FILM REVIEW: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition (2016)

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition (2016)

I swear, Batman's suit looks good in some angles, and ugly in others.

There is a reason I skipped to watch the theatrical cut of this film, well technically two: 1) I knew that this was going to be a train wreck (sorry DC fanboys who like this film. I swear I'm on your side) and 2) I heard there was going to be a rated R uncut version of the film. So I decided to wait it out, save my 7 dollars--because matinee prices is the best thing ever--and hope to have it leak online --because I'm not going to pay money on a piece of turd painted with blu-ray. As it happens it did leak online, and my inner filmmaker hates it, but my cheap self and my brother and family just didn't care and wanted to watch something good on the Fourth of July. Captain America: Civil War isn't out yet on blu-ray, and believe me when I say, that is something I'd rather spend my money on-- so we settled for this one. So What I'll be doing is trying to summarize the movie and provide some critiques and commentary on it both good and bad. Spoilers Ahead! you've been warned, but then again, the movie came out months ago so who cares?

Let's begin shall we?

This movie is a sequel to "Man of Steel" (2013) directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill as Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor (GAH!) and Ben Affleck as Batman.

It takes place--well it's difficult, see it loves to mess around with time. It starts off during the events of the last act of "Man of Steel" where General Zod and Superman lay waist on Metropolis. This sequence however is told through Bruce Wayne's perspective, while intercutting with flashbacks of his origin story told yet again. Sidenote: My dad made a funny comment while watching. "That's not the gun that killed his parents. that's a .42 (and automatic), not a .25 revolver". Made me laugh. Also why is The Comedian from "Watchmen", or Sam and Dean Winchester's father Thomas Wayne? He's a pretty good actor and it's a waste having him be Thomas Wayne. They shoulda gave him a cooler role; I don't know what but something cooler than being shot to death. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Thomas Wayne and some kid actor and lady actress as Young Bruce and Martha Wayne (I'll get to Martha in a second). Come on guys, if you can't even cast the Waynes right at least cast the rest of the movie right. However, this was edited beautifully in my opinion as well as cinematography wise this movie has some amazing compositional shots. I do have to admit that I love Zack Snyder's compositional shots sometimes because they are visually stunning to look at. I mean just look at "300".

So cool. Hats off to you, Zack Snyder--for this movie.

Anyways, back to the battle of Metropolis. In this sequence we learn that Bruce Wayne is trying to get to Wayne Tower to help evacuate it but fails to do so.

Skip to 18 months later - and there's a big debate about what to do with Superman. Like the fans of DC comics the populace of the world is split in half some thinks Superman is good, some think he's bad, but I am in that small gray area where I want him to be good, but I know that he's just embracing bad writing. So Lois Lane is off on an investigation at this terrorist's base trying to interview him with Jimmy Olsen you know the iconic character photographer that's always with her and Clark Kent's best friend at the Daily Planet. Yeah, well surprise he is now a secret CIA agent there to kill the terrorist and used Lois as a front to get near him, Lois has no idea, terrorist gets mad, blames Lois for something that she had nothing to do with, and Jimmy gets killed. At this moment in time, I said to myself out loud: I already hate this movie.

I mean c'mon! He's a big part of Superman's history and they just one off him like that! It sucks man. I was hoping to see him banter with Chief Perry White in this movie. Put some humor in these DC movies for Superman's sake! I could go on about why I hate dark and gloomy Superman films, it doesn't work! I mean look at this scene in Superman (1978). This is how you do comedy in a Superman film, through good dialogue, fast character interactions, Clark Kent's social awkwardness, and Olsen getting yelled at by the Chief fro calling him Chief.

This film has its flaws, but it's still a pretty good film for it's time.

So anyway, yeah, Jimmy's dead, Lois captured and then all of a sudden the African War Lord's Men turn on him, one of them being a Russian dude who is actually KGBeast (for you people who are not comic book fans or mild fans; much respect to hardcore fans if they caught the easter egg) and begin to kill people and other terrorists while the government calls for a drone airstrike--the government is so stupid in this movie and was portrayed as accurately as possible to how the real life government actually is. So I applaud this movie for that, because it genuinely reminded me of how annoyingly stupid government, and the people they govern can be. So the bad guys shoot this place up and torch the bodies, while the government drone comes around then all of a sudden boom Superman blows it up because if it bombs the place Lois dies, and we all now how Superman loves his Lois. Superman does a superhero landing, bad guy makes cliche threat instead of actually blowing her head off, and Superman tackles the bad guy through five walls. I'm pretty sure that guy is dead. I'm telling you no one cares about human life in this movie. NO ONE!

