Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gal Gadot, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Holly Hunter, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Lauren Cohan, Scoot McNairy, Ray Fisher, Carla Gugino, Michael Shannon
Rating: 12A
Running Time: 151 mins
Release Date: March 25th, 2016
Before settling down to watch BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, I re-watched MAN OF STEEL, the 2013 Superman reboot that kick started this whole ordeal. I remember liking it; having seeing it in Imax and being impressed by the action set pieces and the attempt to bring Superman to a realistic level. Upon my re-watch, I found myself bored and frustrated with everything that was on the screen in front of me. The film is slow, considerably in its first hour and heaps on more and more backstory as it moves forward. The action scenes are repetitive to say the least. Put plainly; it’s a mess. A mess big enough to level half a city. My opinion of BvS: DoJ could falter just as much as my opinion of MoS has. I might watch BvS again one day and I might like it. But try as you might to like something, if you leave a film with a headache over what you’ve just seen, it’s pretty clear where your opinion lies.
This review contains plot details that you might consider a spoiler. If you want to go into the film completely unaware, you may want to read this review afterwards.
And so here we are. The superhero team up to end them all. For a film that’s relying on people’s excitement over seeing two of the most arguably famous comic book superheroes fight each other, it’s interesting that Batman and Supermans fight is ultimately a marketing ploy. Sure, there’s punches and some expensive looking CGI involved but really their showdown is just a lazy way to introduce the audience to the bigger picture; Warner Bros next 10 or so DC films. Too busy looking ahead in the future, the film is crammed with so much information and set up for its future installments that there’s no focus on the present. Characterization is glossed over, the plot is shallow at best and scenes play like a series of short films that had been stitched together to create a feature length running time. Cameos from other heroes, like Aquaman and The Flash interrupt what little story there is and leave you feeling confused; who are these people and why should you even care? Heavy handed universe building drags the film down, which is unfortunate as little details appear sporadically that help the film rather than hinder it. For example a suit in the Batcave that Batman reflects on, the torso having been desecrated with the words; ‘Hahah, Jokes on you Batman’, is a wonderful detail. First it tells us that Batman and the Joker have already met, this version of Batman having been around for 20 odd years, but it also helps builds the Batman mythology without shoving it in the audiences face. A little more subtly wouldn’t have gone amiss.
The cast do the best they can with a scattered and loose script, with Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot coming away the winners. Affleck’s Batman is a more angry than usual individual, enforcing brute force to get what he wants. Interesting ideas for the character are introduced and than squandered or never brought up again but Affleck remains intense throughout and shares some nice chemistry with the rest of the cast. His Bruce Wayne and Jeremy Irons Alfred are a fantastic pairing, showcasing would could be the start of a very interesting new series of Batman films.
Gadot shows up throughout to slink in the shadows and when her big scene arrives, she steals the spotlight from the rest of her superhero co-stars. She’s mysterious, charming and instantly heroic as Wonder Woman, leaving a pending excitement for her own solo film that will be released next year. But again, it all comes down to what perhaps is the biggest fault of the film; it’s a two and a half hour advertisement for the films that will come after it. Jesse Eisenberg, who’s casting was met with the most amount of resistance from fans, simply continues his performance as Mark Zuckerberg in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, putting in a decent performance, even if his villain never really spills into the full on deranged mode that is needed to make him seem like a credible threat. Henry Cavill and Amy Adams continue the respectable job they did in MoS, even when Superman himself is pushed to the side to make way for all the new faces and Adams as Lois Lane gets far too much screen time devoted to herself.
On a positive note, the film is commendable in its eagerness to entertain and while the long running time eventually causes a numbness to set in when it comes to the 100th scene of someone getting punched, there are some early exciting set pieces that are exhilarating, namely a prologue which shows Bruce Wayne running around the wreckage of the destruction seen in MoS. The eventual team up of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman to bring down a bigger threat is visually engaging and hugely enjoyable; whether it’s just seeing these iconic heroes finally share a screen together or the thrill of watching them come face to face with a threat worthy of them, the climatic fight is the boost of adrenaline the film needed to sustain throughout its entire run time but unfortunately it arrives far too late. For every scene that manages to utilize the films best elements to its advantage, there are some truly baffling sequences, including a dream sequence that is so awful, so random and confused it’s amazing it was left in the final cut.
Too busy looking far ahead, the film trips on its own shoelaces. It’s a scrappy, incoherent beginning to the wider DC universe, with occasional bright spots and, if you look hard enough, there’s the bones of a good film buried underneath all the foreshadowing. Perhaps the solo films and eventual Justice League films will be more refined and focus. Maybe BvS was a larger sacrifice, a messy shortcut to get us to the good stuff. Either way, I don’t know what’s worse; the fact I’m willing to watch the next installment in the hope that it’s finally done right, or that I just typed over a thousand words about a superhero film.
Verdict
