For all my complaints about this movie, I still think it’s a lot of fun and has also given us the best Batman we’ve seen on film thus far. Make no mistake about it though, my complaints are numerous.
This movie starts out on a couple of high notes. The first scene is the night that Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered and I have seen this scene played out so many times that I was frankly over it. Until, I was reminded that for all the criticisms that you and I have ever had about Zachary Marie Snyder, the guy can make gorgeous movies. His choice to frame an act of brutality in such a beautiful way may verge on the sadistic but it perfectly illustrates the foundation of Bruce Wayne’s traumatized psyche.
Fast forward many years later to that fateful day in Metropolis where Bruce Wayne is on the ground while Kal-El and Zod are up in the air, flinging themselves into buildings and causing one of the most destructive scenes ever seen in a movie. Since we already got a front row seat to Supes & Zod, the movie makes the right choice to largely ignore them in this sequence and focus completely on what we wanted from Man Of Steel: the consequences. Bruce Wayne ordering his (presumably) second-in-command Jack to evacuate the building and seeing Jack caught in the moments before an inevitable death that he has nothing to do with or can do nothing about, was harrowing. In just a few minutes Snyder and team were able to give weight, gravitas and consequences to an entire movie that was criticized for largely having none. We have to give credit where it is due.
The credit also extends to giving us one of the best Batman interpretations we’ve ever seen on film. No matter the film’s failings (and there are a few), this movie will always be remembered for giving us a middle-aged Batman who has been beaten down by loss and not enough significant victories (at least in his own opinion). Ben Affleck’s turn as a man consumed with a need to prepare for and thereby control the outcome of a situation confronted with an all powerful being that he cannot control is incredibly compelling. He’s also the only character here with clear and understandable motives. Even when his actions are unlikable, they always remain justified. Everything about and immediately surrounding Batman is pitch-perfect. His costume is textured to either hide or mimic battle damage, the Batmobile seems like the natural combination of many previous Batmobile designs, the Batwing is the jewel of his arsenal of wonderful toys, the Batcave is simultaneous the most technologically advanced and developed cave but also the most utilitarian we’ve ever seen. Even the choice to house Mr. Wayne in a fairly minimal lake house while Wayne Manor remains abandoned and decrepit nearby is so telling about a person who feels like his past is a place that he used to love but never likes to visit.
The screenwriters absolutely nailed Batman and it’s frustrating that they struggled so much with his Kryptonian counterpart. Superman is less of a character here and more of a plot device. Everywhere he goes conflict seems to follow but its never legitimate organic conflict. Remember that scene in the beginning of the movie that gave us an idea of the real aftermath of Superman’s actions from Man Of Steel? Well, instead of this movie focusing on a world after the partial destruction of a major city like Metropolis, it becomes fixated with an incident in a Saharan village where Lois Lane ends up in trouble and Superman’s controversial decision to show up to rescue her. (Controversial because apparently Superman is a political issue in this universe.) The team of mercenaries there hired by Lex Luthor are responsible for the deaths of everyone in the small village but somehow, Superman is held responsible (or at the very least complicit) even though nobody outright says that he was the one that did any of the killing.
And why would they? If the villagers were shot like we see, why would anyone think that Superman is the one flying around shooting innocent people? If Lois Lane, a Pulitzer prize winning reporter, is an eyewitness to what happened then why is she never called to testify in front of the Senate committee? Why do the screenwriters even try to place her in a situation that we don’t care about? Why is she not investigating LexCorp from the get-go? It can’t be for our benefit since we know the name Lex Luthor can only mean svengali-esque schemes against Superman. In a perfect world, she would be investigating the contracts held by both LexCorp and Wayne Industries to study the Kryptonian artifacts left behind instead of just blindly making her way from one trap as bait to the next. Lois Lane is doomed to be a damsel and both she and Amy Adams are better than that.
Where Batman’s motivations are always clearly delineated, Lois and Clark’s are confusing. They seem to take on an incredible amount of guilt for what happened in the desert village. This bothers me so much because people as kind as these two should be outraged and be in search of justice, not redemption. Superman especially takes on an incredible amount of guilt for trying to do the right thing and save as many people as he can. Exiling himself after he fails to save the people after a bombing in the same room he’s in, seems a bit much since A) I’m not entirely convinced that he couldn’t do something to mitigate the damage which means the writer’s took an easy way out and B) Why is the only man on earth who can and does do something to help when needed feel so burdened with guilt that he treks to the snowy tundra to talk with a hallucination of his dead father?
So many questions but even more missed opportunities are what equals to an inconsistent movie. We never get to see Bruce Wayne assessed by the discerning eye of Lois Lane. We never get to see Wonder Woman and Superman properly meet one another and see that it’s possible for each of them to be impressed by another being on Earth. There is no thoroughline that connects the characters in a dynamic or inevitable way. This movie tried to spin a DC Universe into motion so the Trinity could move around one another like planets in a solar system, each with their own orbit and gravitational pull. However, the connections between the characters are so flimsy that the they move more like pieces of debris spinning around a drain; they’re all going to the same place but the effect is a little less grand.
We also never get to see Bruce and Clark establish their similiarities beyond both being sons of women named Martha and that might be my biggest disappointment with this movie. “Batman v Superman” could’ve established itself even further as a singular addition to the Batman mythos if it had done the one thing that no other Batman film has given to us before: a significant scene with Martha Wayne. Admittedly, I’m not as well-versed on Batman literature as I probably should be but when I asked my Bat-colleagues to name a Batman comic book story featuring a significant scene with Martha Wayne, there were too few of them and they were largely insignificant or placed within alternate-timeline stories. A tragedy indeed considering that Martha Wayne’s name is enough to make Batfleck pause long enough in the middle of a murderous rage to come to his senses before he plunges a kryptonite spear into Superman’s heart. Wouldn’t that mean that the woman herself should warrant a scene with her young son so the audience can finally see what kind of woman helped shape the boy who would become The Dark Knight?
This was a really interesting idea that only gets hinted at which is a shame since it could’ve elevated this movie from perfunctory to ambitious. Batman and Superman are always painted as their fathers’ sons and this could’ve been the first movie to explore how similar they are as the sons of their mothers.
The plot of this film is serviceable since it does manage to get us from Point A to Point B. However, it’s only through the success of its portrayals of Batman and Wonder Woman does it manage to hold our attention long enough for us to care about getting to Point B. Gal Gadot is used sparingly but efficiently in this movie, the very definition of a setup for 2017’s Wonder Woman movie. As a longtime Princess Diana fan, I am encouraged and reassured by an Amazon who can keep up with Bruce Wayne’s confrontational banter like a film noir femme fatale but then who will also smile after she’s been knocked to the ground during a battle and then reaches for her weapon.
The movie is flawed but fun, definitely requisite viewing if only to see what the rest of the world is talking about. It’s the first film to pit Batman and Superman together, the first film and live action version of Wonder Woman since Lynda Carter, the setup to the upcoming Justice League films and the first time that Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL have collaborated on a film score together. Be warned that on repeated viewings the bad parts of this movie only get worse but don’t worry, the good parts get even better.
Check out my video review to see me go on about this a bit more. Thanks!
THE TONI SANCHEZ 