Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

[Ethan99]

Actually, I didn't find a problem with this movie. It was a great entertainer, and a good adaptation. 

[Lordmandeep]

Wow reaction for this is amazing compared to SS review thread. 

[Seth Irskens]

Here's my Better Late than Ever Review of this bad Movie. 

 

[MrFanaticGuy34]

Finally saw this movie on DVD.

 

Personally, I didn't find it as bad as the critics are saying it is. Granted, it's not a perfect movie....but it was still enjoyable for me. Ben Affleck as Batman was great. The action scenes are pretty neat and good. I can understand why several people disliked this movie....but I had fun with it myself.

 

B+/A-

[peludo]

The film keeps growing in my mind. I saw the theatrical cut at theaters and it had problems, but the extended version is quite more clear and solid. It still has some problems but I still do not understand the aversion towards this. In fact, I am starting to think about it as a good film. B+

[eXtacy]

Still the worst film I have seen this year along with Tarzan (but that was a free ticket)

[DeeCee]

I'm watching the ultimate edition and it's at the flash forward. It still does not make a lick of sense. There's no foreshadowing. It's just so completely random. You think it's over and then it just keeps going. 

 

Martha!

 

Why did you say that name?

 

Our mothers have the same first name. 

 

Does that mean where best friends?

Edited May 28, 2017 by DeeCee

[MCKillswitch123]

My 2nd trip through the DCEU before Wonder Woman. Already reviewed Man Of Steel (spoiler alert: it's a big ass Rotten), and now, it's time for the successor, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

 

NOTE: This is my review of the theatrical cut. I haven't seen the Ultimate Edition yet.

 

Now, I really go against the grain here. While MOS is usually the most well regarded of the DCEU films (at least the ones released thus far), I would rank it below Batman V Superman, which a lot of people hate... but at the same time, some love, and more have grown on it since the original release. Is this a good movie? No. It's not. HOWEVER, I would be inclined to call it.... meh-to-okay range.

 

Let's start w/the positives:

• BATFLECK. Murders aside (and even those are understandable, even if the movie didn't do the best job ever at explaining why they're happening... I mean, I know what happened, but I'm a comic book storyline fan; casual audience won't have it so easy on them, though the pieces are easy to put together ultimately), this is the best on screen combo of Batman and Bruce Wayne ever. Affleck so nails both roles - suave and smart, but fittingly moody as Bruce; a fucking, total, unstoppable badass as Batman. His motivations for hating Superman? More than feasible (even if a little hypocritical, but still feasible). His intensity? Perfect. Holy shit, this guy killed it (no pun intended);
• WONDER WOMAN. Not so much Diana - sadly, Gal wasn't very good in terms of line delievery in this movie; hopefully she shuts me up immensely in the WW movie, and it looks like she will - but Wonder Woman, on suit, kicking some Kryptonian ass. One hell of a debut appearance for this icon of a character. Also, her theme song is worth having the BVS soundtrack for alone, and I can't quite say that about any MOS theme (even An Ideal Of Hope), no matter how great that OST is;
• Alfred, who was a perfect balance of seeing the silver lining in every fucked up thing Batman does, and Jeremy Irons was fantastic in the role;
• Unlike MOS, the cinematography and coloring were (mostly) top notch, and worthy of the technical effort Snyder always puts on his films;
• The opening 20 minutes were spectacular;
• "Must there be a Superman?" is a pretty damn interesting question..... ONE THAT SHOULD'VE GOTTEN ITS OWN MOVIE, MUCH LIKE MOST OF THE MATERIAL MASHED INTO THIS;
• The dialogue, despite having some speeches and nonsense (BIG kind of that) here or there, is vastly improved over MOS;
• And also, unlike MOS, where there were only... a few good individual moments, this movie had a lot of them. Top examples besides everything in the opening 20 minutes include was the Batman warehouse fight, Wonder Woman's entrance (let's ignore the whole of the Doomsday debacle), and of course, the fight between Batman and Superman itself (despite some logical holes.... and the blow-off to it all).

Of course, though, there was a lot of stupid to bear through:

• Lex Zuckerberg. Awkward ass performance, to say the least, and his senseless plan made Loki's "Not A Great Plan" from Avengers look like a masterfully executed puzzle;
• Lois Lane, whom the movie just tries to non-stop force in and it just doesn't work... not to mention she's just an object for Superman to save, at the end of the day;
• Very wonky pacing, w/at least 30 minutes worth of useless content;
• Poorly defined motivations as to why Lex hates Superman, or why Superman hates Batman... kind of a catalyst for why the major conflicts were poorly executed, even if the Batman/Superman fight was a visual (and even emotional.... horrible ending notwithstanding) thrill;
• "Piss On A Jar"...... TO BE FAIR, the idea of blowing up the Capitol Building to frame Superman isn't a bad one, but.... that just made it funny, honestly;
• Martha..... nuff said;
• Total phoning in of the Justice League build-up, w/some pretty awfully put together cameoes;
• Doomsday, who was not only completely ruined, but just served the exact same purpose of mindless and boring destruction as Zod from MOS, and I really didn't care.

