Yesterday I got the chance to watch one of the most awaited movies this year, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This the first DC Comics film this year, the second being Suicide Squad. As someone who liked Man of Steel a lot, I was really hoping that Zack Snyder will gives us another great film, that hope stayed strong for about in hour into the film and faded away completely after hour and a half.
What I didn’t like? Here’s a short list, really minor spoilers ahead:
1.The premise
It might work in the comic books and for the comic books fans, but for the rest of the world that only know Superman and Batman from the film universe, the idea that Batman could take a shot at Superman is preposterous. Superman can smoke Batman in a microsecond and Dawn of Justice actually proved it. I was waiting to see that side of Batman that can fight Superman with a chance to win, but it wasn’t there. Superman movies should stop trying to resolve whether Superman is a god or not, he is.
2. The characters representation
Seeing Superman and Batman acting like a couple of untrained baboons, with no moral compass was a new. I hear in the comic books Batman is portrayed as an intellectual mastermind who is always 10 steps ahead of everybody else, intellectual my ass. He didn’t even know Superman mother’s name.
(I fear that this will be an issue for Captain America: Civil War, you can’t make three movies about Iron Man plus two Avengers movies, and then place him in Captain America where he acts completely different then before.)
3. Jesse Eisenberg
He might have been still acting as Mark Zuckerberg, it’s not like you can tell. Nervous, anxious, antisocial and an ingenious rich tycoon. He brought nothing to an iconic villainous role, it was a regular Jesse Eisenberg appearance.
4. The storyline
It’s a mess. They are trying to hard to introduce the League of Justice and it feels unnatural and forced. You can remove all those segments of the movie and you won’t notice, it might even be a better movie without the 20 seconds introducing Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg.
At some point you will think that the only rule in the editing room was to put the scenes in a chronological order, there’s no real tension building up, no sense of mystery. Nothing fits well, everything feels misplaced. There are scenes cut of at a completely wrong moment and then continued when “that special moment” has passed so all the meaning is lost.
5. The politics
Batman v Superman starts of with a slow hour and half political movie which is trying to convince people that Superman should be asked not to help around!? Lex is begging a congress woman to get import approvals? Are you even serious?
After that we learn that somehow it’s all a plan by Lex Luthor which creates Doomsday anyways making the first half of the movie unnecessary.
6. The dumbed-down dialogue
Every line in the movie is trying to explain something to the audience. The fact is you can watch the movie without sound and you will understand everything that is going on because the motives that drive the characters are really primitive not suited for superheroes at all. Not suited for regular humans as well.
There are three jokes total in the movie. So out of place in such a dark narrative, the “funny lines” were more uncomfortable than funny.
7. Batman’s “visions” (perhaps a spoiler)
No sense whatsoever. What was Zack Snyder thinking? Again trying to hard to convince the audience that the character’s motives are justified.
Honestly the list goes on. Wonder Woman was probably the highlight of the movie, for about 5 minutes.
Fans of the movie though, need not to worry, early revenue projections say it will make at least $170 million in the first weekend. At least they’ve got that going on.