No one cares! (This was an actual scene from those awful Superman sequels by the way. There has only been two great Christopher Reeve Superman movies: Superman and Superman II)

Anyways, Lois is saved and the rest of the surviving civilians are freed from the evil African War Lord with 5 walls marking his grave and roam free in the desert and find themselves in the hands of another African War Lord (not really, but if we are talking about African War Lords they are literally everywhere, especially Europe in this time of year. Maybe. I don't know. Who cares? NO ONE! Because no one cares in this movie!)

Anyways after all of that Zero Dark Thirty mess, the government blames Superman for it!

What?! Are you telling me that Superman shot all those people with bullets? As in guns? Something that Superman doesn't need? Okay. Moving on :)

Lois goes back home and finds a bullet in her journal from the mess that she was just in and she contemplates about Superman's public approval ratings in the bathtub. Superman, now in his Clark Kent persona comes into the apartment with groceries and we learn that the two are now living together ever since Lois found out that he's Superman in the previous film. Clark walks in on her in the bathroom while she's having a naked sponge bath, as you would, I mean it's okay to walk in on someone while naked in the sponge bath as long as you have your clothes on--and the two talk about what happens and Lois tells Superman that the world hates him and you'll never guess what Superman says: "I don't care."

LOL I love this GIF so much. I'll be using it through out for people who just DEGAF

The two proceed to have sex.

Cut to awkward Lex Luthor.

So we are introduced to Jesse Eisenberg instead of Lex Luthor, so yeah. Awkward. I didn't like him. I hated him. He was just weird and it didn't work for me. I was pretty open-minded during castings once I learned this guy was casted. Look, I think that he's a great actor, but this wasn't a good performance at all. Maybe if it was a character not named Lex Luthor I would've been more lenient but I can't take this. Gene Hackman (1978 Superman) and Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville) are still the greatest Luthors out there, and Kevin Spacey, I liked Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns, about the only thing I liked from that movie. His whole motivation in this film was two-dimensional the typical bad guy hates good guy type thing. I felt no real motivation from the character. It's lost to me and lost in his insanity. This Luthor was just too Joker-like but without the charm.

Evil Jesse Eisenberg gets his hands on Kryptonite which was taken from the fallen Kryptonian ship in India from the first film and finds out that it affects Kryptonian DNA by testing it on General Zod's corpse (Michael Shannon) probably still made money from this film for allowing them to use his likeness). He makes a deal with some shady politician; you know, how politicians do things like this in real life? And he trades Kryptonite samples to be used as a Superman-deterrent for access to Kryptonian technology under lockdown by the US government and custody over Michael Shannon's corpse.

Meanwhile in the Batcave...

De-nenenene!

Batman is searching for KGBeast and looking for a connection between Russian assassins working for African Warlords and Luthor. While Alfred Downey Jr. works on making the final adjustments to this mech suit armor Batman will need in the films climactic and titular battle. Jeremy Irons, I think is a very good Alfred. However, he wasn't in the film as much as I'd hope to be, but it is after all a Superman film. Right? [nervous laugh in Tagalog]

Bruce is also still mad at Superman because of how Superman is someone that needs to be put down simply because he could destroy the planet and the fact that he destroyed Wayne Tower. Mostly the second reason, I think. Ugh! Sorry, I couldn't take Batman too seriously in this film! He has no real motivation aside from a stubborn over reaction. Ben Affleck was a strength in this film in my opinion. He gave us a solid Bruce Wayne, he was really paranoid and stubborn as Batman should be, but also scary as what Batman shouldn't be. I mean one of the cuts that happen in this film is a part in the future where the world has gone to hell and we can see Darkseid's Omega Symbol and has turned Earth into a New Apokalypse (all this will be further expanded upon in the Justice League films). And in this scene Batman was meeting up with survivors who got him a sample of Kryptonite, only it was a set up and Superman Regime soldiers capture him.