All of that is horrible, no question. And... BVS at its worst is arguably a bigger low than MOS at its worst. However, at its best, BVS completely blows away MOS. Again, I disliked MOS so much because I didn't connect w/anyone (the only half compelling characters were the villains... Superman himself was a bland douche, not because of Henry Cavill, but because the character himself just couldn't stop being unlikeable). Here, while there is some bullshit along the way, I do connect w/Batman, I do connect w/Wonder Woman, I do somewhat feel for Superman's pain (even if he's, again, needlessly moody)... the movie does still have very questionable writing, but ultimately, I think that it gets just enough that it's a more emphatetic experience than the one I had w/MOS. Again, not a good movie, but the hate some give it (which I understand, admitedly), is still a little unwarranted imo.

[keysersoze123]

Ultimate Edition is definitely better. But some of the scenes were still unnecessary. Superman could have brooded lot less. But I have no doubt Bvs >>> MOS. I found MOS not entertaining at all and 3rd act gave me a headache with relentless action. Here things were better. Doomsday scenes did not last too long and Wonder Woman made it worth it.

 

My DCEU Ranking

Bvs UC >>> BVS Theatrical >>> MOS > SS(was short and deadshot/harley were good but potential was wasted big time).

[angeldelmito]

My DCEU Ranking

 

BvS Ultimate > Man of Steel >>> Suicide Squad > Batman V Superman

[Goffe]

I certainly could go on and on with the problems I have with BvS. Its 5 minutes dream sequence that awkwardly doesn't feel like a dream sequence at all; Snyder inability to shoot and edit action; the overwhelming overreliance on stylized computer-generated effects, which makes, more often than not, the imagery uglier; the shoehorned in, very obvious studio mandated, sequences where other DC characters are referenced, which only serves the purpose of generating awareness around those proprieties; etc. But I won't.

 

It does more than enough

 

BvS does more than enough for me to forgive its shortcomings. It's rough around the edges, but the whole is sure worth it.

 

We could have used more Lois&Clark as well, we needed their relationship to be more fleshed out so the ending could have had a bigger emotional impact.

 

8/10

Edited December 2, 2017 by Goffe

[cookie]

This is the best of the pre-Wonder Woman DCEU films, but that's not saying much. Suicide Squad is terrible and Man of Steel just made me furious, so this just being bad shouldn't be taken as a kind of endorsement.

 

The weird thing even is that BvS structure-wise is far worse than Man of Steel, which I can say to its credit had a coherent plot. I guess what saves it is that Man Of Steel is so rotten to its core that a bloated mess like BvS couldn't hope to make me as angry as its predecessor did, not that it didn't try. The reason it's better than Suicide Squad is that Suicide Squad tried less but fucked up just as bad if not worse, which makes that venture all the more baffling.

 

All the good stuff in this movie centers around Batman. Yes, the aspect of him murdering basically everyone he comes across is very iffy (and the way some are trying to deny he's even killing people is baffling with all the evidence to the contrary) but Ben Affleck has the potential to be a great Batman someday, and despite dealing with a terrible script and characterization still does the best he can with it. His scenes with Jeremy Irons' Alfred are the best scenes in the movie, they bring the only real levity in an otherwise dour film and are genuinely amusing and even his interactions with Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman aren't half bad either. Plus, it's not like the Batman killing aspect couldn't have been saved with more thought put into it. Batman has killed in movies before, the problem here is just that the movie was so reckless about it (which is part of the issue I had with Superman leveling Metropolis in Man of Steel).

 

Honestly everything that's terrible about this film centers around the Superman mythos. Henry Cavill himself is dull and uncharismatic, his Clark Kent is an asshole who doesn't do his job and his Superman is even more of an asshole. Really think about Superman's main conflict in the movie. He wanders around moping not because he finds himself ineffective or thinks he's causing more problems than solving, but because not everyone worships him as a god. He doesn't even do anything to try and make people like him, he just expects everyone to be peachy and doesn't even try to build a defense for himself for the senate hearing. Batman is absolutely right in that Superman is a threat. He's an emo narcissist who doesn't actually give a shit about the people he's supposed to protect.

 

Eisenberg's Luthor is terrible. The movie tries to paint him as this super intelligent puppet master when his entire plan relies on contrivances, coincidences and off-screen shenanigans that the only plausible way his plan could've worked was if he had read the script ahead of time. Eisenberg's portrayal of him is embarrassing. We're supposed to find him intimidating but his constant stuttering and frantic episodes only makes him look ridiculous. Half the time he looks like he's about to have a nervous breakdown. Did they read any of the comics before they wrote this character? It almost makes me think that they despised the character and tried to make him as cartoonishly ridiculous as possible.

