Screen Anarchists On BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

James Marsh, Asian Editor

I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice twice last week. Once in IMAX 3D, and then again in a much smaller 2D presentation a few days after filing my review. Having now endured over five hours of Zack Snyder’s meat-headed franchise building, my original published opinion stands. The film is a convoluted, incoherent mess, overstuffed with half-baked ideas that are never given the time or space to be developed or considered adequately.

The film’s biggest problem is also what is being championed by its supporters as its greatest strength “it was made for the fans”. I agree, BVS was totally made for the fans, but it shouldn’t have been. Not when WB spent $250 million on it. DC fans would have turned out in their droves to see any new film starring Batman, Superman et al. What BVS:DOJ needed to do, was open that universe up to everybody else if it was to be a successful foundation for an expanded cinematic universe. Too often the film was deliberately obscure, packed with so many flashbacks, flash forwards, premonitions, dreams and foreshadowing possible future events that the film completely lost its forward momentum and narrative through line.

Despite all this, I have hope for DC’s cinematic future. Suicide Squad looks incredibly promising, while Gal Gadot was fantastic as Wonder Woman and I cannot wait to see an entire movie devoted to her. If those films, Wonder Woman in particular, succeed financially, then we can all sit back, rest easy and admit that Snyder did his job right on BVS. If either of them fails, then the future of the Justice League on screen will be walking on very shaky ground indeed.

Ernesto Zelaya Miñano, Contributing Writer

Anyone who’s ever read comics or played with action figures as a kid has wondered who would win in a fight between Supes and Batman. So when Dawn finally dispensed with setup and actually had these two going at each other, I was jumping in my seat from excitement, even though I knew Superman could kill Bruce Wayne with just his thumb if he wanted to.

But then came the obligatory CGI orgy climax with the thirteen-foot Orc, and I kept wondering why every comic book movie nowadays feels the need to end in the same way. Suddenly Batman became a third wheel in his own movie; the Dark Knight just feels out of place fighting massive, planet-destroying monsters, in the same way that Big Blue Boy Scout Superman isn’t really cut out for the morose, brooding thing. Not Affleck’s fault; he actually makes for a great goddamn Batman.

It’s a mess, but deep down, there’s a good story here, about the two heroes’ different approaches to crime fighting, and them and the world coming to terms with that. But Snyder wants to go big and sometimes falls on his ass. Get rid of the incoherent dream sequences (I’m still scratching my head with the Road Warrior Batman bit); get rid of the universe-building breadcrumbs for future movies and actually try telling a complete story for once (I blame Marvel for this even if I’m a fan); get rid of Wonder Woman, who’s badass but has nothing to do; and then you’ve got a truly great film.

A lot of ambition is better than none at all, and this isn’t the Death of Cinema like so many reviews have said; it’s plenty fun in spots. But it’s trying to do too much, and all because some suits are probably having a dick-measuring contest with the studio next door.

Jason Gorber, Featured Critic

I really, really didn’t like Snyder’s last kick at the Superman can, finding myself bored by the CGI mayhem and lamenting the waste of a perfectly good Michael Shannon. I remember watching Man of Steel and being taken out for a moment to reflect on the carnage (much the way I did during The Avengers, frankly). I can watch Autobots help destroy Chicago when battling Decepticons without regard for human life, but for some reason in the context of caped heroes I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief.

It’s perhaps because of this I genuinely have a soft spot for Batman v Superman. There’s loads wrong with it, that’s for certain, but I genuinely find myself liking that it takes itself seriously without completely turning into a dour, predictable mess. I mean, it’s dour, and predictable, but rarely a mess, and I’ll leave that there as perhaps the most backhanded compliment I’ve ever given a film.

I can’t say I’m enthralled with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but I do think it’s a lot of fun if you let it be. Divorced from the pent-up expectations and narrative consistency it’s a film of ambition and at times wit. Like many flicks these days it’s doing plenty of heavy lifting in order to lay the foundation for future iterations, but as a singular work it remains effective. Finally, it pulls off a pretty sterling magic act, making the turd that is Man of Steel shinier retroactively.