I swear when this scene happened my brother and I thought we were watching gameplay for Injustice, because it is very much like how the game was. Evil Superman with evil soldiers. Only to find out that Surprise! It's a dream! Though, I feel that someone has been giving Bruce all these premonitions to warn him about something. He gets a premonition of some guy in a portal with a red mask on warning him about Superman and saying that "Lois Lane is the key" to everything and I'm like: "What are you talking about, Flash? Lois Lane is always a mysoginistic plot device used to make Superman evil in every story. What else is new?" No one cares about Lois Lane in this film to be honest. She wasn't as interesting as I'd hope she'd be in this film. Oh, it's clearly Flash by the way who told Batman that Lois is the key to everything. They are going for a New 52 approach to this whole DC Cinematic Universe and I'm not liking it so far.

I did like that bit, though. I thought it was pretty cool to see Barry time traveling in this film. Kinda wished it was still Grant Gustin from the CW show but oh well.

So Lois is investigating this case too using her bullet souvenir and to try and uncover this big government conspiracy for setting up Superman while Clark investigates this Bat vigilante in Gotham insisting that it should be reported. Because let me tell you, I agree. This Batman that Zack Snyder gives us KILLS! Not in a good way. As in he ACTUALLY KILLS!

O.O

Yeah. Whatever happened to the Batman "No Killing Rule"?

Now arguably, Batman has killed bad guys in older movies pre-Nolan trilogy, also in comics, but for the most part it's always there and a big part of Batman's thing but this, just made me laugh! They just don't care as long Batman is in it!

Sigh.

I can't believe that they would do that. So we also meet Diana Prince. Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot, to be honest was someone I didn't want in the role. I had Jamie Alexander who played Lady Sif in the Thor movies in mind, because she would've made a kick ass Wonder Woman, but I felt pleased with Gal Gadot's performance. One of the best parts of this movie was Wonder Woman. She was looking for a photograph that Lex Luthor had and she meets Bruce in the process at some gala who was there to steal from Lex as well. Bruce finds out that she's immortal because the picture was dated 1914! When I saw that picture with Chris Pine as Steve Trevor I was so happy! It's exactly how I would make a Wonder Woman movie. Set it in World War II and honor Steve Trevor even though no one cares about him anymore, as well as maybe throw in the Blackhawks for good measure cause that would be epic to see. Can't wait for her film.

Everything is going on and we find out that Mark Zuckerberg is behind everything (surprise!) and he sets Superman up by having a hearing at the Capitol in DC. Only to blow it up with everyone it it so people would blame him for it. Superman gets blamed, and Batman goes crazy because he also thinks that Superman did it. I swear this Batman is scary, I didn't like him he's not one for words or rational thinking. I'm pretty sure he has screws loose. I mean this Batman has been around for twenty years before Superman. This Batman has seen some thick crap, but still...

This film was too irrational. And the thing is I honestly would've preferred to have the hearing scene be a normal hearing then have it be blown up. I think it would've been a great opportunity for Superman to talk to the citizens of the world. And I'm surprised that the hearing was not publicly televised! Usually when something this historic happens the public is watching at home exactly what is happening in the courtrooms. If that would've been the case then it would've been obvious that he had nothing to do with the explosion and that it was some wheelchair bomb all along. A subplot I do not want to get into because it's nothing, really but a plot device. All you need to know is that there's a wheelchair turned into a bomb lined with lead, one of Superman's weaknesses--hint: he doesn't get weakened by it, he just can't see through it. Oh and your underwear is pink.

10 points for you if you get the underwear is pink joke.

Yes if it was televised public opinion would've swayed slightly; Superman would not have been held responsible for the attack, because they would've seen that the explosion came from a wheelchair, b they would've just said, "Then why didn't Superman know there was a bomb in the room in the first place and save all those people." But wait, it did go that way, people believe that the wheelchair guy and Superman were in cahoots! My god these people are stupid. And the only people who could clear Superman's name, a lady paid by Jesse Eisenberg to make up lies about Superman and the Senator who found out about it and put the hearing together are dead, one got thrown into a subway train by KGBeast, and the other blown up by a wheelchair and a nice cup of Granny's Peach tea. So the world hates Superman again, or even more.

So Batman gets tired of Superman's BS and I'm getting tired of BvS's BS so Batman steal Columbus from Zombieland's Kryptonite stash and Columbus from Zombieland gains access to the Kryptonian ship and experiments on Zod's body by doing some demonic sacrificial crap mixed with science and the whole film falls apart while maintaining good cinematography in some scenes.

What is happening?!