 

The Superman supporting cast are useless. They just are. Amazing Amy is wasted as Lois Lane. Laurence Fishburne is wasted as Perry White. Jimmy Olsen is killed off in the first fifteen minutes and you wouldn't even know that was Jimmy Olsen if you didn't read the credits. They bring back Kevin Costner as Pa Kent and somehow makes him look worse than in Man of Steel. None of them actually contribute anything all that vital, and even when they find something for Lois Lane to do it's embarrassing. She nearly drowns trying to retrieve a kryptonite spear she threw away herself. All this serves to convince me that the Superman aspect of the DCEU is fundamentally broken and may be unsalvageable, no matter how much the Batman/Wonder Woman stuff are going to help elevate Justice League.

 

The public in the DC universe are morons too. When I saw the trailers I thought the senate hearing was going to be in response to Superman's recklessness in Man of Steel, but it's actually in response to him blowing up a North African terrorist cell at the start of the movie. What the fuck. Who the hell cares about a terrorist cell?! Why isn't this in response to Superman being indirectly and sometimes directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions?! One of the worst aspects of Man of Steel is, like I said before, that Superman doesn't give a shit about collateral damage and doesn't even try to save the people in peril around him. The fact that the battle resulted in the destruction of the city wasn't the issue in of itself. In Man of Steel Superman landed in an area that looked like 9/11 times a billion and his first course of action was to make out with Lois Lane for a bit. He was phased more by the snapping of Zod's neck than the multitude of lives lost getting to that point, and even that was extremely brief since the movie never came back to that, and neither did Batman V Superman. After the senate blows up (Superman didn't even get the chance to defend himself, he was in that hearing for like 30 seconds) it seemed like Superman was going to be blamed for it, but for some baffling reason he isn't, until later after Superman decides to ditch everything and wander in the mountains when for an even more baffling reason the public are suddenly turning on him. So if Superman decided not to be emo and mopey he would've remained blameless and Luthor's plan wouldn't have worked. What. The. Fuck.

 

And yes, I am aware of that scene in the Extended Cut where Superman is seen helping the victims of the senate bombing and one of the first responders is understandably apprehensive about him. This brings me into my point about the Theatrical Cut. At two and a half hours, this convoluted yet oddly simple story apparently couldn't be told without hacking the film to pieces and including scenes like the one I just mentioned would've actually helped at least a little bit. Not that they would've saved the movie or anything, but a small step in the right direction nonetheless. So much of the theatrical cut is wasted filler regardless. Most of the action scenes aren't that long, so it's not like the movie needed to be so long to accommodate them, so what we get are pointless subplots (really, the whole part about the senate hearing could've been cut out) and scenes that go nowhere in the end. If you can't tell this story properly in two and a half hours or less, you kinda suck as a storyteller. To begrudgingly quote Transformers 2: "Beginning, middle, end. Facts, details, condense, plot, tell it!"

 

Speaking of pointless scenes, the Justice League tease. Wonder Woman gets an attachment with videos of herself, The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman. Why? What difference did those scenes make? The third act is grounded to a halt just so the movie could go "look, look! We got all these heroes coming up!". At least Joss Whedon had sense enough to cut the similarly unnecessary Thor bath scene in Avengers 2 to the bare minimum. At least the Batman nightmare scenes earlier in BvS had somewhat of a point to the narrative.

 

And the ending... fuck the ending. That's all I have to say about it.

 

This sounds much more negative than I really feel about the film. In the end Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice just left me numb and kinda bored. Some of the action scenes are kinda cool, particularly during the title fight, but the visual style doesn't make them any less dreary. So much of BvS is really frustrating, but I didn't walk out furious like I did with Man of Steel. I guess that's progress? Wonder Woman is much better than any of the films that preceded it, gripes I have with and all, and maybe Justice League will be too. Let's at least hope.

Edited August 31, 2017 by cookie

[Lordmandeep]

The Spiderman 3 of Comic Movies for this decade.

 

 

[ObserveCreativeSoul]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30dkcvqnpYk

 

It was quite an interesting challenge (Mr. Kevin Smith did a request on his show Fatman on Batman last year regarding Wonder Woman's theme fitting with BvS gym scene where Batman is working out), one that showed some unusual, ermm, results)))

 

Featuring: Batman, Kevin Smith and a couple of very SPECIAL GUESTS

[angeldelmito]

idk if the ultimate edition has a thread, but it's a waaay better version than the theatrical one. Ultimate Edition gets an 83% (B).