Batman v Superman - Review

**Spoilers Ahead**

6/10

This film deserves all the criticism and all the praise it's getting. How can it deserve both? In its two hours and thirty-three minutes of run time, the film manages to accomplish a lot of things, retells Batman/Bruce Wayne's origin story (did we need that for the third time?), introduces Wonder Woman, subtly as well as The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg in a very forced and unnecessary way.

When Bruce Wayne looks at the computer folders from Lex Corp and sees the Metahumans folder and the files inside, that's all we needed, we don't need Diana Prince to open each folder in turn and show us the content.

I was surprised that Bruce's mother's name was the same as Clark's, and at the beginning of the film I felt they were really heavy handed in pointing it out that she's Martha. Was I suprised then later that this became a plot point? Nope.

A Superman struggling to remain good and just in this world, I loved it. A Batman that seeks revenge for the losses to his employees and damage caused by Superman? I guess the conflict had to come from somewhere. While it makes sense on one level, it dosen't on so many others, like Batman has never caused collateral damage, hurt a bystander, or gotten the wrong person at some point in his 20 year career? Yes Superman and Zod caused a lot of damage and yes Zod's ship destroyed dozens of buildings, but Zod was destroying the world, not Superman, Bruce is blaming the wrong Kryptonian for all the problems. I also never saw Bruce Wayne as a Republican, that's the kind of logic that goes from a 1% chance to Absolute certainty. If there is a 1% chance then you need to investigate, be the detective that your are, not the villainous vigilante that you've become. Alfred should be doing a much better job of counterbalance than he is. Batman has gotten too Dark Knight.


The flashbacks and dream-sequences went too far. I understand establishing backstory, I understand setting up fears and psychosis within a character, what I don't get, is the need for a dream-sequence in a dream-sequence. Why did we need to see the Flash breaking through a portal to warn Bruce Wayne, as a dream-sequence? Did it further the plot, did it even make sense in the context of this film? Nope. It's something that'll come out in the future, but it was a dream to Bruce, so how can it even have relevance in the future films?

This isn't Lex Luthor it's Alexander Luthor, and he's as insane as the Joker, as a matter of fact, I think you could have substituted the Joker into this story very easily. It would have worked exactly the same.

Was the ultimate bad guy well done? Yes and no. Director Zack Snyder went to a lot of trouble to establish lots of the other elements and set-up things for the future, but Doomsday was rushed. If you don't follow the comics and know where this came from it makes no sense at all. How would Lex know to spill his blood on Zod in order to make a monstrous abomination that would be, in theory capable of taking out Superman? How did he know it would bend to his will, just because it carried his DNA? It's established in the film that Alex didn't bend to his daddy's will, he carried his DNA.


Is Superman dead? That kind of ruins the setup of future film doesn't it? We know he'll live, again, just not how.

Was it a good film? It certainly had good elements, action, characters, actors, and sequences. Do those things make a good film? They can, and in this case I think they almost did. There were just too many other things that got in the way and pulled me out of the story. We'll have to wait till the Justice League film to see what happens next, as the Suicide Squad in August seems to stand apart film the hero films, and Wonder Woman in June of next year takes place in the past, Justice League in November 2017 will be the continuation of this film's timeline.