For the first time in cinematic history, two of the most iconic superheroes of all time appear on the big screen together… Batman and Superman, sharing the spotlight at last. And apparently Wonder Woman is sharing it with them. Along with the Flash. And Aquaman and Cyborg for a few seconds. And Doomsday. Yeah… this movie’s pretty cluttered.
Currently, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is getting panned by critics all over the board. As of writing this review, it has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to continue dropping. Other sites aren’t big fans of it either. Personally, I do not think that this movie deserves a 29% score. Not in the slightest. Many casual fans and audiences think the same. This movie, quite honestly, is flawed. But it’s not awful.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice takes place about two years after the events of Man of Steel. The world is split between loving, idolizing, and even worshipping Superman (once again played by Henry Cavill), and the ones who fear him and believe he’s a threat. One of those who think he’s a major problem is Bruce Wayne (played by Ben Affleck). During Superman’s fight with Zod, Bruce lost a lot of people he cared about in the destruction. Now he’s hell bent on bringing Superman down and making sure the world is safe from his potential threat. Meanwhile, Alexander Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is devising a plan to make both Batman and Superman’s lives much more difficult.
The flaws are primarily with the story and character development. The plot has way too much going on for one movie to handle, and many of the story elements don’t exactly fit together as well as I’m sure the filmmakers intended it to. It tried to be a good movie on its own while also trying to introduce the other DC superhero characters for the Justice League movies coming up in a few years. It’s not going to be a smooth flowing story when the studio is trying to hammer things like that into the film. As for character development, the only characters that I actually liked/cared about were Batman, Alfred (played by Jeremy Irons), and oddly enough, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.
Firstly, I would like to say that Ben Affleck is absolutely THE BEST live action Batman that has ever been on screen. Sure, Michael Keaton was good, but Ben Affleck utterly owned this role. He was badass, his suits were awesome, his Batmobile was great, and he was actually a well written character. Just like Keaton back in 1989, the fans that were raging about the casting choice were proven wrong.
I can’t say the same about Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, however. This isn’t the same Lex Luthor that is traditionally seen in DC properties. Instead of a calm, collected, intimidating businessman that most people know Lex Luthor to be, Jesse Eisenberg was a socially awkward, twitchy weirdo. But to my surprise, I personally liked the portrayal of the character. It would not in any way be my first choice, nor would I say that I prefer this Lex Luthor over the one usually depicted. But I liked this Lex Luthor nonetheless. He even has some well written monologues about the concept of a god, and I really got into the scenes he was in. I may be in the minority opinion on this, but I’m not afraid to say that I liked Jesse Eisenberg’s performance for what it was.
I didn’t find the other characters, however, to be nearly as enjoyable as the few that I mentioned previously. As much as I liked Henry Cavill as Superman, he didn’t bring anything new to the role. He was sort of bland most of the time. Whether it was the script or something else, I wasn’t as impressed with his performance as I was in Man of Steel. Lois Lane (Amy Adams) was simply an idiot. I don’t know how else to put it. Lois Lane was an idiot throughout the entire film. She’s always been sorta dumb, if you think about it. The only thing that she wasn’t an idiot in was the animated Superman TV show from the 1990’s. But now, in 2016, she’s an idiot again. At least we almost get to see her boobs.
Don’t be too discouraged, however. What this film lacks in character and story cohesiveness, it makes up for in AWESOME action scenes! If there’s one thing that director Zack Snyder is good at (especially when he’s allowed control over his own damn movie by the studio and producers), is the action. This is pure comic book superhero action brought to the big screen. You don’t get action quite like this in the Avengers! This is all out gloriousness. Add to all this the perfect musical score by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL (a dream combination). While I don’t think the character Doomsday should have been in the movie, I sure did love the fight scene with him, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. It was amazing.
Speaking of, Wonder Woman is in this movie as well. She doesn’t have a lot of screentime, and most of it is when she’s Diana Prince. But when she’s in her full Wonder Woman armor, she looks spectacular! And she’s great in the fight scene as well! I remember being sort of on the fence when it came to Gal Gadot being cast as the character. Now that I’ve seen her performance, I am very relieved.
So… if I’m being honest, I quite liked this movie. I recognize that it’s flawed, but I was able to overlook them (for the most part) and simply enjoy what I was given. I had fun with it, and if you’re a casual moviegoer, you might, too. True, it is reasonable to expect the first time Batman and Superman appear in a big-budget film together be a lot better than what it was, but if you think about it, it was an impossible task for any director or writer to succeed at.
When it comes to the film’s flaws, I place the blame on the studio instead of the writers or director Zack Snyder. The studio (and especially Christopher Nolan) was pressuring everyone involved to do the impossible: Make a good Batman and Superman movie while trying to tie in all the future Justice League characters and set up the DC Cinematic Universe along with the coming of the villain Darkseid in a future movie and have all these things be cohesive and make us money. The studio didn’t care about making a good standalone movie with this. It was intended by the studio to be purely set-up for other movies that are also set-up for a big two-part movie to compete with Marvel because DC and Christopher Nolan are impatient and aren’t taking their time with any of it.
But with as little control as Zack Snyder had with this film, I thought it was okay. Snyder did the best with what he could. It was simply an impossible task that no one could have accomplished. A friend of mine could write a master’s thesis on this topic. He said, and I quote, “Snyder was in a lose-lose situation”, and he was right. Yeah, Snyder’s gonna get a lot of hate for this movie, but I personally can’t blame him for anything with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
In conclusion, I had a lot of fun with this film. I recommend it for the sole purpose that it’s the first time Batman and Superman are appearing on the big screen together. It’s got issues, but serviceable to casual viewers. I say to give it a chance and see what you make of it.
FINAL RATING: 36 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5
ACTING: 3 / 5
CHARACTERS: 3 / 5
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 3 / 5
ACTION: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 5 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 4 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 3 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 3 / 5
No comments:
Post a Comment