There's this montage of Superman saving people and there were some that were visually stunning like the Day of the Dead scene where he saves a girl from a burning building. And I think that the movie needed more of that. Not montages, GOD NO! But more of the saving part. All this time people are debating what Superman is, a benevolant god or a chaos bringer; in truth he's neither, he's just a guy trying to fit into society and repaying the world that has sheltered him all his life. I want to see Superman be Superman. All this time people have complained about complaining that Superman films have too much saving people and not enough fights, here, there's too much action and not a lot of saving people. There needs to be balance in order for it to all work, in order for Superman to work, and the whole script is very unbalanced in my opinion. The whole thing forgets about Superman. Superman had barely any lines in this movie and it's HIS sequel. No one knows how to write a good Superman character anymore. All that American optimism went away; I think Perry White (Clark Kent's boss) made a statement about that in the film how it's not the 1930s anymore, which I think is a lot of what Superman in the comics embodied.

So we get to the final act.

Eisenberg has figured out who Superman is because, hey, he has his mom kidnapped. But earlier in the film it was kinda weird how he knew Clark Kent when they've had no previous encounters even as a reporter interviewing scene. Jesse Eisenberg is a mess. Batman is doing some crossfit exercises to get ready to KILL Superman while making lethal Kryptonite weapons including a Kryptonite-tipped Spear... yeah. Lois Lane has also figured out what happened because she gets kidnapped too and Superman saves her and confronts Mark Zuckerberg, only to find out that he has kidnapped his mom and placed her somewhere he doesn't know and the only way to get her back is if Supes kills Batman. Why? I'm not sure, maybe because Batman has been trailing him or the fact that he stole his Kryptonite, who knows? It's not really clear as to what Evil Jesse Eisenberg wants in this film, but he does want to make Superman feel like crap. So Superman goes to Gotham once Batman is all ready for him and shining the Bat-Signal waiting for Superman, which makes no sense to me because the Bat signal was made to summon Batman not Superman and Batman is already there... okay I'll stop with the nerd talk. So Superman gets there and he tries to talk to Batman in hopes that bats could help him save his mother, but before he can say anything remotely emotionally important, Superman trips Batman's traps. You could say that it was Superman's dumbass who started the fight by thinking Batman came there to hurt him and not talk to reason, but Batman is the guy who started the fight by baiting him into it in the first place because he don't want to talk, Batman wants to kill. So Batman starts the fight by shooting Superman with hella machine gun fire and Superman destroys them and instigates the fight. How they started fighting pissed me off a bit. Superman and Batman clearly would love to kill each other.

The fight is totally epic though. It takes pages out of Batman's comic "The Dark Knight Returns" for this scene and I really liked some of the fight scenes. Batman is able to do damage by weakening Supes with Kryptonite and beat him down. He was about to kill him to with the Kryptonite spear before Superman said Martha. And here comes all those Martha memes.

Superman says: "Save Martha!" and Batman goes ape shit by asking him where he's heard of that name. He's freaking out because Superman knows "Martha" which is the name of Bruce's mom, but Lois interferes out of nowhere and clarifies that Bruce's mom isn't the only person in the world with the stupid name and that Superman's earth mom's name is also "Martha" and that Lex has her somewhere. So Batman stops. It's not clear why, but it's assuming that it tugged on a heartstring or it's some omen, but also because it's his father's last words too. So yeah, saving Martha became this guys's first priority. and the two of them suddenly became best friends. It's weird, but I get it; Batman realizes that this guy that he's demonized the whole film is actually just a guy who has a mom like a normal guy with a mom like him... well had, cause Bruce's mom died and Superman's is still alive and... whatever the point is he realizes that Superman is more human than alien actually and he promises to save Martha for him while Superman confronts Evil Mark Zuckerberg and they both leave Lois Lane alone in Gotham at night--which is the worst place and time to leave a woman alone, by the way-- to get rid of the Kryptonite Spear by drowning it, I guess.

Superman confronts crazy Eisenberg and holy hell this guy used Zod's Kryptonian body and his human DNA to create Doomsday! And my brother and I were like: "Oh yeah, I forgot he's in this film..." So Teenage Ninja CGI comes out and fights Superman and Supes does the right thing by taking Doomsay into space away from civilization. You see he's learned from the first movie, that if he's going to fight an all powerful enemy, he needs to do it away from innocent people. All is fine and well, but then the government steps in...

