Ultimately...
Hopefully people who care about spoilers are gone, and I'll proceed.
Now Batman v. Superman has got some awful reviews which have resulted in one of the best viral videos in years...
Personally, was it that awful? Not so much. It was of the same quality I've come to expect from D.C. lately. Now that could be seen as a back handed swipe at the current D.C. Universe by a Marvel fan, but I watch and enjoy all of the current D.C. fare, I just think that they are setting the bar at enjoyable but not brilliant which means that Marvel are running circles round them with things such as Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones. I know D.C. fans who actually agree with me on this, and honestly it is a while since Dark Knight which was the last quality D.C. offering.
So Batman v. Superman good but not great. It was hampered by large obstacles. Henry Cavill has the looks of Superman even if as an Englishman it is bit weird for him to play the man who represents "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" but he is seriously hampered by the scripting and lack of depth in character development (Cavill is a much better actor than the recent Superman films makes him seem and that isn't his fault). I was excited for Ben Affleck as Batman (shoot me I'm a fan) as I thought he would make a good Bruce Wayne (even if the Batman side of things was a question mark) and once again he was let down by the script and also by the ridiculously unnecessary dream sequences- I would love to see Affleck and Jeremy Irons as Alfred in a Batman solo film, even though Irons' Alfred was a VERY young Alfred to a 40-ish year old Bruce Wayne. The women of the film owned it...fighting against the faulty script and the dreadfully heavy handed direction (I'm getting to this), Gal Gadot managed to shine and make me personally (and I know others) super excited for the upcoming Wonder Woman film, and not just because I was already keen for the first female led superhero film in years with an awesome cast with some strong female actors and a female director (much like Jessica Jones in the TV comic book adaptation scene). Amy Adams and Diane Lane who both delivered strong performances against a weak script in Man of Steel do so again, especially Adams who has made this Lois Lane really interesting. So that was the good-ish as far as it goes...the acting from the bulk of cast was quite strong which made the plot line more enjoyable, and the set up for the D.C. films to come was good.
The weak points, which are not what is "wrong" with the film as far I'm concerned, are another matter. The biggest problem is Zack Snyder. The man might love making comic book movies but he needs to stop. I have seen to date six films directed by Snyder and by some miracle one of them worked (I know others disagree but I liked Watchmen and thought it was a strong film). Two of his other films I count among my least favourite films of all time- the banal and overly violent instead of scary 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and the poorly scripted, borderline (actually lose the borderline) fear of the other mongering 300... it doesn't help that I've seen and like the original Dawn of the Dead, and read and enjoyed 300 the comic. Then there is Suckerpunch, great soundtrack, but... I have nothing much else to say about that, and Man of Steel, were you trying to get me to dislike Superman more because you didn't need to work that hard? Snyder's direction is heavy handed to say the least and he gets no favours from the largely weak script in this film. The action sequences in particular lack subtly and nuance, and before you ask what is a nuanced action scene, I reply watch Mad Max: Fury Road, it's all action and yet you care about the characters, that is how. In the climatic battle sequences, I was emotionless and considering how much I love Batman that is hard to do...seriously I almost wouldn't have cared which way the fights went. The fight scenes looked at points like Snyder and co were just lifting visuals from the Arkham series of video games, and as a big fan of those games, I say the games did it better. There were points where they tried a minute of visual subtly and all but one of these (which was my favourite shot of the film and I'll get to later) failed and in many cases seemed to blur out of focus. Snyder is down to direct the two upcoming Justice League films and to script the second one, and if I was a D.C. person, instead of a Marvel one, that would make me cry (in fact it almost does regardless as I know I'll watch those films and I know Snyder at the helm means there is strong chance they will not be great). Aside from my dislike of the directorial style of Snyder which I could devote a whole blog post to on its own, the script needed editing and a serious rework, there was heavy handed visual and script signposting (OK that is Snyder again but seriously the repeated sign posting (spoiler coming) of the significance of Batman and Superman's mothers sharing the same given name (can I say I've always thought that was lazy on the part of D.C. but not surprising considering similar issues with the mothers of Black Canary and Oracle/Batgirl sharing the given names of their daughters?) was annoying as all get out), the dream sequences...my goodness...the dream sequences (I cannot get over how awful and unnecessary they were...edit, people! Losing them would have made the film a reasonable length), and finally the Lex Luthor who wasn't. Just to expand on that last point, I like Jesse Eisenberg and I think he did a good job with the character Snyder and the script writers gave him to play but the issue is that character wasn't Lex Luthor, that character was a more than a little loopy version of the version of Mark Zuckerberg that Eisenberg played so well in the amazing Social Network. Lex Luthor- a power hunger tyrant yes, but wacky and sprouting of strange non-sequiturs, no. It is the very reason that it works really well when the folks at D.C. put him in the same space as the Joker, because the Joker is wacky, chaos driven, reason-less lunacy whilst Luthor is calm, power hungry, megalomania. People can recognise the tyrants and dictators of history when they see Lex Luthor, and that is what makes him a brilliant comic book villain. There is no need to make him crazier as that what is we all love about another D.C. super villain, good ol' Mr J.
