Super-Cember Day #15: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

(Originally posted December 15th, 2017)

It was just 3 days ago that I declared I'd found the worst movie I'd ever seen in my life. 3 days ago. And just yesterday, one of my friends asked me how long I thought it would take for something else to usurp that title. I didn't know it would be the very next day, but Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) somehow found a way to do it. I hated almost every second of this train wreck, and I don't know if I can keep myself from just rambling on and on about it, but here we go. Starring Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Initially I want to clarify that I did not watch the extended version, I watched the cinematic release. I'll be doing this for all movies with a DVD/Blu-Ray director's cut, and not just for the bad ones. I didn't watch the extended edition of Spider-Man 2 (known as Spider-Man 2.1) either. It's just the decision I've made to watch the movies as if I'd gone to see them in cinema, as I have with some of the movies left off this list, like the MCU. Please don't hound me to watch the extended cuts, because I won't, no matter how much 'better' the movies end up being. Anyway, here we go.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman

The conflict between Batman and Superman (you know, the title of the freaking movie) is straight up bullsh*t. The reason people wanted to see Batman and Superman fight is because of their conflicting ideals: Superman stands for hope and freedom, and Batman stands for justice and vengeance. What do we get in this movie? We get two whiny hypocrites who despise each other for doing the exact same things they do themselves, and a final fight that is instigated through kidnapping and manipulation. And the way the fight wraps up? It's one of the laziest things I've ever seen in a movie. I thought there was more to the whole 'Martha' thing when the internet was going nuts over it, but, nope. There's nothing more to it. The conflict completely dries up because their mothers have the same name. That's horrendous. Say what you will about Captain America: Civil War, but it puts Tony Stark and Steve Rogers against each other for all the right reasons: their conflicting ideologies. Here, the conflict is manufactured as anything, and when the fight does happen, there's no payoff to what came before it because none of it matters. They don't end up fighting because of opposing opinions; they fight because Martha Kent is being held hostage. Immediately, the whole reason fans wanted to see these two square off is abandoned, and we're just getting started here.

Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman

I'd heard amazing things about Ben Affleck's Batman. It's the role he always wanted to play, and I mean that literally. He accepted the role of Daredevil because he thought it was the closest he'd ever get to play Batman. Watching him in this, though... I'm sorry, I don't know what anyone saw in him. It's such a bland performance. I think a lot of that comes down to the lines, since practically everything out of his mouth is just him whinging about Superman when he has no right to do so, and something like that would kill any performance. But when he just has to react to something or let his facial expressions do the talking, I see Bruce Wayne. I hope he gets more material in future films, but he just left me cold here. Now, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, on the other hand, is the only good thing about this movie. This is a spot-on portrayal. We get Alfred's biting cynicism and also his loyalty to Bruce. Whenever he was on screen, I was just so happy, or at the very least, not upset.

Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor? No. Absolutely not. I called bull on this back when they announced him back in 2015, and my opinion was entirely validated by watching it today. It's just an awkward performance, and not even laughable. It's just hard to watch. Call him 'Lex Luthor Jr.' as much as you want, he's still Lex Luthor. There was only one line confirming his father's name was also Lex, he never gets called Junior once in the entire movie, and they shave his head by the end, so this was a legitimate Lex Luthor that they hastily added a 'Jr.' to due to fan backlash after the cast announcement. I actually found myself watching his character thinking he would make a good Joker, a different Joker but I wouldn't mind seeing what he could do with the role. Eisenberg is a good actor, he just wasn't right for the part. Not to mention, Luthor's motivations throughout are never clear. He hates Superman just... because. Luthor's amazing backstory from the comics ends up being reduced to... he just hates him. Lex Luthor was one of my first favourite villains ever, and I loved him in the original Superman, and especially in Superman Returns. Here? This might be one of the sloppiest villains I've seen from any angle you look at it.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor

Doomsday is another one of those 'no' moments in this movie. Not only does he look awful and the CGI rarely impressed me with his model, but they just missed the entire point of the character. The whole point of Doomsday is that it's a conglomeration of the DNA of thousands of alien species, and its battle with Superman was built up, lasted a long time and left a lasting impact. Here it's just Luthor spilling his blood on Zod's body. Um, no. I mentioned in my Spider-Man 3 review that even though Venom was a last-minute inclusion, he felt incredibly well integrated to me, and it felt like he was going to be in the film right from the start of production. Here, Doomsday feels incredibly tacked on at the last minute, and I know for a fact this was always the plan from the start with this movie. For a villain named 'Doomsday', this was incredibly disappointing.

Doomsday

So, once the movie was over, I had a long think about what I thought of it. Initially, I didn't see it as too offensive, but then I considered the implications of this movie. All this film needed to do was pit Batman against Superman in an entertaining way and have it make sense. That would have been enough. Instead, we get Batman v Superman, a death of Superman story and a precursor to Justice League. They tried to do too many things, and they failed at all of them. On top of that, Green Lantern may have been horrible, but it was just a Green Lantern movie. This was a Batman vs Superman story, something the fans had been waiting to happen for decades, and it's like they didn't treat the fans with enough respect to just give them what they wanted. Instead, we get 100 minutes of a snore-fest of a movie leading up to a fight scene which bears no relevance to what came before it and, to be honest, was boring as sin anyway, then another 30 minutes of an extremely rushed Doomsday story featuring the DEATH OF SUPERMAN! This movie looks down on its audience so much it thinks the fans would be okay with them killing off Superman in just the 2nd f***ing movie. Not only that, but they did it in such a rushed way that the impact isn't even as hard-hitting as it wants to be. Not only that, but we all know Superman was going to return. He's Superman! They'd confirmed a Man of Steel 2 by that point. His logo was in all of the Justice League posters. This movie actually went a whole other path than just being boring. They actually insulted its audience.

MARTHA!

I've never seen a movie this insulting in my life. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2017) is awful. Just pure awful. Nothing anyone can say will make me change my mind. It was boring, bland, insulting, and it gave DC fans exactly 0% of what they were asking for. Therefore, it gets the same in return. 0/10. F*** this movie.

Tomorrow: hopefully we can bounce back with Kick-Ass 2.