This past weekend, I watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and I have to say that that I really enjoyed the movie overall. It was, for the most part, put together well and gave us an ending that was surprising, to say the least.
Here’s a quick overview:
The Good
The movie has lots of action. Zack Synder is very good at putting together insane action sequences that are mostly believable and, at the same, impossible to behold. The fight between Batman and Superman, Batman’s attacks on various criminals, and the final battle were all the highlight of the movie.
The character of Bruce Wayne is given a brief introduction (in case you really don’t know the origin of Batman) and then we see the current timeline. Bruce is a jaded superhero, consuming alcohol, abandoning his no-kill rule if he needs to, and generally cynical about everything. He admits that he’s basically a criminal in the eyes of the public and we see a Robin costume in a display with a message from Joker, basically bragging about killing Robin.
Also, Wayne manor is burned out and both he and Alfred live in a guest house.
The introduction of Wonder Woman is subtle as well. She doesn’t fully appear until the final fight, though her alter identity is used here and there.
Superman struggles with his identity as being essentially a god among men. While there is some god-like symbolism in various scenes, he tries to portray himself as not a threat, which fails at nearly every turn thanks largely to Lex Luthor.
The Bad
The characterization of Lex Luthor is pretty weak. He’s basically portrayed as a whiny millennial who hates Superman because he’s a hipster Atheist+ asshole. He whole goal of killing Superman is largely because Superman’s very existence disproves his ideas about the existence of gods.
What I take issue with all of this is that in nearly all other portrayals, Lex Luthor is not a socially awkward faggot who can’t even make a proper keynote speech at his own goddamn party. Instead, he’s a very reserved and intelligent man. Kevin Spacy did an excellent job as Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.
The future-vision-as-a-dream-sequences in the movie should have been handled better. The transition was abrupt and poorly executed.
The Ugly
The marketing department really screwed the pooch on the trailers. They gave away the final villain and leaked out that Wonder Woman was going to be in the movie. If they had kept a tight-ship and just implied that only Batman and Superman were going to be in the movie, there would have been a lot more surprises for the audience.
Also, it is implied that Darkseid is coming, but there isn’t much to go on if a person doesn’t know who he is. Probably should have implied what was going on in Batman’s vision of the future.
Overall, this was an excellent movie, despite what critics say. I know the movie is getting panned, but what they forget is that this is a superhero film where two of the biggest badasses in comic book history fight for the first time in live action.
I recommend every comic book fan go see it. Comic book snobs, however, can go get swallowed up by their own asshole.