REVIEW: Batman V Superman- Dawn of Justice

2016 is looking to be the year of the superhero squabble; on the Marvel front, we've got Daredevil fighting The Punisher and Captain America fighting Iron Man. Of course, we also have DC's Caped Crusader facing off against the Man of Steel in Zack Snyder's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. 2013's Man of Steel was a flawed film; heavy on style and destruction, yet lacking that feel-good, inspiring kind of substance that makes Superman into the iconic character known throughout the world as a symbol of truth, justice, and the American way. For all its problems, it was not an irredeemable film by any means. We all knew it was to serve as a launching point for DC's own Cinematic Universe as they desperately tried to play catch-up with Marvel; with some luck, Man of Steel would be remembered as the black sheep of the franchise. An off-color, rocky start for an on-screen universe that would bring the iconic heroes of Detective Comics to the big screen in ways we've never seen before. Unfortunately, having seen Batman V Superman, I find myself having the same "better luck next time" kind of reaction I did when I finished watching Man of Steel three years ago.

The opening sequence is arguably the strongest part of the entire movie. In a few mere minutes, it manages to introduce us to the character of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and completely establish his origins and motivations. It knows we've seen Batman's origin a million times before and wastes no time getting it out of the way before diving right in to the overindulgent climax from Man of Steel, this time shown from Bruce Wayne's perspective. Blaming Superman (Henry Cavill) for the casualties and destruction he witnessed firsthand, Bruce Wayne steadily becomes more and more obsessed with finding a way to counter the potentially destructive force that Metropolis' Man of Tomorrow represents. Meanwhile, Clark Kent hopes to use the power of the press to shed some light on the Batman of Gotham, who has become increasingly brutal on criminals in recent years. Greasing the wheels of the conflict is billionaire CEO and mad scientist, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), hoping to pit the two caped heroes against one another to further his own vaguely-defined goals.

One of my biggest problems with Man of Steel was that it seemed to miss the point of Superman. Sure, Jor-El's speeches were inspiring and the "first flight" sequence was the highlight of the film, but overall it was a much more dour take on the character than was necessary. Superman is meant to represent all that is good in the human spirit; a humble-yet-confident everyman who uses his immense power to do the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do. The problem with Zack Snyder's take on the character is that he's less of a protagonist and more of a plot device; less of a relatable Kansas farmboy and more of a beleaguered alien messiah. One of my hopes for Batman V Superman was for the movie to give me a reason to feel good about Superman again. Something that makes my spirit swell the way the classic John Williams score or an excerpt from All-Star Superman might. There's a scene very early on in the film in which Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is captured by a terrorist cell in the middle east. When things start to go south, a militant cocks his gun and aims it at the head of Lois' traveling companion; as a Superman fan, I began grinning, since surely I knew what was about to happen. The music would swell and Superman would swoop out of the sky, rescuing this man from certain doom. Imagine my surprise when the trigger was pulled and this character (whom the director later confirmed to be Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen) takes a bullet point-blank to the face, dying instantly.

It's fine to have a darker, more serious take on a comic book figure; I'm honestly glad that DC is exploring a tone different from that of Marvel's lighthearted blockbusters. However, Superman is a property that should most definitely never be described as "bleak", "joyless", or "heavy-handed". The character is meant to be a beacon of hope, so as to contrast with the dour, pessimistic Batman. The film portrays Superman's do-gooding almost as a burden, something he feels obligated to do for all of us puny humans so that we'll continue to tolerate his presence on our world. When he rescues a small girl from a fire or saves a space capsule from an explosion on the launch pad, there's no joy or warmth to be found in his good work. Unless he's saving his mother or Lois Lane, Henry Cavill looks like he'd honestly rather be doing anything else with his time, and that is an objectively wrong way to portray Superman. It's a cold, artificial performance totally unbecoming of the character. This movie commits the mortal sin of portraying Superman in a way that focuses almost entirely on the fact that his biology is alien, rather than how his heart is wholly human. The fact that I actually thought "oh boy, he's gonna do a Superman thing" when he saved someone who wasn't Lois Lane during the climax should tell you all you need to know about this interpretation.

