NAMELESS AND FAMELESS

witnessing Superman's destruction of Metropolis firsthand, Bruce Wayne falls into a deep, Superman-loathing rage that drives him to revive his alter-ego, Batman. As the world debates Superman's place in society and how he should be dealt with/received, Batman prepares to take down the one thing capable of ending humanity. However, as these two titans prepare for the greatest gladiator battle in history, a far greater evil rises in the shadows…

 

Things I Liked

Batman

Okay, so first things first; Ben Affleck is Batman. Ben Affleck is Bruce Wayne. And he manages to do both in the one film. A problem with the Nolan trilogy was that Bruce Wayne always felt like a bit of a non-character, just a skin that Batman wears when he isn't out fighting crime. In reality, it cannot be ignored that he is Bruce Wayne first, and both identities are just as prominent. Ben Affleck is perfect as this tortured millionaire putting on the façade of a playboy while exercising his demons at night. However, he nails the Dark Knight aspect of the character too. The action takes great strides in setting Affleck's Batman apart from others. Where every Batman film has been very clearly choreographed, Batman v Superman feels far more organic when we see Batman taking on crooks. In particular, a fight at the end has Batman take a few heaps and not outright dominate the matchup, which is refreshing and brings an air of realism to a film that is desperately trying to tell a superhero story in a real-world fashion. Affleck's first appearance in this film as the Gotham Bat is nothing short of terrifying. The build-up is fantastic and the reveal genuinely scared me, and Affleck's appearance/movements really make you feel as if you're watching from a criminal's perspective. We've seen so often that the criminals thing he is a real monster, but we know he's just a man in a suit. Well, Batman v Superman isn't so easy on us. We see Batman from a genuinely scary and monstrous perspective, and I for one was taken off guard at how much this character I love truly scared me. Affleck also brings a lot of genuine acting talent to a genre and character generally used for explosions and action, which brings me to something I really loved about this film.

 

Characters

The trailers made Batman v Superman look like a special effects extravaganza of things getting blown up and people getting punched, and it had plenty of that, but what the trailers didn't advertise was a character drama. The first half of this film is incredibly tense and plays out almost like a political thriller. It deals largely in the global response to Superman, Clark's struggle with that response, his growing obsession with the 'Gotham Bat' and Batman's increasing hatred towards Superman. The first half of the film does a magnificent job of utilising characters to set up the puzzle pieces that all come together in the second half of the film. And yes, Wonder Woman is cool. Really cool. There comes a moment in the film where Clark, Bruce and Diana are all at the same party. While Clark and Bruce's tension goes through the roof, the film does a great job of setting up an air of intrigue around Wonder Woman and making her a character the audience genuinely wants to see more of and learn more about.

 

The Opening Sequence

The most important part of a film is the opening. Batman v Superman clearly knew that, because it absolutely nailed the opening sequence. It is incredibly entertaining and engaging, and draws you in immediately. After ten minutes, I was smiling in my seat and rubbing my hands, thinking "All right, I'm on board. Let's do this!". The opening sequence does a magnificent job of getting the viewer into the mindset that Batman v Superman really will be a good movie, and not a major disappointment.

 

This is a really dark movie.

What Batman v Superman needed was to be different from other superhero movies and to establish itself as its own thing. Overall, it failed miserably at that. But one aspect where it was overwhelmingly successful was in the tone. This movie is really dark, man. And I mean really dark. As in, if your kid hasn't started growing hair down there, don’t take them to see this. There was a moment where I jumped in my seat, it absolutely scared the shit out of me. Also, people die. When the trailers came out, a lot of questions were asked as to whether people were dying. Yeah, people are dying. Heroes kill people. Forget all that moral code crap (although I'm assuming, and hoping, that they'll build that in future films), these heroes take no shit and they kill people. I won't lie, I did like that. Try to be open-minded and accepting of change going into this film. They take liberty with the characters and try to reimagine them. Go with it, try and enjoy it. If you do, it'll work out real well for you.