So that is my option of Batman v. Superman, good/enjoyable thanks to some strong acting particular the women in the cast, but massively let down by heavy handed direction and a poor script. Ultimately it was better than Man of Steel but it is marginally outshone by D.C.'s current TV fare and considering it is a perfect example of enjoyable but not great, that isn't a compliment.
Now I get to what was wrong with the film and where I might spoil the film and other things in a big way.
What bugged me the most with this film was its attitude to death. The reason being that comic book films and TV series are everywhere nowadays, and the significance of the attitudes about death by heroes to forming ideas about this for many of the young viewers of these films, this needs to considered.
Historically comic books have had a confusing view on the top of death. Firstly there is the notorious issue of "retroactive continuity" (ret-con for short and random shout out to Torchwood for brilliant usage of this term as the name of a short term memory loss drug). For those not familiar with the idea of ret-con, it is the practice of bringing dead characters back to life and changing the continuity of the comic to allow for this. There are very few comic book deaths that are untouchable in terms of ret-con- Ben Parker being Marvel's big example of this, and Thomas and Martha Wayne being D.C.'s. However a one-off issue of Spiderman has ret-conned Uncle Ben's death, and there are people theorising that with D.C.'s declaration that they will be revealing the identity of the Joker (please don't D.C.!), they will potentially reveal him to be Thomas Wayne (awful idea, completely out of line with any continuity (especially when looking at Batman and the Joker's respective ages in all depictions of the characters), and too messed up even for Gotham...I hope that this is just the crazy folk of tumblr being wacky....still to re-iterate please don't tell us who the Joker is, D.C., we don't want to know). Ret-cons of the long term dead in last few decades- in particular, Bucky Barnes, Gwen Stacey, and Barry Allen- have led to declarations that no ret-con is out of the question, and length of time between death and ret-con have got significantly shorter in recent years- for example, my favourite comic book character, Rogue, was ret-con recently after only a few years in the grave and in the interim a series that featured her briefly but was out of continuity with series in which she died was published. The practice of ret-con has lead to the perception that comic book writers don't care about character death or feel that it should be significant.
