Batman V Superman is a bad film. It is a sad excuse for a versus movie, it fails as a team-up movie, and is as false a Superman or Batman movie as sugar-free pudding. Technically its pudding, but we all know it isn’t the real thing. That being said, it still doesn’t deserve the 29% rating that Rotten Tomatoes is currently giving it. Like Titanic 2, this was nothing more than a cheap knock off. But it was a fun one. The building blocks are there for something great and sets up a good future for the universe, but the blocks aren’t in the right places and, frankly, some of them do not belong.
So why did the critics hate this movie this badly? Admittedly, I didn’t read any of the reviews. I saw the film today and didn’t want to spoil my experience by reading someone else’s. But I’ve broken it down into three main subjects, Character, Dream Sequences, and the Story… or lack thereof.
From this point on, Spoilers.
Character
To get a full grasp on the film, we need to look at its origin, Man Of Steel, and critic’s biggest argument against it, the fact that Superman kills and that he doesn’t save anyone while he is trying to save everyone. The fact that he didn’t really force the fight outside of Metropolis, destroying the city and causing the deaths of a high number of citizens, was a huge mark against the film and the character. Because of this, Henry Cavill’s character doesn’t feel like the character we’ve known since 1938.
When I think of Superman, my mind pictures the Superman presented in the Animated Series, in Justice League, and in Justice League Unlimited. Being that these shows are for kids, the character was simple to understand. He was a shining beacon of hope, an inspiration for the common man, and is someone you can look to and see an example of moral perfection while still seeing him struggle to maintain that perfection. He earned Man of Steel’s numerous “LOOK AT ME! I’M JESUS!” moments. Most importantly, he doesn’t kill; there is always another way. When he kills, you know something is wrong with him and he stops being Superman. The perfect example of this is in the Justice League episode “A Better World”, which shows an alternate universe Earth and Justice League where Superman breaks and kills President Lex Luthor. That kill destroys everything and proves to us why Superman doesn’t kill people.
That is what is missing from Man of Steel, the core bits of character that make Superman the hero he is. Fans of the film justify the killing of Zod based on Clark’s inexperience as a hero, claiming that this will be a formative moment for Clark and will create his “no kill” rule, which didn’t happen. Others justify the ending of the film by saying that it was the only way to save a family from Zod’s heat vision, and Snyder almost had Superman in an inescapable corner, but there is always another way. That “way” was going up. Somehow, a man who had spent the last 20 minutes flying around the Earth forgot that he could fly.
In response to a legitimate fan complaint, one would think that Zack Snyder, the director, would have used this complaint as a hint that he did something wrong and would course correct, maybe use the creation of the “no kill” rule to deepen the character and win more fans to the movies. Instead, he gave fans the middle finger by destroying the other title character and having Batman kill indiscriminately and without remorse.
For those that don’t know, Batman’s one rule (which filmmakers continue to forget) is that Batman doesn’t kill. BATMAN DOESN’T KILL. He will mortally wound, he may put you into the hospital for years, but he will not kill you, even if you are the man that put a bullet into Martha and Thomas Wayne’s heads. That should have been Batman’s greatest argument, his moral center, and justification for having a grudge with and distrusting Superman, and Snyder threw it in the fire. By his being willing to kill, and almost successfully killing, Superman (which I will admit was a brilliant plan that would have worked), it brings up one gigantic question. In this world, why is the Joker still alive. What makes this mass murderer, the biggest threat to Gotham, so much better than the man that Snyder wants to prop up as a Messiah?
This isn’t Batman and Superman, this is taking a jar of piss and labeling it “Grandma’s Peach Tea.”
But you know which characters were great? Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman.
He may be something different from the stern faced, businessman Lex Luthor, maybe someone a little less adult, but Jess Eisenberg played a great mastermind who I felt became the Lex we all know by the end of the film. If he isn’t planning something for his next movie and for the arrival of Darkseid, I will be surprised.
And then there was Wonder Woman. The shining star of this film, the perfect character for Scott Snyder. Though she was limited on screen time (probably 20 minutes out of the whole 153), her character was perfect. The Lasso of Truth, her Amazonian Armor, the references to her Greek Pantheon heritage when she reacts to Lex’s speech about Prometheus, and her fighting spirit, I saw Gal Gadot as Diana Prince, as Wonder Woman. I will watch the movie again just for her.
Dreams
Batman V Superman has a dream problem right from the start. While both dream sequences are amazing and would make for great one shots or solo films, they take you out of the movie and are given way too much screen time with little pay off in a movie that may be too much bang for your buck.
