Normally I would come up with some cutesy intro, but I'm going to just dive right into this. There were a lot of cool moments, but this was a bad movie. I want the higher ups at DC to wrest away the keys to all the franchises from Zack Snyder. Unfortunately, this movie made a lot of money, so that won't happen.
Before I go into a list of complaints, one of my biggest problems with the movie and Man of Steel is this. These movies don't need to be dark literally and figuratively. These movies should be fun. Not every DC movie has to feel dark like Batman. Their TV shows are fantastic. I just wish they would translate that same sense of fun to the movies.
So for anyone that hasn't seen the movie yet, there will be spoilers. I can't really get all my vitriol out without mentioning specific scenes. Please read on with caution.
Let me start with the good.
Ben Affleck is the best Batman since Michael Keaton. He's definitely my #2 behind Keaton. These are words I never thought I would utter. Especially since I was ready to avoid this movie based on his casting alone.
Even though you only get a small sampling, Gal Gadot was wonderful as Wonder Woman. I mean, she gets her own theme with an awesome guitar riff when she shows up. It may be the best super hero entrance I've seen in a movie. It's a moment that is worthy of applause.
Henry Cavill is still a good Superman, he's just overshadowed in this movie and that's not a slight against him. This movie simply does not focus on him that much.
Amy Adams still makes Lois Lane capable and not a constant damsel in distress. I don't like how she's always in the right place at the right time in climatic fight scenes, but I can ignore that.
The musical score was amazing, which I expect no less from Hans Zimmer. Like all Zack Snyder movies, it was very beautiful. It was less muted this time around. Some of the action was pretty good.
Okay, now let me get to the meat of my arguments against this movie. This movie is a hot mess. It is paced poorly. This movie is billed as Batman Vs. Superman, but you don't get to see that until the last thirty minutes of the movie. So you have to suffer through two hours of fake out dream sequences, creepy Lex Luthor and ham fisted contrivances to get the two at odds with each other.
They really lean into the Superman as a god symbolism way too much for my tastes. Every time he does something heroic, the sun just happens to be behind him at the right angle. I know this is nitpicking, but I wish they would have shown Superman doing more heroic things other than saving Lois. It's implied he's been around for a while now doing this, but in a movie like this you need to show us, not tell us.
Once again, we get another take on Batman's origin, which at this point we really don't need anymore. However, every director is compelled to give their take on it. In fact, there's a reason Batman's name comes first in the movie. A lot of time is spent with Bruce Wayne/Batman, as opposed to Clark Kent/Superman.
This movie also does it's best to cater to comic book fans. We get brief cameos of Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman. While it is cool, I wish we could have seen more of them. You're already packing everything else into this movie, why not? Did I mention that Doomsday shows up? Guess I had not got to that yet. This felt like another instance of checking off the comic book nerd box. They make up his powers as they went along. Then they go ahead and push in the Death of Superman story line at the end. Neither of these things really needed to be in the movie.
Maybe I'm getting old, but special effect heavy explosions and sequences just don't do it for me anymore. There's a lot of destruction in this movie as they fight around Metropolis or Gotham. All I kept thinking is, "How many people are getting killed in the middle of this?". It's kind of ironic because Batman's whole argument against Superman is how all the innocent people were killed in the last movie. Then he engages Doomsday and does the exact same thing.
Speaking of Batman, what was up with him using guns so much in this movie? The whole deal with Batman is he is very anti-gun. I mean, he straight up murders a guy at the end to save Martha Kent. This stuff felt like a betrayal of the character.
To bring this home, I didn't like Lex Luthor's portrayal at all. He came off as creeptastic instead of menacing. His evil schemes were all over the place. He wanted all the kryptonite, Zod's body, the Kryptonian ships and he wanted to pit Batman against Superman. I should mention that he somehow knows their true identities. He also has this weird hold over a couple of senators, but it's never fully explained what he has on them other than being an eccentric rich guy.
Finally, there's hints at Darkseid, which no normal person would know or catch. So dropping them into this movie with little explanation makes it more confusing.
I really want the DC movies to do well. I do. However, this is not the way to go. They will make a lot of money, but my personal enjoyment has not come along for the ride. At least I have all the wonderful TV shows they do such as Flash, Arrow, iZombie, Supergirl and Legends of Tomororw.
I can't recommend this movie, but I think you should watch it yourself to form your own opinion.
