Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) Film Review

In 2013, Man of Steel was released upon the world to an audience expecting something along the lines of the glorious Dark Knight trilogy, which had concluded the previous year with the critically acclaimed – but since overly criticised – The Dark Knight Rises, and the trailers for the Superman reboot highlighting a Terrence Malick-looking project with all of Christopher Nolan's hands on it. The response? Very much mixed. Sitting at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and with a very split fanbase, Man of Steel became a talking point for 2013 mostly for its controversial decisions, which director Zack Snyder (a director who already received mixed reviews for his previous DC film Watchmen) has stuck with since, including the destruction of Metropolis and Superman killing General Zod at the very end. But the people at Warner Bros. knew just how to save their chances at replicating Marvel Studios' success: add Batman - a sure-fire way of being a success. However, since its SDCC announcement – rumoured to have been a last-minute decision made days before the panel – it's been a long time going. From anger over the castings of Ben Affleck, Jesse Eisenberg and Gal Gadot to its overdone publicity process (trailers started last April and have since been released at a rapid pace), not to mention its heavily supportive fanbase who spread their anger to naysayers, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice has a lot at stake. Can it be the start of a DC Cinematic Universe? Or is it a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, what with its casting of six individual heroes and two-three villains (one being the corpse of Michael Shannon)? 

18 months have passed since the catastrophic events of Man of Steel, and while the city of Metropolis is fully rebuilt – complete with shrine for their saviour and a memorial for all the dead – and Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Henry Cavill and Amy Adams respectively) happy in their relationship, the world around them is uncertain whether or not Superman is a hero or an enemy. One such person against the alien being is Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), who was there in Metropolis when the buildings collapsed and his friend was killed by the destruction of the Wayne Enterprises building. Seeing him as a threat, the Batman is on the look for a potential way of defeating Superman, who in turn has issues over the actions Gotham's Caped Crusader takes to fight crime. The two properly come to gripes with one another though when Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) gets involved in both the search for a detergent for alien threats and the Superman trial which is underway. From that point, all sorts go on, including Wayne's interactions with a mysterious woman who knows his actions (Gal Gadot), his ongoing nightmares about a Superman-ruled world, Luthor's insane ideas and plans for getting rid of an unknown force, and even elements featuring Lois Lane looking into a potential conspiracy...all leading up to the titular fight. Who will win: Man or God? 

The first thing to reveal is that this film is absolutely crowded. It was hinted at once the casting process started rolling in, but having seen the film it's clear to see that the writers (David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio) were unsure what to really focus on. Whilst the titular fight is likely to have drawn in plenty of interest from audiences, in actuality it lasts for about five minutes – occurring about two hours into this 150 minute slog. In the meantime you have Luthor's inane plan which reaches insane levels of absurdity, a Batman movie complete with fight scenes and the standard gravelly voice, a Man of Steel sequel with numerous characters returning for mostly minor roles, and a Justice League precursor where they introduce the other non-Trinity members through a shoe-horned scene where Gadot literally clicks on clips of each character. All these different elements mashed together does not make for a good movie, as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 found out just two years ago. And that's not even mentioning the Doomsday aspect – an area of the film so forced into it for the sake of having the heroes band together that it just leaves you bored watching yet another generic fight. And when you consider that you've been wading through two hours of precursory occurrences that lead up to these two battles...you just feel exhausted and disappointed, especially when you consider that not one of these elements make up a fully pleasing story. 

As you can imagine, some elements could easily be left out on the cutting room floor, as it’s obvious that some moments have been so poorly edited together because of these changes that they managed to still leave some bits in. The nightmare sequences, including a very out-of-place one set at Wayne Manor's graveyard? Easy to cut out and could have been shown solely from Bruce's actions than realising them in the form of little nods to fans ("See those things? They're from the comics! They remind you of 'such-and-such'! Oh my god!"). Those Justice League teases? Leave for an end credits sting if you must have them. Have a scene where Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) comments about Kent being back in Kansas or somewhere and nothing else? Perhaps follow that scene with Clark Kent being back in Kansas like a couple of scenes later. Add some of the flimsiest plot developments and dialogue, and you have a 2.5 hour film which drags right until it shouldn't, and keeps dragging after that. They even push the tension further and add purpose to one character by having her do one thing, but before moments later realising "Oh wait, the heroes need it!", goes to get it and instantly falls to risk of death ag. Bravo, screenwriters. Bra. Vo. 

Considering director Zack Snyder would rather make a Batman film than a Superman film, we'll start from there: Ben Affleck as Batman? He's fine. He matches the physique and truly gets into his character's psyche, but you do feel like you’d rather watch a film based around his iteration of the character alone and how he confronts the likes of the Joker, the Riddler et al before having him within the Man of Steel events – a sequence which, whilst even heavier on the 9/11 imagery than before (which was controversial enough as it is, and the filmmakers do try to rectify that later on by placing the final fight in a reportedly area) and stuck in an advert for Jeep does successfully show off what kind of man this Bruce Wayne is – and wanting to despise Superman. It's given proper reasoning, but we don’t see his character grow all that much, and his reasoning for ending the anticipated fight is so outrightly stupid you have to wonder if something else was going through his head. Let alone how he has practically no usage in the grand finale against Doomsday, and by the end he just hires himself as the nick Fury character. But that all being said...Ben Affleck is fine in the role, possibly even great. As for his right-hand man Alfred (Jeremy Irons), despite a disappearance from the plot for about 40 minutes before turning up out of the blue, he's also really good and stands out from his predecessors. More there out of necessity for the Batman lore if anything, but he adds the only bit of humour (if it can be called that) that the film has to its name. There's also the set cast for the apparently mandatory origin scene that everyone knows by now, and it's certainly interesting. Mostly because they cover up most of what ends up to be an important aspect, but also because the young child playing Bruce is obviously not suitable for the role. Sorry kid, you're no Jacob Tremblay.