In the end, we’ve got a guy who flies and shoots lasers out of his eyes and a billionaire orphan with a vigilante complex duking it out. It’s the stuff of adolescent dreams, yet by tying it to deeper archetypal stories and overt historical visual references Snyder and his team manage to make it feel Batman v Superman almost, dare I say it, adult.

(Editor Ard Note: These are bits taken and pieces from a far more eloquent review Jason wrote over on Dorkshelf.)

Juan J. Espinoza, Contributing Writer

The DC Cinematic Universe is too small for Zack Snyder. Even from its start one can sense that something is off in the way Zack Snyder and his editor David Brenner have laid out the narrative for Batman v. Superman, to the point of almost not having a proper dramatic build-up to its finale. The climatic battle between the two titular characters seems almost badly edited as if it’s obvious that the general audiences would not care much, because after all, Batman and Superman don’t need a big show-off presentation, being the trans-generational icons they are.

And this I can understand, even from a pure audience point of view, because how many times have we seen this two characters portrayed in the screen in the last 30 years? The filmmakers did a good job at introducing Batman into this universe, no more origin story exhaustively explained ad nauseum, but with a few glimpses of what really happened to this character (via a superbly filmed main credits sequence) and with the fresh memory of the events from Man on Steel, this film goes right to the action within the first minutes of its duration. The thing is, there’s no time to breathe for any of these characters, so the actions they partake in seem almost as if the impulse to act is not coming from them, but from a superior force: time.

And I’m not talking about the time in the chronological sense of what the story needs, but the time frame that Warner has chosen to try and catch up with Marvel in the construction of its cinematic universe. That’s the real threat in Batman v. Superman, because none of these icons (separately or by themselves) can, successfully, stop the war for the box office. And that’s a shame because I think all the choices the filmmakers did, especially regarding the casting and the story, were spot-on.

I like the films that Disney has made out of the Marvel properties, but what I haven’t enjoyed that much from them is the boring homogeneity which all those films had. The Marvel films I really liked were those that derailed a little of the formulaic, e.g. Iron Man Three, which is a Marvel film within the so called MCU, but is also a Shane Black film.

I thought DC was gonna follow this course of action, getting a very idiosyncratic filmmaker to work on a property, so he can turn in a film that resembles that comic universe, but at the same time be a work you could enjoy and read (and incorporate) into his body of work. And for the most part Batman v. Superman is a Zack Snyder movie. Sadly, it is a film that most surely was botched so it could get more showings in the day. In fact when you watch the movie, you feel as if the urgency to lay the ground for the Justice League film was more important than anything else. Add to this the hasty pacing and the result is as if these two and a half hours were basically the summary of a series of films that precede it…

”Previously on the DC Universe…"

Zach Gayne, Contributing Writer

I'd be more interested in the film if it were gay porn, despite not being gay.

Ard Vijn, Associate Editor, features

I'm not automatically a fan of Zack Snyder, but I still have a huge respect for what he managed to do with the "unfilmable property" called Watchmen. Getting most of that story's most memorable beats within a single movie's running time can't have been easy, and that he got as far as he did was unexpected, and very impressive.

But after that film, his output has been firmly in the cool-but-flawed category. Still, in every one of his films there is much I like, even if it is often coupled with content or decisions I find unfathomably awful. With this in mind, I went into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and again I saw a lot of things I liked. Ben Affleck is solid as Bruce Wayne, Henry Cavill is a very likable Superman (sometimes despite the films he's been put in), and Gal Gadot knocks it out of the park as Wonder Woman.

And convoluted? As superhero pile-ups go, this one is fairly grounded if you're used to some of the massive multi-series comic-book crossovers. Try explaining to someone who doesn't read comics why "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was an "event", or why Superman's return after his nineties' comic-book death felt so awesome. But if you're not a seasoned aficionado, it's hard to look beyond the trashy pulp nature of it all.