It's single-handedly the dumbest, stupidest, asinine, inconceivably brick-witted idea the US government has ever had in any film ever. While Superman is trying really hard to get Doomsday out of Earth and END the fight early by throwing him into space, never to be seen again... they decide to end the fight and take the credit for stopping the threat by throwing a NUKE at them a NUCLEAR freakin' BOMB!

I get that they are trying to pay homage to the scene in "The Dark Knight Returns" where Superman takes a nuke to the face, ends up looking like a skeleton, then regenerating back thanks to the Sun, but it was uncalled for. And the thing is it doesn't work! All it did was make Doomsday more powerful because he lives by Kelly Clarkson's lyrics and made Superman weaker. The only person to stop this monstrosity and you throw a nuke at him and made him weaker. Thanks a lot Government. Pissed me off.

So they fight in Gotham and before Superman got healed Batman desperately tries to survive in his jet but is taken down easily, and before he can get killed, Wonder Woman in full armor intervenes (See: Batman's Secret Power of Plot Protection: If You Make DC Big Bucks, You Don't Die) . Holy crap it's glorious. The fight scene was bad ass but lack luster at the same time. It was a little mindless. Not a lot of communicating between the three heroes going on sharing ways and tactics of how to beat Doomsday. Wonder Woman rushed into battle whoopin major Doomsday butt, Superman just followed her lead and Batman stood there watching and avoiding getting killed. That's it. Batman did nothing. Anyway they figure that the only thing to kill him permanently is the Kryptonite Spear that Lois drowned in the pond because Doomsday has Kryptonian physiology and Lois magically figured this out without hearing Batman suggest it because it's in the script and her dumb ass gets trapped and Superman has to go save her in the middle of the fight.

Superman goes save her while Wonder Woman does all the work and takes the Spear to go kill Doomsday. Wonder Woman ties Doomsday up with the Lasso of Truth which is kick ass to see, Batman finally decides to do something by shooting Doomsday with the same Kryptonite gas he used to weaken Superman, while Superman rushes in and stabs Doomsday with it. Then this happens:

I know it sucks but it's the only source I found.

This is when I lost my mind.

Honestly, I'm not surprised. The only reason I would've brought Doomsday into the story if I were in charge was to have someone kill Superman. Doomsday is the first one to ever do so in the comics and bringing him in was a clear and obvious plot point because Superman needs to be Jesus. Let me tell you when he dies there is this beautifully shot scene with heavy Jesus symbolism and it looks like a painting you'd see in the Sistine Chapel, because it is gorgeous. You'll know it when you see it. But I swear, I stopped caring since Jimmy Olsen died. This film ended with obvious funeral scene and obvious inception cliffhanger. It ends with the dirt on Clark's coffin levitating, meaning that he's alive. Why? well, when he first took flight in the first film the snow did the same thing before lift off. It shook and began levitating before superman bursted into the air, and it was shot similarly too, so yeah Superman is dead, but alive.

I knew that this was going to happen. This movie was a mess and not a good start for WB/DC. They were unbalanced in storytelling y putting too much into the story. You, DC fan, could argue that Marvel's Civil War did the same thing, and be mad at me for criticizing BvS for it's verbose nature, but I'm just saying that Marvel has built it up and earned that spot. BvS did not earn it nor built it up. There was not much pay off, it's a shame really. It had so much potential but fell a bit flat. I had a miscast villain, characters with no sincere motive, maybe except batman, but even his motive was an over-reactionary motive, and the main character which is Superman this is his movie sequel after all, was not given enough focus, which failed to give the film focus. It was just bad and insulting if you're a true DC fan. Yeah we got to see cool stuff but to be honest, I've already forgotten most of it. And I just watched it today! It's positives? Hopefully WB/DC will learn? Take out Zack Snyder and put some real storytellers behind the camera and script? Don't make Superman like Batman? Stop trying to catch up to Marvel and rushing everything; take their time? Who knows?

The cinematography for some scenes were exceptional, I have to give credit to Snyder for that, but this film fails to deliver a great future for the DC Cinematic Universe I longed to see. One thing's for sure though, not a single stockholder/producer cares. As long as they make big bucks they'll keep making more. Here's to hoping Suicide Squad won't end up like it.

Sorry Supes, maybe next time. Drink up but not too much...

*sigh* too late...