However ret-con is completely at odds with the attitude towards death held by the bulk of heroes in both Marvel and D.C. comics. In both cases for the most part superheroes don't kill villains on purpose and accidental death of a villain can lead to PTSD or similar on the part of a hero. This question of whether superheroes are above the law and therefore able to kill those they fight have been played out twice on TV recently and this is where the spoilers start. In the recently released second season of Daredevil (brilliant by the way even if sadly down on the first season due to the powerhouse performance of Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk reduced to a few guest spots- his replacements as series antagonists (Jon Brenthal as the Punisher, and Elodie Yung as Elektra) are amazing but his performance was just something really special) really hits on that theme. As per comic book superhero rules, Matt Murdock is strongly anti killing folk as part of his Daredevil ways, but both Frank Castle and Elektra Natchios have none of these scruples hence why Punisher and Elektra are normally tagged anti-heroes not heroes (what with the Deadpool movie, it is the year for Marvel antiheroes...Deadpool BTW entertaining with good soundtrack but not great which was disappointing- better than Batman v. Superman though). Two of the big questions of this series are should Matt Murdock listen to Frank Castle about vigilante justice and go down the path of killing villains, and can Elektra be reformed from her assassin ways. The answer to both questions is no, as seen for Elektra in a particularly graphic throat slitting scene which horrifies Matt. For the current version of Daredevil, it seems justice cannot permit murder. Turning to D.C., the question of superheroes killing folk was a recurrent plot point of season one of Arrow. Should Oliver Queen be OK with taking lives? He thought yes for a while but partly due to the convincing opinions of his associates, he ultimately went with no. This wasn't the last time Arrow and its expanding universe asked this question and it is the question drives its potentially most interesting but sadly often misused or underused character, that of Sara Lance or the White Canary. Sara Lance does not appear in the Green Arrow comics but when her death was proven to not actually have been a death, she was initially re-introduced as a character not dissimilar to Black Canary (initially confusing as her sister in the show carried the comic book character's name- thankfully since slightly ironed out by renaming her, "The White Canary"). Having been trained by the League of Assassins, Sara had no issue killing folk and it was only Oliver's influence in season two of Arrow that got her to turn her back on her killing ways for a time. After Sara's murder in season 3 and her resurrection in the Lazarus Pit in season 4 (I haven't seen it but I have seen Legends of Tomorrow in which she is a main character so I know it happened), her blood lust is increased and she finds it increasingly difficult not to kill people in battle so is constantly at war with herself about this (this internal battle and her bisexuality make Sara a character with so much potential to intrigue...it is a pity she is not in the hands of more capable creatives). The conclusion ultimately is to be a hero in either universe it is key that you do not think killing is a means to justice and the TV sides of both universes are beating that drum loudly.
This is where I get to what is wrong with Batman v. Superman. Comics have a conflicted view- the death of characters can on one hand easily be ret-conned but on the other hand life is important and for the most part it is not the role of superheroes to take power over this. The conflict raises issues but it is better that people are conflicted than that they reach the conclusion that death by superhero is fine or that death is key to justice. Now in the world of the Justice League, the biggest and loudest advocate of superheroes not killing folk is Batman hence why Arkham and Blackgate are overflowing with criminals and the graveyards of Gotham are not overflowing with dead. This has led to occasional fall out with Superman who at times may is in favour of accidental civilian casualty and Wonder Woman who is one of the few superheroes who is completely OK with killing folk in the line of justice (Elektra, White Canary, Wonder Woman...is there something in the fact that women are the ones with lower moral compass on killing folk? An intriguing thought for another time). Batman has historical put a very high value on human life and even though the Batman films have at times struggled to portray this, it has been the case that most Batman film villains, those who didn't end up in Arkham, die by their own misstep. And here is the issue. In the rubbish dream sequences, the dreaming Bruce Wayne has a scant to non-existent regard for human life, and though he does redirect the final battle to an abandoned section of the Gotham docks near Ace Chemicals away from civilians, there are earlier scenes where he uses guns and a level of violence that was certain to result in death. The film's main focus is Superman's collateral damage especially in terms of the human life cost, but ultimately Batman comes across as only being mildly less interested in avoiding the death of those he fights. The film has removed the internal conflict of comic book views of death and has come down on the wrong side, civilian death in its view is just collateral damage, death is unimportant, and for a film trying to make the opposite point, it fails spectacularly. That is what it is ultimately wrong with this film, it makes death not a problem and that is never the message to send young people especially when you are utilising characters who would never normally say that such as Batman and, for the large part, Superman.
Now to the redeeming minute of cinematography of the film...
It relates to the one character who you know is OK with killing people and dealing with her moral compass is just one of the things that makes me so excited for the Wonder Woman movie. There is a point in the final climatic battle in which there is a glimpse of subtly which I'm attributing completely to Gal Gadot's acting...It's not this one but I can't find it online and this is pretty close and the same scene...
There is a moment where she is fighting and she just gives this look of loving the battle- more than you would ever see from Batman or Superman- and that is her character in a nutshell and if they hit that tone in Wonder Woman, we will be looking at an awesome film that, unlike this version of Batman who is OK with a bit of death, is exactly what the comic book writers intended.
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