And the cinematic language used in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice almost screams IMPORTANCE in your face, while its story is once again very much pulp. Can anyone explain to me what Luther's endgame was if he had won? Getting rid of one meta-human by replacing him with an unguided meta-monster, because you're afraid of meta-monsters (and gleefully claiming you've probably lured more of them to Earth) seems a bit... odd. Then again, "a bit... odd" probably sums up this Lex Luther best.

For what it's worth, I had quite some fun in the cinema. But while in the past, Marvel's MCU films have sometimes managed to wriggle themselves in my top-10 lists at the end of the year, rest assured this one will come nowhere near it.

Jim Tudor, Featured Critic

From first Dawn to the latest, Zack Snyder has proven himself to be a director of diminishing returns. Any spark, zest, or zeal evident in his 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead has, by Dawn of Justice, bled out. Insufferably bloated yet hollow, Batman v Superman is Snyder's largest sensory assault yet. Devoid of any real stakes, engaging story, or even action for the longest time, the film overcompensates by being dark, being loud, and being just plain big. The pervasive adolescent preening that permeates the work, as though there's a line of vital intellectual stimulation underneath it all is a particular kind of four-color pop culture kool-aid that's gone sour ten years ago.

Things fly all over the screen, challenging the eye to follow both the blocking and the cuts. The assault aesthetic of the film itself is, in this post-Michael Bay world, unfortunately nothing new. It's all more headache than movie; an experience far more like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than Marvel's ,The Avengers. Even for devoted superhero fans who love these characters, this permutation of the DC universe is a chore. One that no child should be subjected to.

My local IMAX auditorium saw fit to show the film at ear-bleeding volume, making an already rough movie all the more difficult. When you feel the urge to cover your ears when Jesse Eisenberg is talking, you know that your screening is too loud. (Or, maybe I was partly reacting to the actor's gawdawful portrayal of Lex Luthor?) In this setting, Batman v Superman proved to be the world's loudest movie like Spinal Tap is the world's loudest band.

Sadly, Snyder's latest is an attack that not even the world's greatest heroes can conquer. In a pop culture landscape already cluttered with “capes”, this is far from the world's finest.

Daniel Rutledge, Contributing Writer

My good will for Zack Snyder finally ran out with this film. I defended Watchmen, even Sucker Punch, being just so thrilled with his visual style and action direction that his patchy storytelling was acceptable. This po-faced yet farcical nonsense barely has any enjoyable action to justify how dull, baffling and stupid the story is. Character wise, almost nothing worked for me. The Batman they created is super cool, despite not behaving like Batman. There are a few moments that are perfect translations of the comic book moments they are based on. And while the story doesn't make sense and the characters are terribly written, it's not as infuriating and punishing a film as any of the Transformers movies. But it's still pretty damn far from a good film and a dire sign of what's to come with the Justice League slate. It's amazing how much they got wrong in this - don't get me started on Eisenberg's Lex Luthor or Wonder Woman's wafer thin characterization. But it all could have been worth it if the title fight and Doomsday fight delivered the goods. They don't. They're dull blurs of CGI suckiness, a disappointing end to a hugely disappointing film.

Jaime Grijalba, Contributing Writer

I think the main problem with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is just how much more interesting reading and discussing about it is than watching the movie itself. Sure, it defeats the purpose that you have to actually endure the more than 150 minutes to be part of the incredibly interesting conversation, but in the end everything that's surrounding the film itself is much more important and ideologically sound than anything that was going on between Affleck and Cavill. There's a reason for that. No matter what kind of conversation you're having, either if you're defending it, or trashing it, or just discussing philosophy applied to these superheroes, or whatever abstract intention you're having with your hot takes or your pieces, is that in the end one feels obliged to become creative with this film. Because it is a film that is filled with many voids and one feels compelled to fill them. Not in the same way that you'd fill voids in a film that leaves you with questions, but as in a film that lacks so much artistry and craftsmanship, that you're just trying to fill it with your words, so it has some sort of closure in your mind.

The End... To Be Continued?

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