New Release! Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Director: Zack Snyder

I tried. I really did. But Dawn of Justice lived down to my carefully-tempered expectations.

Even upon its announcement nearly a year ago, I was skeptical. I did not especially enjoy Superman: Man of Steel from 2013. I found it overly grim, with an overthought plot and a lack of compelling characters. When I heard that writer and director Zack Snyder had been pegged to do Dawn of Justice, I was not terribly enthused. When I also heard that this was to be the first in a new extended movie universe based on DC, then it clearly became that long-standing comic book company's attempt to catch up with Marvel and its outrageously successful Cinematic Universe. As an opening salvo in any sort of competition with Marvel, Dawn of Justice falls bafflingly short.

The most basic elements of the story aren't terrible. During the events of Man of Steel, when Superman's clash with General Zod kills thousands upon thousands of people, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) begins to feel that humans are helpless in the presence of such immensely powerful beings. Behind the scenes, a young Lex Luthor begins to manipulate this fear into a battle between his arch-nemesis Superman and Wayne's crime-fighting alter-ego, Batman. While not exactly the most original idea, this story is something to work with and has the potential for some engaging narrative and clever ideas.

The problem is that the unfolding of the plot is a mess. The story jumps around from place to place so rapidly that it is difficult to get your bearings. With few smooth transitions, we go from Bruce Wayne brooding about his murdered parents to Clark Kent's romance with Lois Lane to Lex Luthor's thin plot to have Superman killed to Lex Luthor's confusing plot to incorporate Kryptonian technology. Shoehorned into this are an odd, flash-forward nightmare vision that is as coherent as a bad acid trip and irrelevant sneak-peeks at other DC superheroes to come in future movies. When the movie's not trying to cram in little previews and allusions for their next several movies, it's trying to cover up the cracks by giving us lots of glossy action. While there are a few modestly interesting sequences, they are brief and rare. Many of the most interesting visuals and ideas are taken from the source comic books, mostly Frank Miller's iconic 1980s mini-series The Dark Knight Returns.

The title fight isn't nearly as exciting as you might hope.
There are a few half-decent moments, but far too much Bats
simply throwing Supes through walls, and vice versa.

The lack of narrative cohesion isn't helped by the fact that characters are simply thrown at you, with little or no explanation as to their backgrounds or motivations, perhaps assuming that most or all viewers simply knew who they were. The movie could probably have gotten away with this if there had only been one or two iconic characters, each with appearances in earlier films that telling their stories. Here it doesn't work, though, thanks to the multiple reboots within the last decade. This Batman is not the Nolan Dark Knight Batman, and he's never been seen in anything prior to this movie. The same with Lex Luthor. Yes, most of us know Lex Luthor, but this is a re-imagined version whose character and motivations are not explained very well. Wayne, Luthor, and virtually every supporting character such as Alfred are given little to no time to become of much interest to us viewers.

Many people have bashed Ben Affleck, and he's probably deserved it for some things. However, his acting in this movie is not the problem. In fact, nearly all of the actors are fine. The exception is Jesse Eisenberg's take on Lex Luthor, which I found to be annoyingly twitchy, making the iconic and villainous genius seem more like an insane schizoid than the powerfully intelligent, dominant, and sometimes gleefully evil force that have made up some of the best iterations of the character. I will say that Gal Gadot plays a solid Wonder Woman, but she is the only worthy revelation in the film.

Perhaps the greatest offense here isn't the movie itself, but rather the bucketloads of cash that it raked in during its opening weekend. Despite open skepticism from reliable critics and an avalanche of negative reviews, fans turned out in droves. I can't act overly incensed, as I threw my $11.50 into the DC and Warner Brothers coffers. Still, I fear that these companies will misread the huge opening weekend as validation of their current template. The Marvel Cinematic Universe may have its weaknesses and impending pitfalls, but even its weakest movie (The Incredible Hulk, in my opinion) is better than Dawn of Justice. Not exactly the best way to kick off a massive film franchise, to be sure.

Update: After a Rewatch in August, 2020

Yeah, it's still not a good movie. Not even the "Ultimate Edition," which adds about 30 minutes of footage not seen in the theatrical release. Just a couple of things to add, upon this recent viewing, which I mainly embarked upon in the wake of the news that there will be a "Snyder Cut" of the 2017 Justice League movie, which will basically serve as a complete re-do of the film, using director Zack Snyder's original ideas and footage. This footage was basically tossed by Joss Whedon, who was brought in to finish Justice League when Snyder had to depart the project due to the death of his daughter. But back to Dawn of Justice:

I still find this take on Lex Luthor to be offensively awful. I really don't know whether it was Snyder or Eisenberg who decided to make the character such a twitchy, barely-coherent punk, but it just didn't work. It seems like Zack Snyder saw Eisenberg in The Social Network, where he played a hyper-intelligent, condescending jerk, and told him, "Give us that, but with a whole lot of evil pizzazz!" Whatever motivated it, it was and still is painful to watch.

On the plus side, I never originally gave props to something that I actually did like - the action scenes when Batman rescues Martha Kent from over two dozen heavily armed goons in a warehouse. That sequence is far and away the best thing in the movie. Also, the final fight against Doomsday is actually decent, especially seeing Wonder Woman in action for the first time.

So there are a couple of good segments in the film, but not enough to overcome its weaknesses.