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Thursday 24 March 2016

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice


This review may contain spoilers!

Zack Snyder and David S. Goyer are the director/writer team behind Man of Steel and the film I'm reviewing here; these men are important because together they've made the worst start possible to the DC Cinematic Universe. I would give Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice a 4/10.

Visually this is without a doubt one of the best superhero films out there. The cinematography is incredible and you're aware of that right from the opening of Batman's origin story, there is an incredible display of big grand shots as well as brilliant attention to visual detail. The special effects in the film have been given a lot of criticism and that baffles me, the effects in this film are great; just look at the 3D models and how they show various superpowers. Hans Zimmer does the score for this film and in classic Zimmer style it's fast become one of the best scores that I've heard this year, Zimmer's ever changing themes really work well against certain characters and key scenes. Narratively this film is riddled with flaws but I didn't feel that way at first and that's because this film has a great beginning stemming from the heavy focus upon Batman/Bruce Wayne, Wayne's motivation and driving force at the start of this film is really interesting to watch and one of the few saving graces of the film.

Henry Cavill, who played Superman, is an actor I still feel is the perfect casting choice; Cavill does a great job in this film despite being let down by weak dialogue that felt like I was watching Man Of Steel all over again. Laurence Fishburne, who played Perry White, had a great comedic and witty presence in this film; he really made the scenes that took place at the Daily Planet enjoyable. Jeremy Irons, who played Alfred, was a really fun cynical take on the famous butler role; the back and forth exchanges between Irons and Affleck really stood out. Gal Gadot, who played Wonder Woman, wasn't in this film much but had an incredibly strong presence regardless; Gadot's incredibly smooth exchange with Affleck results in two of the best scenes of the film. Brandon Spink, Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played Young Bruce Wayne, Martha Wayne and Thomas Wayne respectively, presented us with one of the best looking Batman origins to date; there wasn't a huge focus on these actors but what little we got is very memorable. Neil deGrasse Tyson, who played himself, was an interesting cameo to have in this film; Tyson's scientific mind weighing in on the place of Superman within the grand scheme of things was one of the things I liked about this film.

However the best performance came from Ben Affleck, who played Batman. In this film Affleck creates a Batman that is clearly very experienced and who has a fair deal of presence in action sequences. Yet what I liked most about Affleck's portrayal was his depiction of Bruce Wayne and how Wayne is still the vigilante even without the mask. There are an incredible amount of scenes in this film where Bruce Wayne is being a hero without donning the mask and I thought that was interesting and quite a new take on things, we finally see an actor who brings an alter ego performance that links well to the superhero identity. Furthermore Affleck is really good at playing a serious, stoic Wayne then slipping into a facade of the Billionaire playboy Wayne. I think this performance really delivered and Affleck has certainly made his mark as the Dark Knight.

Let's talk about the narrative of this film, I apologise in advance for how long this will be and how many spoilers I will inevitably be discussing. Batman V Superman is along film with a good start but a great deal of unnecessary scenes and subplots; halfway through the film the focus starts shifting off Batman more and more and moves to Luthor which is ultimately what dooms this film to it's heavy pacing issues. Seeing as I've mentioned Luthor let's take a look at him first; in this film Lex Luthor has no real clear motivation and is written to be so erratic that he becomes an oddity, ultimately as an antagonist he's weak and poorly written. There is no feasible reason for him to bring in Doomsday AND have him manipulate Superman and Batman into fighting when just one of the two options would have paced the story out a lot better; more than that it took away Batman's agency and importance in this film when someone like Luthor is able to just simply manipulate him into fighting Superman. In this film the story takes place very much in the present and doesn't pay much mind to the past events of Man of Steel so there are a lot of loose ends and plot points that feel out of nowhere or not given enough attention to such as Clark and Lois' relationship, the rebuild of Metropolis, Batman's history in Gotham, why Batman is having visions, how did Lex find out about Superman's secret identity and so on. As the film progresses the audience is confronted with several characters being written in a way that seems bizarre and out of character; Lex Luthor is obsessed with Superman being a god in what feels like Snyder desperately trying to have his fifty cents about religion in this film, Batman kills in a rather out of character moment and Superman dies and is given an American soldier's death which is wildly inconsistent with all the themes about Superman in this film. Also featured in this film is the first appearance of the Justice league which is very artificially shoehorned into the plot; it really made no sense to show these characters the way the film did because if Lex Luthor knew the identities of all of these heroes why didn't he act on this information? One last quick sidenote about the fight sequences; the fights in this film were okay but too often tended towards the basic and never took any risks to stand out.

Amy Adams, who played Lois, is the epitome of a useless character given more screen time than they deserve; Snyder needs to stop pushing the importance of Lois Lane on us because no one is convinced. Jesse Eisenberg, who played Lex Luthor, reminds of the saying 'if you have nothing nice to say don't say it at all'; the only thing I feel I can say about Eisenberg is that he is not only the worst performance of the film but a big part of the reason why it was so bad. Diane Lane, who played Martha Kent, is the world's oldest damsel in distress in this film; Lane and cavill have no chemistry so it's really hard to watch these two to pretend to be mother and son. Holly Hunter, who played Senator Finch, was the face of the hearing subplot; this was just another subplot that didn't really feel important and was ultimately made redundant in a rather throwaway plot twist. Scoot McNairy, who played Wallace Keefe, is said throaway plot twist in this film; McNairy is nothing more than a character we're supposedly meant to feel sorry for before he gets blown up but I don't feel like anyone will have much sympathy after watching this poorly written character. Callan Mulvey, who played Anatoli Knyazev, is a glorified henchman in this film; he has no screen presence and is best at glowering a lot. Tao Okamoto, who played Mercy Graves, probably didn't need to be in this film; her role was never explored and she was killed off without ever really making a mark on the film. Rebecca Buller, who played Jenny, is only in this film so Fishburne has someone to bounce his dialogue off of; Buller is a character you'll forget about only minutes after seeing her in a scene. Harry Lennix, who played Swanwick, is just another minor role that reminds us that yes Man of Steel actually did happen; Lennix is sucked into a subplot revolving around Lois Lane in what feels like a bid to keep everyone from the first film around. Kevin Costner, who played Jonathan Kent, is a cameo that this film just does not need; all it does is remind us that Costner was the worst part of Man of Steel. Ray Fisher and Joe Morton, who played Cyborg and Silas respectively, have made me lose all excitement I had for the Cyborg character; all Fisher does is scream a lot while Morton cobbles the Cyborg origin together in a botched thirty seconds. Ezra Miller, who played the Flash, has two awful cameos in this film; one is odd and comes out of nowhere while the other feels very forced. Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman, can't act to save himself in his cameo; not only does he fail to portray his role but it looks like he's holding his breath which seems kinda redundant if he's playing Aquaman.

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