Wayne
Tower in Metropolis. Not only is this the most visually striking section of the
movie but it is also the most engaging, setting up Bruce as a character before
we get to see his Batman. The soundtrack complements each moment perfectly and
it's clear that Zack Snyder is a fantastic visual story-teller in these scenes.
However, it feels like a major
misstep for Alfred to not be clearly seen in at least one of these scenes
(preferably the funeral scene), and later on in the movie we find Wayne Manor
burned down. Um...what happened there? I understand that this is a Batman with
a lot of history to him, but this doesn't exactly require a 300 page monologue
explaining all of this. Heck, we don't even get any flashbacks of Bruce's early
days as Batman, making me wonder why on Earth Warner Bros didn't make a solo
Batman prequel after Man of Steel to
set-up this movie.
What's even more baffling is
that Lex Luthor - the villain of the entire movie and potentially this entire
franchise - doesn't get an actual introduction. Seriously, could we not have
had at least one line - maybe in a news report - about how this guy is a
billionaire philanthropist and made his money through technology or something?
This screenplay has some
fundamental errors, and I'm seriously wondering if the improvements I mentioned
above don't exist in the Director's Cut. If so, there is no reason to keep them
out of the theatrical release. There is so much else that could be cut from the
movie - including one scene with Jonathan Kent - that it just baffles me as to
why some incredibly important things just aren't in the movie.
What's most bizarre about the
screenplay though is just how contrived some of the major plot points are. Lex
Luthor creates Doomsday because he wants to kill Superman, but at the point in
the movie when Luthor starts creating Doomsday, he's betting his chips on
Batman killing Superman - hence killing two birds with one stone. There is
absolutely no reason for Lex to create Doomsday before Batman doesn't kill
Superman. Doomsday as the movie's 'big bad' has pretty much no dramatic
presence to him, and looks like a giant CGI mess designed by Weta to fight
Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Why does Doomsday just automatically try to
kill Superman? Isn't Doomsday in part a creation of the Kryptonians? The movie
fails to address exactly what Doomsday is other than a "Kryptonian
abomination", gives it no dramatic presence and the character only serves
to follow a comic book storyline to make the movie seem much more dramatic and
different, but just kills any chances of Doomsday making a presence on this movie
or its sequels. When Zack Snyder said he was setting up Doomsday for the
Justice League movie, I assumed that that meant that Doomsday was just going to
have one big fight and run off to set up the next chronological movie. But no.
Doomsday is just there for one big fight as the big monster for the Trinity to
fight and that's it. Bravo, Snyder and co, it was really worth bringing him in.
In fact, the Justice League
set-up is terrible. It's so in-your-face and poorly-handled that I'm seriously
wondering how an average movie-goer is going to cope with Batman v Superman.
While Wonder Woman's presence makes for an interesting foil for Batman, she
just seems to be there to advertise her solo movie coming next year. But as for
the Aquaman cameo...holy moly is that scene badly-handled. It's just awkward to
watch Jason Mamoa stare at the camera and then give it a poke with his trident.
It's not even a background cameo or anything - the camera zooms in on this
footage. Not only could I not believe that Mamoa could breathe under water but
I felt no desire to watch the Aquaman movie that his cameo is designed to sell.
Cyborg's cameo is actually quite interesting but is definitely shoehorned into
the film, and Flash's two cameos stood out with just how underwhelming the
effect is. Seriously, how did a $250 + million movie provide a worse
super-speed effect that the Flash TV show?
I'm 1, 889 words into this
review and I am just struggling to comprehend some of these script errors. As
much as some of the dialogue is great, the structure of this film and the way
it handles the kazillion plot threads is just apalling.
After all of that bashing
though, let's talk about some good stuff with the screenplay. Bruce Wayne's arc
in this movie is - believe it or not - really well-handled. Bruce starts off as
a bitter and violent vigilante with a vendetta against Superman, so much so
that when Lex Luthor starts framing Superman for murder, he just all-out
decides to kill the man of steel. He finds the Kryptonite knowing what it is
capable of, and when Superman tries to talk to him, Bruce is so blinded by his
anger that he just straight up starts shooting at Superman. The two heroes' big
fight is so spectacularly one-sided that even if you're a fan of Batman, you
are forced to root for Superman as Batman almost completely destroys him. In
fact, Bruce is just about to flat-out murder a weakened Superman with a
kryptonite spear when the only thing that stops him is Superman saying
"Martha".
