Vs Batman V Superman

I wanna start this off by saying that this isn’t a review. I’m no critic, just a fan, these are merely my thoughts on the film, which I feel an intense need to write (type) down. I also want to start this off by saying I did not like this film. I’ll be honest and say I never had high hopes for it from the get-go, and I have a lot of the reasons why I will discuss down below. Finally, yes SPOILERS; the film has been out for a week and has made a LOT of money so I’m assuming if you are reading, you’ve either seen it or are really not interested. Here we go…

Characters

Batman – I thought Affleck was a fantastic Batman. He looks and feels like Batman, acts like The Dark Knight (for the most part), and I get real sense of how desperate he is from his Bruce Wayne as well. I can’t wait to see more Batfleck. I’m not happy with how accepting he is of killing and using guns; you can argue about previous Bat-flicks as people have, but this Batman seems to be more than to just straight up shoot a henchman and that just screams wrong in my mind. Also, I would have liked to have seen more of him. I don’t think we got enough Batsy in a film titled BATMAN v Superman, especially when he really comes across as a villain to me. Sure, there’s Lex (I’ll get into that), but this Batman reminded me of Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. He’s going about, showing off how cool and shiny he is, but at the last-minute realises how wrong he’s been, and is now going to try to redeem his soul. He DOESN’T kill Supes, very similar to how Vader DOES kill Palpatine, after realising the mistakes he had made up until that point.

Superman – I don’t have half as much to say about Superman. When I came to write my notes I realised I couldn’t remember a single thing that Superman had done in the entire film, except be a pawn to everyone else. And saving Lois Lane (I’ll get to that). But as far as driving the plot forward, he’s a Macguffin. All he does is turn up and suddenly BOOM, the plot thickens. And it’s not like he actually does anything to propel it. He just shows up! The desert, the senate meeting, the fight with Batman, his funeral. I’m not a Superman fan the same way I’m a Batman fan, but this? Let the guy have a line.

Louis Lane – Baity McPrettyboobs? Lets be honest, she does more to propel the plot than most characters, because she goes and does stuff that gets her into trouble so Superman can save her and actually move the plot with his presence. She really is just there to be captured and be a girl with which the kissy face can happen and its such a waste.

Lex Luthor – When they announced Jesse Eisenberg as Lex I was so down for it. I’d seen the Social Network. His performance as Mark Zuckerberg is pure Luthor and if you need proof, there’s a single scene where he gets asked by a dude if he is giving his full attention and y’know what.

Watch the scene

That is the performance I was expecting. When the trailer came out I was still OK with his Lex. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was different, maybe we were going to get hyper and goofy Lex in the wild, juxtaposed with serious ZuckerLex in serious moments. I was willing to roll with it. But honestly, in the film it’s too much. It’s almost like he’s acting and reacting to a different plane of reality where Roger Rabbit plays Batman and Superman is made of ear wax. And his plan is just, stupid and makes no sense and I don’t know what he wants and please someone tell me whats going on? You figure it out, I’m going to go watch The Social Network.

Woman Woman – Is awesome. I am so excited for her solo film and this small part just amped that up to 11. Yet again, I would have liked to see more but I would have liked to see different as well. She was so great as an alluring sexy girl at party and then when the final fight comes, that smile, that smirk of hers in the Doomsday fight brought me back into the film. Gimme gimme gimme.

Snyder

Zack Snyder is such a weird director to me. I love Watchman and Dawn of the Dead. I think 300 is OK and I hate Sucker Punch. This film is more like Sucker Punch than any of his others to me. Snyder can do visuals like no one else. His shots are works of art that vibrate sexy, but damn they are just that. I think of Snyder as the thinking mans Michael Bay. Where as Bay just smashes his toys together and lets them fall to pieces, Snyder thinks up really weird reasons that G.I. Joe is hanging out with Barbie. And while I’m glad he put some thought into it, he’s not as clever as he thinks he is and maybe he should stop at some point. But he stills falls into a lot of similar trappings and his attempts to appeal to the 16-25 male market just puts me off, it always has. Why does Louis Lane need to be in a bath? Because naked women sell tickets, sir! He also seems to have some deity issues. It’s a common theme in his films (Dr. Manhattan, Xerxes and now Superman), and while I’m all for common themes and issues and I think we need to get this man a share bear.

