Plot: Set a year and a half after the events from Man of Steel, Superman has been helping humanity from saving people from fires, floods, exploding rockets, basically saving the day like in the oldest comics. But he also becomes a figure of controversy over what his real agenda because of his powers and his alien origin. Meanwhile, Batman views Superman as a threat after people he cares about died during Superman's fight with General Zod in the previous film, and has become determined to find a way to take him down in the chance that Superman could turn against humanity.
By now, you likely have heard that this movie has been bashed by both audiences and critics with a 29% on RottenTomatoes. I saw it on one of the early screenings last week, but I wanted to see it again before I gave you guys my official verdict. And having seen it a second time, I can confidently say that this is actually a nice movie. Similar to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, there is no denying that it's flawed, but I think people took the film's problems way out of proportion and/or judged it too much out of whatever they did not like just because they watched the last two trailers for the film (something I frankly think is a very stupid thing to do given how obvious it is that trailers show way too much) to the point where their view of the movie is warranted, but unfair at the same time.
One person from Screen Junkies described the plot as five different movies put into one. You have the one that's the sequel to Man of Steel which is about the results of what happened, there's a solo Batman movie that is setting up Batman, there's a Batman v Superman movie which goes over their ideological differences, a Lex Luthor movie that goes over his dislike of both heroes, and then you have your set up Justice League movie. (Screen Junkies) In my mind's eye however, the plot worked in the long term. But the key words there are "long term." There are inconsistencies to the film's story to say the least. But when I was watching the movie the second time, I felt like the story as a whole fit well enough to that I thought it wasn't quite as jumbled as people have said it is. At least not to the point where people say that it's really bad. But we also do have teasers for future films for the DC cinematic universe in the movie that as much as I liked some of them, I still cannot deny that they were really forced.
The characters in this movie (with two exceptions that I will get to later) were delivered almost perfectly. I know there are some people who didn't like the Superman characters in this film, but I honestly didn't have any problems with them. Batman v Superman took advantage of the fact that the Superman origin film is out of the way and so the actors can act more like the characters from the DC comics. Perry White as the tough editor-in-chief, Lois Lane as the snoopy reporter, and Superman saving the day around the world, while debating about how he should use his powers. Maybe I'm too much into Marvel and Batman to really see why people complain about them, but I thought they were good. There's also Jeremy Irons who carried out the role as Alfred remarkably well with the small amount of screen time he had. Wonder Woman didn't have a whole lot purpose in the movie, but she was enjoyable to watch whenever she was on screen. But the one performance that even people who didn't like this movie agreed was the best thing in it was surprisingly Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman. To say that he exceeded expectations would be an understatement. In fact, you can easily make the argument that this was Batman's movie more then it was both Batman and Superman's movie. Affleck captured so much of being both Bruce Wayne and Batman from the turmoil of his past, to his reasons as to why Superman should be taken down, to his devotion in preparing himself mentally and physically for a big fight and so on, that I felt like I was seeing Batman more then I was seeing Affleck playing Batman. Even though I was more optimistic about Ben Affleck playing Batman then others, I honestly wasn't expecting to get a whole lot from him. But you know what? He was phenomenal. This is however a darker and more violent take on this iconic superhero where he does kill people. And if you don't like that he kills or you're just more comfortable with Michael Keaton or Christian Bale as Batman, that's perfectly fine. I'll admit that I was hesitant with him killing so people - heck, I still didn't like some of it watching the movie again. After all, what makes Batman one of the greatest heroes of all time, is that he doesn't kill because he has his code that separates him from the criminals. But it also makes sense in this film because this is an older Batman who has been through so much in his life that he knows that there are times where it is necessary to kill in order to save lives, and apparently people really enjoy this different take on the dark knight. Affleck has apparently been not taking the news that the reviews for this movie have been very negative very well, and I really hope we can get it though to him that he's not one of the reasons why. He gave us a greater representation of Batman then a lot of us expected and I know a lot of us want to see more from him.
The majority of the action in this movie was standard but still entertaining. The car chase with the Batmobile and the battle against Doomsday were okay, and the fight between Batman and Superman gave us exactly what we wanted. But by far the best part of the movie was the fight between Batman and a group of mercenaries. That was amazing. Backing up how Affleck was so good as Batman, this particular fight scene felt like I was watching Batman in one of the Batman Arkham video games. I saw this movie the first time with my brother Johnathan, and we both were blow away at what we were watching, either wowing or laughing at something that Batman does when he's taking down these mercenaries. By the time it was over, we were looking at each other agreeing that it was incredible to watch.
My only real problems with this movie are the two characters that were the exceptions to how well the film represented the characters; that being the villains Doomsday and Lex Luthor. I know that the designs of comic book characters aren't the most important thing to general audiences, but it was really distracting how Doomsday was really the cave troll from The Lord of the Rings. His appearance does change later on so that he looks more like he is in the comics, but we do see more of him looking like the cave troll more then we saw actual Doomsday. The fighting with him was good, but as nitpicky as it sounds, the way he looks really does take away the excitement of this particular super villain appearing in something like Batman v Superman. And with Lex Luthor...*sigh*...why in heaven's name is it so hard for Warner Bros and DC to understand that we want a serious Lex Luther in our live action films? One of my biggest problems with the original Superman films and Superman Returns is how while neither performances were bad per say, both Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey portrayed him as a silly childish villain when he's really a cold and ruthless kingpin. And here, we have Jessie Eisenberg where if that casting wasn't confusing enough, we have him acting like he's basically Heath Ledger's Joker. This is particularly sad, because when you take away the way the character is performed, this version of Lex Luthor is also really close to how he is supposed to be portrayed. His part in the story and his dialogue (with some exceptions to both aspects), hits it so close that if they had someone like Terry O'Quinn, Bryan Cranston, or Mark Strong (just to name a few) to play this character with a serious demeanor, this would be perfect. But as it is, we are basically given a DC villain mixed with Joker - somewhat like Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of Two-Face in Batman Forever. In a way this makes him both the best and worst Lex Luthor brought into the silver screen. Talk about so close and so incredibly far. On top of that, as great as his actions and dialogue is, his motivation doesn't make sense. I won't give away how, but it creates a serious plot hole that I think could've been covered in at least a couple extra sentences of dialogue. Because without those additions, all the good stuff about this rendition of Lex Luthor is there just to please comic book readers without any real explanation for the sake of the story.
And that's my review for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The plot has its inconsistencies, the teasers for future films is shoe horned in, and the villains, mostly Lex Luthor are the weakest of the cast, and while I didn't go into any details, they hurt the story as a whole. But the parts in the story that fit I enjoy, the entire cast apart from the villains I think were good, the action (while didn't always wow me) was fun to watch, and Affleck's portrayal of Batman was so good that I wanted more from him. I know I kind of gave an almost equal amount of good and bad things, but for me personally and for my brother Johnathan as well, the good outweighed the bad to the point where we think it's a nice enjoyable movie. I think it's more entertaining then Man of Steel, and I honestly might buy it on Blue-Ray and DVD. It's not the greatest thing ever, but I don't think it deserves quite as much hatred as it has been given. Either go see it in theaters or wait until you can rent it, and see for yourself.
Rating: 70%
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