Thankfully, the overly dreary tone here works to the full advantage of Batman, who honestly feels like the real main character of the film. While it's not without its flaws, I feel safe in saying that this is the best live-action interpretation of Batman and Alfred (Jeremy Irons) I've ever seen. There's appropriate amounts of detective work, brooding, banter, and acrobatic fisticuffs that are a legitimate joy to watch in action. As excellent as I found Affleck's portrayal to be, however, this does break one of the golden rules when it comes to Batman; he does kill people. That's not to say that Batman has never dabbled in a bit of murder from time to time; from his first appearance over 75 years ago, to the 1989 Tim Burton adaptation, to the classic The Dark Knight Returns (a graphic novel that clearly and directly inspired large parts of this film), the Dark Knight has taken his fair share of lives. However, going by the most widely-accepted version of the character, the Batman does not go out of his way to kill anyone. There are a few deaths in this film that are indirect and therefore excusable (for example, a henchman who falls victim to his own hand grenade), but the sheer amount of wanton carnage in the over-the-top (and altogether pointless) Batmobile sequence crosses the line for me. There's a number of ways that Batman can incapacitate his foes without resorting to flat-out murdering them with machine guns and missiles. Usually when Batman kills someone, it's treated with a certain degree of gravity; aside from one specific (and legitimately strong) moment, the film never lingers on how many people Batman directly murders in cold blood. However, writing that into this movie would probably require some degree of clever thought, a department in which the film is somewhat lacking.

Filling the role of our main antagonist, we have Alexander "Lex" Luthor Jr, played curiously enough by Jesse Eisenberg. A surprising casting decision that is sure to be divisive amongst moviegoers and fans. I personally found myself torn; I quite enjoyed this interpretation of Lex Luthor as something of an eccentric trust fund baby in the beginning. Whenever he was on screen, Eisenberg seemed to radiate the feeling that he felt he was smarter than everyone else in the room, a trait that is 100% Lex Luthor. However, it's important for a villain such as this to be able to back that claim up with actual intelligence and trickery, and this is where the character falls flat. This is a Lex Luthor with little motivation and absolutely no end-game for his fiendish plan. When one thinks of Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind of our time, one thinks of Machiavellian schemes that end with Superman being completely unable to take any meaningful action. Even if the day is saved, Lex still wins. Here, Lex's plan involves manipulating Superman and Batman into fighting one another. We can understand that he'd be fine with seeing Superman either proven to be an imperfect menace or dying at the hands of the Bat, but his plan raises a great many other questions about his motivations. Why exactly does he hate Superman? Is it mere jealousy, or something more? What is his beef with Batman in the first place? How'd he manage to deduce both Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's secret identities, and why doesn't he use this information in any long-lasting, meaningful way? Why did he bother creating Doomsday at all? His motivation is more akin to that of the Joker or Riddler than Lex Luthor; all he does is cause chaos in an attempt to prove his mental superiority. Out of the three-way conflict of Superman, Luthor, and Batman, only the latter is given an appropriate amount of development and motivation; this might not have been a problem, had more of the two and a half hour runtime been spent developing our primary characters rather than advertising future Justice League movies.

It's no secret by now that there are a number of cameos, all from future Justice Leaguers; the Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) all make brief appearances to remind audiences that they exist and the DC Cinematic Universe is definitely something just as big and successful as what Marvel is doing. While the cameos were largely inoffensive (though I do think the camera lingered on Momoa for far too long, and this is coming from someone who's looking forward to James Wan's Aquaman moreso than everything else DC has in the pipeline), their place in the plot sticks out like a sore thumb. It's a scene that would have worked much better as a brief post-credits teaser than an intrusive coming attraction in the middle of the climax.