 

The Big Fight

I've seen a lot of complaints online that the trailers showed everything in the titular fight between our two heroes, and to those people I say; bugger off and shut up. No, the fight does not take up a large chunk of the movie. Where Man of Steel failed in making its action sequences go for far too long, Batman v Superman really improved in this area. Batman and Superman's fight is epic without being an absolute shitstorm of CGI and people getting thrown back-and-forth. The playing field is evened out early on, and the fight distances itself from typical superhero fanfare, opting for close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat over superpowers and explosions. Personally, I felt that very little of the fight was shown in the trailers, most of the trailer footage coming from the fight with, you know, that thing we absolutely did not need to know about.

 

The Big Fight 2.0

If the film did a good job of not going over-the-top with CGI, the fight against Doomsday is where it did its darnedest to push the boundaries and use up all of the budget. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I loved the Doomsday fight. Although a little cheesy at moments, the Trinity come together well in battling Superman's great rival. It doesn't drag on and go for too long, and it also doesn't cut too short. The biggest job that director Zack Snyder had in this fight was ensuring Batman didn't become irrelevant. Superman and Wonder Woman both hold their own well, given they have actual superpowers, so it was essential that Batman doesn't feel useless. And he doesn't In fact, the final play of the is perfect in that it incorporates all three heroes and gave a real Justice League feel to it. It was also in this big fight that DC did something unexpected and managed to surprise me, surprises being somewhat of a deficiency in this film, which leads me into my dislikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things I Didn't Like

If you saw the Doomsday trailer, then I'm sorry; you've seen the whole movie.

A massive problem with films these days is that the trailers just give you the entire film. There is a significant difference between advertising a film and showing a film that marketing executives don't seem to understand, and Batman v Superman exemplifies this with saddening precision. Coming into the film, that Doomsday trailer marked two major things I was extremely stressed about, and I was relying on the film not being 100% what they were showing in order for my stress to be unfounded. Unfortunately, though, the movie really does play out exactly how it looks. The changes and 'surprises', if they can even be described as that, could be summarised in two sentences. And I really do mean that. Despite the fact that we were promised the film has a lot more to it than the trailers showed, it really doesn't. Does that make it bad or any worse? No. It just would've been nice to go into the movie not knowing pretty much everything that was going to happen.

 

Lex Luthor

First and foremost, this is not a criticism of Jesse Eisenberg. I thought Jesse Eisenberg really did do a great job of portraying the character that was written. My criticism is that the character was not Lex Luthor. When rebooting or reimagining a property, it is not irregular to see a character done in a different way. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. This is a film where it didn't work as well as it could've. For plot purposes, Eisenberg's Luthor works really well. For entertainment purposes, not so much. DC already have their mentally unstable, psychopathic villain in The Joker. We don't need two. With Lex Luthor, they had the opportunity to give us a cold-blooded businessman type character, something different within the superhero genre. I feel that Lex was a missed opportunity. Something that works well enough within this film, but in the long run will leave Batman v Superman the same as all the other superhero movies.

 

Wonder Woman

I know, I know. I praised Wonder Woman earlier. But this criticism isn't really about Gal Gadot's badass performance and how much Wonder Woman absolutely slayed inside the film. It's about how she was presented. Any comic book fan knows that Wonder Woman is a key player, and she's part of the Trinity (her, Batman and Superman). It was important in this film that they made Wonder Woman appear as if she has equal standing with the other two, and wasn't just any member of the Justice League. And they muffed it. Getting into slight spoiler territory, Batman v Superman introduces the concept of meta-humans in order to classify the superheroes that we are going to see appear in the DC Universe going forward. Throughout the entire film, Wonder Woman is presented as one of the four known meta-humans. From the beginning, a hierarchy is set up with Batman and Superman being the big guns, and the 'meta-humans' kinda being the next rung down. Unfortunately, for me it felt as if Wonder Woman is on even footing with The Flash and Aquaman and Green Lantern, those sorts, rather than being one of the Big Three with Superman and Batman. And considering the Wonder Woman film is coming up, that's a fair misstep. However, I have faith that they'll correct this mistake and make sure that Wonder Woman is a heavy hitter, and not just another member of the Justice League.