Story

It’s muddled. It’s a mess. It’s got 300 things going on and most of them don’t need to be there. The film jumps about so much, going from point to point that it’s hard to focus on one thing at a time. And most of it is irrelevant by the third act. It’s all world building and obviously a lot of this is things that we are gonna see expanded upon in later films, but we have no need for them here. The DCEU is trying to play catch up with the MCU but it needs to take its time. DC has such a rich and wonderful universe to offer us as viewers with such a range of characters, plots and everything else that we don’t need to put hints of in here. I’m still not sure why the fighting starts, surely Superman could burn ‘They have my mother’ in the ground with his laser eyes and Batman could be all like ‘Well, time to go save a mother’ and off they go. But no, they must fight because it’s the name of the film. And I want to see them fight, but I want a better reason and they exist with the pages of the DC books these people are such huge fans of. And the reason they stop fighting breaks me. It just, breaks my spirit and soul and heart and brain and nope. There is no reason Superman, being under Batman’s spikey boot would say ‘Martha’. He would say ‘Mum’ or ‘Don’t’ or ‘Uncle’ or ‘I pooped myself’, not Martha. And then Batman, was apparently completely unaware that other people in the world may have the same name as his mothers name. The way it unfolds is stupid, the fact that it unfolds is stupid and I hate that I saw memes going around with the issue that I thought was a joke, but was an actual plot point is such so ARGH.

Action

Snyder can do action. This we know, I said before his shots are amazing. They looks like a comic book come to life and its magic before your eyes and yes yes yes yes. My main problem the action in this film? There isn’t enough. I was ready for an hour-long grudge fest with Batman and Superman just turning each other into bags of floppy meat. But instead we get a 10 minute (literally, 10 minutes) action scene, and while it’s an awesome fight, I would have liked more. The Batman Warehouse scene is the crème de la crème of this film and probably the peak Batman’s cinema outings all together. During the final fight I realised just how comic-book, cartoony the fights were though. They felt like they should have been in an episode of Dragon Ball Z, (Can we get Snyder to do a live action DBZ movie? I’d watch that) and it’s a weird thing to have when your film is THIS serious and THIS gloomy, and that kinda took me out of it a little bit. Just a bit.

In conclusion, I think the film lacks a real heart and soul, that’s where it falls apart to me. It just seems to be going through the motions without really knowing or caring why. It’s the opposite of Deadpool which was pure heart and soul, and we know that from the people who made it. I feel like BvS suffers that same disconnect between artist, source material and audience that Transformers does, and that will forever be a huge problem in adaptations.

P.S. Now, this is actually a kind of important thing I wanted to bring up and why I put it here at the bottom is anyone’s guess but it’s the whole reason I say this isn’t a review. If you liked this film, then please tell me. Tell me what you liked about it. Where I’m wrong, everything. I might disagree with you on, but films are a subjective medium and it shouldn’t matter if a film has 92% of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. What matters is what you thought of it. I really dislike the Harry Potter films, my girlfriend loves them. I really love Blade Runner, she hated it. The Academy gave The Kings Speech an Oscar and it has 95% on RT, but I really hate that film. Tusk has 41% of RT and I really like that film, it’s weird and funny and isn’t trying to fit into a box like a lot of films do. The fact we can all sit around and discuss different tastes in films is fun. I adore Cinema Sins and Honest Trailers and they tear apart films I love, but it’s fun to sit down and admit these flaws and laugh about them. But if you mention this film to me and go ‘that batman scene’ I will freak out with how awesome it is because hot damn is it not just the best thing EVER?

P.P.S. At the end of this film, one thing really struck me, this is basically an Authority film, in BvS clothing. If you don’t know The Authority, it’s a comic book series that takes a Justice League type team and makes them a bit more aggressive. Two of the characters, Apollo and Midnighter are Superman and Batman analogues. The big differences being that Midnighter is a bit more extreme than Batman, and Apollo is Midnighter’s husband. I think the interpretation of Batman in this film is closer to Midnighter, than Batman. This can be fixed with an Authority film. Other reasons why include; strong female leads, LGBTQ+ superheroes, it would be very R rated and would give the DCEU a distinct difference from the MCU, in the form of a rival team with opposed ideals. Make this little nerds dream come true, DC! It would be like putting Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool together.

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Peace and Love,

Leigh.