There's also the matter of Bruce Wayne's frequent dream sequences. While the majority of them act to the film's advantage, offering a bit of that visual flair that Snyder has such a knack for while also delving a bit into the mind of the Bat, one in particular is nothing more than a clear and obvious teaser for the coming Justice League film. Normally I wouldn't care too much, as it was a fairly exciting and well-shot sequence. However, the implications it raises are just too baffling to ignore (fair warning, I am going to get into mild spoiler territory for this paragraph alone). The dream ends with a warning from what appears to be a time-traveling Flash, telling Bruce Wayne that, in order to prevent the horrible future he's witnessed, he needs to track down all the members of the Justice League and assemble them before it's too late. However, this warning comes inside of the dream, before Bruce wakes up. I know that the Speed Force is essentially magic and thus does whatever the hell the writer needs it to do, but is the implication here that the Flash traveled into Bruce Wayne's dream (before Bruce Wayne ever met Barry Allen) in order to show him a vision of the future? Why not have the Flash appear out of the time stream in real life, considering time travel is one of his powers? Why not have Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), a character based around myth and magic, be the one to receive prophecies of doom and set out to unite the Justice League? I'm nitpicking here, sure, but this just seemed like the most roundabout and confusing attempt at foreshadowing I think I've ever seen.

By and large, the cast does a fair job. For as alien as Henry Cavill's performance is, the fact that he actually does feel like Superman the few times he does appropriately Supermanny things makes me think that the issues brought up by his performance are due more to poor direction and a weak script rather than flat-out bad acting. Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons are by far the highlights here; their scenes flow wonderfully thanks to their mutual passion and natural chemistry. This is the Alfred and Master Wayne we all know and love, done just right. Gal Gadot is serviceable as Princess Diana of Themyscira, though she hardly has enough screentime for me to truly pass judgement (I suppose that will have to wait until next year's Wonder Woman movie). Unfortunately, Amy Adams, while a truly enjoyable actress elsewhere, is just a terrible Lois Lane and arguably the worst thing about this. Her character serves to do absolutely nothing than play Anne Darrow to Superman's King Kong, being in the right place at the right time to help further the plot. She sucks up far too much screentime with a dull-as-dishwater subplot involving someone selling munitions to terrorists (I'll give you exactly one guess as to who it is) and gets across exactly none of the charisma or spunk that the character is known for.

With everything I've had to say about this film, the cruelest irony is that I didn't even hate it. It's the most solid five out of ten I think I've ever seen. The action is sparse and overindulgent, yet it's still cool to see Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman teaming up to fight evil on the big screen. There's a lot of decent moments, but the pace is a disjointed hatchet job that flows like poorly-mixed concrete. The music (care of Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL) is really quite excellent, but we don't end up really caring about any of the characters that these pulse-pounding themes are meant to represent.

Honestly, I feel as though all of this film's problems can be attributed directly to Zack Snyder and executive meddling. The studio is all too eager to catch up with Marvel, even if that means bogging their product down with enough cameos and teasers to sate an entire phase of Marvel films. Meanwhile, Snyder clearly doesn't know or care enough about the source material to deliver a satisfying adaptation. While it's not fair to judge a film strictly on the grounds of being different from its source material, any adaptation does hold a certain degree of responsibility to accurately represent that which it is adapted from; it's fine to divert from the origins of a property (Christopher Nolan proved with his Dark Knight trilogy that such an approach can work out okay), but Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice just feels sloppy. It's time for Warner Brothers to ditch Snyder and bring in an actual auteur; a Guillermo Del Toro or a George Miller. Someone who can do these iconic characters justice while still delivering a well-made and satisfying film underneath it all. 

As it stands, DC's had strike one with Man of Steel and now a foul tip with Batman V Superman; they've made contact with the ball this time, but they still haven't made it to any bases. They need to hit a home run real soon, or they're out. There's elements of this series so far that are promising; elements which give me hope for projects like Ben Affleck's standalone Batman movie and James Wan's Aquaman. Hopefully, this franchise will find its way into the proper creative hands soon, so the potential that remains doesn't go to waste.