The opening sequence, one of the best death of the Wayne’s I have ever watched, ends with kid Bruce falling into a cave filled with bats. This is then ruined by the bats flying around Bruce like a tornado and causing him to float to symbolize the birth of Batman, showing once again that Zach Snyder is deeply married to heavy handed symbolism. That flight reveals the opening sequence as a dream, isn’t referenced again, and took me out of the film until Wonder Woman shows up to save Batman at the end of the film.
Later, we were given the brilliance now titled ‘Knightmare’. Bruce wakes up in a desert wasteland, a dystopian future for Earth. On his way to get kryptonite so he can beat Superman, the audience is shown the Omega symbol, a symbol closely associated Darkseid and the planet Apocalypse. Batman is betrayed and attacked by Superman’s forces (the soldiers with the S patches) and parademons, Darkseid’s army. By the end, we know that something is wrong with Superman, we just don’t know if he is being controlled or if he broke. Because of the character, it is pretty ambiguous.
Batman wakes up (maybe?) to a time traveling Flash (in armor?) delivering a cryptic message about Lois Lane, only to then have Bruce wake up again. Is Batman actually a prophet in this story? Does he tend to dream within dreams? We don’t know because it isn’t referenced again.
Batman uses Knightmare to justify his wanting to kill Superman, but otherwise we don’t see it again.
Story
This movie didn’t know what it wanted to be, and became nothing but a mashed together, bastardized version of two seminal stories: The Dark Knight Returns and the Death of Superman. Besides a few points and panel recreations (seriously, Snyder is an artist when it comes to recreating comic panels) the story had very little to do with keeping me in my seat. It was bad for a few reasons.
The first is that Snyder tried pushing the alien argument while trying to humanize Superman. We see him save people, and yet the masses hate him. His statues and monuments are vandalized because vandals or their families weren’t saved (which would have been one thing a Superman stand alone to focus on). The film shows rampant xenophobia, which is understandable, I probably wouldn’t trust him right away either after he suddenly appears right before an alien invasion. He works for 18 months to build a reputation as a hero (with a beautiful montage to show it) and, except for one scene when he is talking to his mother, he doesn’t seem to care that he is hated. But I guess why would he if he won’t be the Superman we expect him to be?
The second problem is Batman’s grudge. It doesn’t make sense unless it is just a pissing contest. Bruce is well on his way in trying to kill Superman before he has Knightmare, which means his only reasoning (remember, Batman is ok with killing in this universe) is the mass’s xenophobia. Batman is a detective, he is a genius, he should have seen that Superman was trying to be a hero and accepted it for what it was, since he is now 20 years into his career as Batman. I expected Bats to have a contingency plan in place for if Superman went rouge (there is a long history of this, going so far as Superman giving Bats kryptonite as a just in case), but actively planning to kill Superman before he has actually done anything wrong is bad storytelling and against the character that Snyder and Affleck have created.
The third issues was that the movie was just confusing when you tried to figure out how they went from point A to point B, the unexplained knowledge (Diana knowing about the hard drive Bruce put on the server even though she stayed for the speech, Bruce knowing how to contact Diana when they didn’t know each other, Lex just suddenly knowing Clark’s identity, Bruce and Clark just randomly knowing each other’s secret identities), the fact that Lex Corp had files on Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg just because (which was awesome, but suffered from being generous with time), the creation of Doomsday was just kind of shoved in there with little screen time, and the sudden shift from “I’m going to murder you, seriously, the spear is at your neck” to “we’re buddies now!” because their mom’s share the same name. There is just so much there to grab at. You don’t need to work that hard to find big flaws in this film.
Capping off the bad story was Superman’s death. Nothing in these two movies made me care about the most important death in comic book history. The Man of Steel was barely the man that readers have loved for 75+ years and, according to Snyder’s own universe rules, didn’t deserve the reception the world gave him after his death, because he didn’t earn the world’s trust, he wasn’t the Messiah character Snyder compared him to in his solo film, and he inspired no one. I was happy he stayed in his grave at the end of the movie. He can stay there.
The most amazing part about Batman V Superman is that it was so bad and yet I will see it again. They could have chosen any one route to go for this movie, a regular Batman/Superman team-up, the DC Trinity, or just gone straight to Justice League, and it would have been a million times better. There is just so much to go into and I’ve barely scratched the surface on this movie, but I do recommend seeing the film. If you feel like saving some time and some money though, go watch the animated arc “World’s Finest”, you’ll be much happier.
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