Now, this is a really
interesting moment. While most seem to have just taken it as Batman going
"hey Superman, my mum and your adopted mum have the same name!", this
barely crossed my mind in the film, mostly due to the editing. Bruce's father's
dying word in the flashback is "Martha", a word that is etched in Bruce's
mind from the night his entire life changed. It's at this moment when Bruce
realizes that he has become almost as bad as the person who murdered his
parents, and therefore physically can't kill Superman.
Bruce then actually steps back
and listens to Superman, realizing his mistake and saves Clark's adopted
mother, almost apologising to Superman - whom he now realizes was the hero all
along. Henceforth, Martha Kent is saved and Batman teams up with Superman to
confront Doomsday, save the world and actually become a hero. For most of this
movie, Batman has been walking the fine line between vigilante and criminal,
but at this moment the dark knight decides to become a hero. Then, the Doomsday
fight ensues, Superman dies and Bruce asks Wonder Woman to help him find other
meta-humans like her to form a team and prevent disasters like Doomsday's
attack from ever happening. By the end of the movie, Bruce accepts that
Superman was the real hero all along, and hopes to continue his legacy, hence
his line "I failed him in life, I won't fail him in death".
As for the rest of the
production, Zack Snyder's direction is pretty good. I think that the action
sequences are handled much more competently in this movie than in its
predecessor, and the destruction more controlled, but I can't say that Snyder
would be missed if he wasn't to return for Justice
League: Part 1. His direction isn't bad, but it's clear that he operates
under a "you know what would be cool" method of making his films. Had
the screenplay been tighter though, I wouldn't hold this against the movie
much.
The costumes, however, look
amazing. When Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman come together for the final
fight, they all look like they've jumped off the pages of a comic book. Hans
Zimmer and Junkie XL's score is pretty good, the visual FX are mostly good and
the overall production quality of this movie showcases its $250 million budget.
Overall though, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a
film that simply doesn't quite work. There is so much set-up for the next
movies that Dawn of Justice fails to
work as a standalone sequel to Man of
Steel. There are dream sequences and time travel ideas that won't make any
sense until explained presumably in the sequel, and Wonder Woman seems to be
biding her time for her own movie next year. Superman has surprisingly very
little presence in a movie that practically revolves around him, with Lois Lane
seeming to have more screen time but little relevance in the actual plot.
Ben Affleck shines as the new
Batman, however, with almost every single one of his scenes being the
highlights of the movie. This is a much more brutal and violent Batman than
what we've seen before, but I can't deny that it really works well. I think
that had Batman v Superman done
something akin to Daredevil: season 2
with Batman as the antagonist but Superman being the main focus of the movie,
this could have been much better. I can't deny though that I am pretty excited
for a new Batman solo film, and Jeremy Iron's Alfred gets some of the best
lines in the movie.
Lex Luthor is the most marmite
villain ever, but Doomsday is quite possibly the worst super-villain in a
superhero movie to date, with practically no explanation revolving around what
he is, what he wants and what the actual point of him is. The Flash, Aquaman
and Cyborg cameos feel forced into the movie merely to sell the future sequels
Warner Bros supposedly have in the pipeline and I can't help but feel that the
creative side of the film has been drowned out by the business side.
Despite all of its problems
though, I can't say I hate Batman v
Superman. This is the definition of a mixed bag. There are some truly great
moments in this film, and some truly dumb moments. Maybe the planned Director's
Cut will sort out some of my issues with the film, but this film is unnecessarily
cluttered and poorly-structured. This isn't like Age of Ultron where there are a hundred and one things going on but
is still a really awesome movie, this has a hundred and two things going on and
a screenplay not strong enough to justify this.
I give Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice a 5/10.
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