NOTE: This review was orginally posted on my blog - https://comicsforeveryone.wordpress.com/
The film picks up just 18 months after Superman (Henry Cavill) defeated Zod in Metropolis. While the people of the city seem to love the hero, many question his actions and even asking if he's making things worst. One of those people, Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) uses his company and connections to starting making his a counter measure for the man of steel.
But while this plan starts to form, Luther pits Superman against another hero, the Batman of Gotham city. Seeing the destruction cause by Superman first hand, Bruce Wayne builds his own weapons to defeat the Kryptonian. But the two put their differences aside to join forces with Wonder Women (Gal Gadot) to defeat Luther and stop Superman's own Doomsday.
I don't think it's a secret that people hate this movie, one of the people I saw it with seemed to find little to nothing good about the film over it's 2 and a half hour running time. That being said, it's not fair to completely write this film off as a disaster just because it has problems so let's start with the positives.
Director Zack Synder cinematographer Larry Fong, create an interesting look for the overall film. While it isn't the hyper realistic look that many of the larger Marvel action films go for, the gritty look makes the world of Batman V Superman feel quite different from any other comic book film, even the Nolan Batman films.
Additionally the inclusions of Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot and Jeremy Irons and Jessie Eisenberg as Batman, Wonder Women, Alfred and Lex Luther respectively add a lot more to the universe of the film. All seem to have a idea of the character and each one get's their time to shin in the film, with Eisenberg's Social Network'd version of Luther stealing almost all the scene's he's in. While some might consider him a huge ham in this film, he makes the character hard to ignore.
Add on top of that some impressive effects and some genuinely well thought out and directed scenes and the film is far from the disaster that many people are making it out to be. But with all these positives there are somethings that film fails with.
One of the biggest issues with this film is the lack of any development to the Superman character. While the debut in the Man of Steel was (horrific, morally questionable, just plain wrong) awkward, this time Cavill seems to be so two dimensional that he almost feels like a painting only busting out of the frame when he needs to punch Batman. This goes farther with the inclusion of his mother Martha (Diana Lane) whose appearance in the film is so small that she seems more like Lenny's Wife from Of Mice and Men rather then the mother of a god.
Most of these issues can be tracked back down to the films story and script. This goes double when it comes down to the main purpose of the film, the fight between Batman and Superman. I think Denis (a on and off collaborator to the blog) summed it up best when he said that the whole conflict between the two started and ended with a misunderstanding. While Batman is scared of the damage that the Kryoptonian can do, he's main reason for fighting him is due to the Man of Steel being framed. The framing is not only obvious to the audience but to everyone in the film even the reporters on TV who say that it wasn't his fault, yet Batman takes it upon himself to try and till him cause of something Superman couldn't control. Making it worse is the end of the fight, which ends due to the characters sharing something so small in common.
Who'd of thought that a film based around two character's fighting would fall apart when those two characters started fighting. It's due to things like these that make the idea of Justice League film seem so depressing. Why do we care about these films if they're gonna be so poorly thought out and unbalanced?
That being said, what are we expecting from Superhero films? Are we expecting Citizen Kane? Or a story on the level of a Hitchcock classic? Cause if we are this film only adds to the pile of paper thin popcorn fodder that comes out every year from Disney. Is Batman V Superman a good movie? No. Is it a bad movie? Not really either.
Despite all of the issues with story and characters, there's still good in the movie. The first half of the film can be down right fun and well directed with the other half becoming sloppy and rushed. While I won't ever call the movie perfect there's still enough to like about the movie that makes it a solid watch. SEE IN THEATRES.