I liked Henry Cavill in Man of Steel and thought that, despite a few off line deliveries, he did a good enough job filling in the shoes of Christopher Reeve. So it's a little weird to see him here being less of a heroic man conflicted by his actions and more playing two characters: Clark Kent the buggy reporter who likes Lois and Superman the mostly emotionless hero who'll stop at nothing to save Lois no matter the events that happen or the consequences. He seems less like a man who has dealt with the actions he caused nor a man feeling terrible for his Zod neck-snap and more happy with life until things go wrong again. Heck, considering how he is here it was more surprising he didn't try to break Lex Luthor's neck than it would if he did. Amy Adams meanwhile fails to really do anything outside of being Superman's girlfriend and telling the audience that they should really use Olay shampoo; with the story she's been given better suited to the one Ben Affleck was already going through. But hey! Teenage boys see her in a bath so it's all good, apparently. As for Jesse Eisenberg? Well, he might very well be even worse than the poor pacing and basis for all the stories involved in Batman V Superman. His iteration of the iconic supervillain (sorry, iconic supervillain's son, who is the real evil one here) is so unbearable and annoying, and has mannerisms more akin to the Joker than Luthor that it bears the question of why he was cast. It's Mark Zuckerberg turned evil and made very very very irritating. Not to mention the plan he has is so dependant on everything happening just as he expects and somehow figuring certain aspects out off-screen. And I would mention his assistant (Tao Okamoto), but I don't recall her even being given a name so... 

Whilst we're on the subject of women, we may as well round off the three other noteworthy women in this film. Gal Gadot as the unnamed Diane Prince? She would be great if she had any purpose other than just being a great big hint to the upcoming films and the final battle. Gadot does what she can when she isn't promoting Turkish Airlines or being known only as Miss Prince despite being one of the DC Trinity, and it does at least succeed in building anticipation for the upcoming fem-Captain America film she headlines in 2017. Diane Lane as Martha Kent makes up for maybe four scenes – one being a standard "be a hero Clark" monologue we got enough of in Man of Steel - but does what she can; whilst fellow Pixar gal Holly Hunter also does fine in ultimately a minor role.

Let's see, who else is there...Laurence Fishburne as a standard head journalist at the Daily Planet? Simple enough, has done better in the past but he's so small in this film it doesn't really care; Scoot McNairy? A legitimately interesting character that could have had plenty to do but is ultimately wasted (then again his performance wasn't exactly stellar)...and that's it outside of the Justice League cameos and Michael Shannon's naked corpse. WAIT! There's Callan Mulvey as yet another gun-carrying member of the bad guy's team...one small role in The Winter Soldier and immediately type-cast? 

Man of Steel's direction was pretty good despite what naysayers state. Yes, the constant zoom-in shots get aggravating over time but aside from that the Malick-esque feel works. Here though, it's evident that he's more excited about filming Batman and replicating the Christopher Nolan look than creating a film that looks and feels unique that it ultimately looks rather bland. God forbid all the poor souls seeing it in 3D because they'd likely never see anything on screen. And that's not a complaint on dark films – The Dark Knight trilogy works there. But seeing the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, and next year The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman in this same format, and with likely the same bombastic but sometimes annoying score? It just doesn't work as well for these characters. That there is conclusive proof that Snyder would prefer to work on Batman-based material...why else push the character into this semi-sequel rather than build up to it like a proper cinematic universe would? What's that? Warner Brothers wanted to replicate the Marvel effect? It all makes sense now... 

Despite the negative word-of-mouth that had released from critics once the embargo broke earlier this week, I was still interested in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. I liked Man of Steel, so surely this would be at least along the same lines? Instead it's more on pace with 2015's Fant4stic, with studio interference so prominent that you sometimes can't tell if the bad decision was the studio trying to appeal to fans or the filmmakers wanting to create something unique and different to the current norm of superhero movies. Marvel does fun, so DC does dark - it makes sense, but why not have it work? Because you'd rather fast-track the world-building aspect which made the competition so successful and create a billion-dollar grossing picture with none of the heart and soul put into it that your audience craves. You'd rather sell a film on a single premise, fail to deliver on that to its full potential, add elements and spoil them beforehand, and introduce characters without fully understanding what you want to do with them than to make a clear, coherent cinematic creation that makes the world want to see more of what you have to offer. In the superhero franchise guidebook, you don't follow in the example of two recent failures which have lead to both franchises being cancelled (one of which being revived which has a similar premise to your own but likely handled better) in the hopes that it'll work out for you. 

The saddest thing is that this film isn’t even bad. It's not good, nor is it mediocre: it's just disappointingly dull. And I doubt a three-hour long R-rated edition will solve that issue. How can you fail a film called Batman V Superman while having good elements such as Affleck, Irons and Gadot? How can you fail a film with the two biggest superheroes ever to be created? Maybe this film was just a test to see if it were possible, and in that case well done: you created a bad Batman V Superman film. Now I have to wait for The LEGO Batman Movie next year before I can get some proper DC action. 4/10.