 

The Meta-Humans. Spoilers here as to what other Justice League members are featured in the film.

Carrying on from the meta-humans discussed just before, the cameos featured in Batman v Superman are shit. Cyborg, The Flash and Aquaman are all introduced in the single laziest setup I have ever seen. We discover the existence of these characters and meet them through, wait for it…..an email! Seriously, though. It's a goddamn email. With thumbnails showing logos for superheroes that don't exist yet. Why does The Flash's folder have a lightning bolt as the logo when he isn't The Flash yet? This is the kinda logic we're dealing with when we discuss the cameos. Also, Aquaman is one of the disliked characters in comic books. He is viewed as useless and boring, and Batman v Superman had the important task of declaring him a badass. I won't say too much, but his cameo did not do that. Like, at all. His cameo sucked. It was shit. He did nothing. It was also something I could've filmed in my spa with a Go-Pro. The Flash's cameo was standard, with Cyborg's being the only interesting one that left me wanting to know more. But that's not the point; the point is the laziness of it. An email? C'mon, DC. How about you at least make an effort to not treat your audience like braindead fanboys drooling purely because you've shown us the heroes. It's not enough. Do something with them. We're not gonna go wild and love your movie forever just for showing them in a cameo. Know your audience, and know we aren't drones. Make an effort.

 

The Ending

The ending of this film has a couple of fundamental issues. The biggest one being that it adds too much to the runtime. If the film didn't go for two and a half hours, then the ending could've stayed how it is. But with a runtime like that, the ending needed to be cut down. Another problem is that when discussing the big Doomsday fight, I said the film drops a bit of a surprise on the viewer. In the final moment of the film, DC wimps out and goes back on that surprise, rendering it rather pointless and the entire final fifteen minutes of the film pretty much void. The ending also tries too hard to be emotional, which comes off as forced as emotional connections were not established throughout the film to justify an emotional ending. And then, when the ending is misfiring on all accounts, the obligatory Justice League setup is just an absolute eye-roller.

 

The X Factor

Batman v Superman just doesn't have it. It doesn't have that spark, that X-Factor that makes something extraordinary. It's missing here. Maybe it was the sudden shift in the middle, the Justice League setups that felt like an afterthought or the fact that the entire movie had been laid out for us already. Whatever it is, Batman V Superman was missing the things it needed to stand out from the crowd of superhero movies. When you leave the cinema, you are entertained and happy, but the film has no lasting impact. Two days on, it means just as much to you as the latest Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis blockbuster. It's a good time, and not much more.

 

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a lot of fun. Ben Affleck absolutely kills it and Wonder Woman is every bit as awesome as we wanted her to be. The fight scenes are well done and Zack Snyder has ditched the action overkill that bogged down Man of Steel. However, the Justice League setups were terrible and had little thought put into them, while the film didn't seem to dare to be greater, taking only one risk and backing out ten minutes afterwards. The entire film was given to us in trailers, with very little changed or surprising within the film. While the overwhelmingly negative reviews Batman v Superman receives are undeserved and an exaggeration, DC needs a wake-up call. They can continue making good movies if they want, opting for action-packed, turn-your-brain-off flicks over intelligent films, but they need to know that they will never amount to more than negative reviews and disappointment. In a world where Marvel is killing it with films like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Winter Soldier that transcend their genre, DC can't be settling for 'good'. Batman v Superman was good, but considering the importance of the film and the fact that DC's three greatest heroes were appearing together for the first time, it should've been amazing. Though a very good time, "the greatest gladiator battle of history" only ends up being the greatest gladiator battle of March.

 

Rating: 7