"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" - Review

Zack Snyder is a Martyr

I have defended Zack Snyder a great deal in the past. He works in an area of near arthouse geeky blockbuster that I find completely fascinating. Many accuse him of being flash over style, which is not helped by the fact that others often write mediocre screenplays for him, but I am surprised by how much depth I often find in his films. I think the director's cut of Watchmen is a near masterpiece of craft and graphic novel adaptation, only held back by a couple of lackluster performances that fail to do some of the side characters of the novel justice. I really enjoyed Man of Steel as well. The first two-thirds of the film were beautifully realized in how the flashbacks were conceived and it often felt poetic in its editing and transitions. The last third is where it faltered a bit when it turned into complete chaos mode. My biggest defense of Zack Snyder is actually with Sucker Punch, a film that many see as complete garbage. I see it as a misunderstood gem of gender politics and biting satire aimed toward the very audience seeing the film. I will have to write another piece on it later but I see it as one of the greatest and most effecting practical jokes in Hollywood history in the best of ways. It acknowledges your expectations and then crumples them up and tosses them in your face before it decides to show you the dark cynical side of your very urges. It is one of the ballsiest films in recent memory. So, going into Batman v. Superman I was intrigued by how he would approach the material, knowing that the studio was definitely going to get their hands into the production process so they can set up their future sequels. What I got was a good film. Not a great film, but a good one. There are some amazing moments that have a great artsy beauty to them, notably the opening sequence. The movie is even edited in a strange dream-like fashion as it jumps to event to event completely separated by each other. Zack Snyder did the very best he could and it often shows on screen in spectacular fashion. The reason why Batman v. Superman is such a disappointing mess is that Warner Bros. got greedy and impatient. Frankly, they blew their load too early. They got their hands into the film to force sequel baiting elements into it and it turned BvS into a bloated mess. But when the movie shines, it truly does.

After catching us up on some Batman origin story, which is handled in an absolutely beautiful and powerful way, and reminding us of the carnage at the end of Man of Steel, the movie picks up 18 months later. The world knows of Superman and is torn between love and fear for him. It does not help when Superman gets himself entangled in foreign affairs and things get messy. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne remembers what Superman has done in the past and is looking for ways to make sure another disaster never happens again. We also meet Lex Luthor, who is lacking some backstory here in my opinion, as he sort of has an envy about Superman and Batman and wishes that he can be the one with the power over the world around him. Once these three characters get involved with each other, things get out of hand and we finally get our showdown with Batman and Superman.

This is what the movie should have been. Yes, the finished product had these things, but it tried to be so much more. Too much more. There are so many shoehorned elements setting up the Justice League movie that it distracts from the main narrative and becomes extremely unfocused. However, I sort of expected these problems going in. What bummed me out the most was how sudden this all seems. The film lacked the build up and character development necessary to deliver on the title conflict in a meaningful way. We do not have a sense of who these characters are and what they mean to the world they inhabit. Honestly, it felt like Warner Bros forced its filmmakers to jump right into the third act of a larger narrative because it did not have the patience to build up a universe. They saw what Marvel did leading up to The Avengers and decided to do that without the build up and the movie seriously suffers from that.

Here is some food for thought. Imagine if the studio did not get too greedy and ahead of itself. Imagine if we were able to get one more solo Man of Steel movie before Batman v. Superman. We would be coming off of Superman's loud introduction to the world in a time where no one knows how to feel about him after the disaster in Metropolis. During the course of this movie, we would see Superman attempt to shake off the negative view of him by bringing hope to the world. This would be the movie to show us Superman as a hero. It would show the world accept him as a hero. If we had this, we would have a much better context for Batman v. Superman where we see people question his place in the world and we have the final clash with Batman later on.

This would also give the filmmakers a chance to spend more time introducing Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor. Many people have been negative on him and it is warranted. It is a surface level performance. Eisenberg goes the "crazy tick" route with characterizing him and it stands out in a film that tries to be dark and grounded. I do not feel like this is completely Eisenberg's fault however. The film tries to balance so many things that Luthor is not given any time to develop or establish himself in an organic way. That means Eisenberg did not have any time to do that himself. He had no choice but to go with obvious character traits with the limited amount of time he had just so he could have something established in the film. If we had another film to introduce Lex Luthor, Eisenberg would have been able to dig deep and develop a more layered performance and character. When we finally got into BvS we would know who Lex is and we could jump into more plot heavy content. Alas, we did not have that and we were left with zero development and a lackluster villain for the film.

This is a deeply frustrating movie. Zack Snyder brings so much to the screen that is incredible. There is a lot of Watchmen in the way he approaches his characters and the world they live in. There are scenes of great humanity and of amazing spectacle. As great as the fight between Batman v. Superman looked, I was just as moved by smaller scenes like with Clark Kent and Lois Lane in the bathtub together. Ben Affleck gives a very effecting performance as Bruce Wayne and Batman and he is given a few scenes to mine drama from. I especially liked his interactions with Jeremy Irons' Alfred. The action sequences are unsurprisingly sensational and there are plenty of them. There is also a scene with Superman at city hall that I found tremendously powerful in its imagery at its conclusion. Sadly, this movie is fatally flawed in the timing of its inception and the juggling act of story and corporate driven sequel baiting it attempts. There are so many great pieces of film here, but they are not earned and they do not all fit together. This is still a good film, but a far cry from the comic book masterpiece that Zack Snyder could have given us if his artistic integrity and raw filmmaking vision and energy were respected by the ones signing the checks.

Grade: C+.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is now playing everywhere.