Convoluted Mess

Rating: 3/10 (26 March 2016)

I was really excited for this film until I saw that one trailer that pretty much revealed the whole plot of the movie and I hoped that I was wrong and the movie would surprise me. But I wasn't, the trailer spoiled the entire movie for me and that really isn't a negative for the movie itself but I just wanted to mention the worst marketing campaign ever.
Now about the movie, there were things I loved and things I hated. Let's talk about the things I loved, first. I thought Ben Affleck was great, not only as Batman but I think he was a great Bruce Wayne too. There were some things I disliked about the character as well but more about that later. Jeremy Irons is fantastic as Alfred and he actually has a lot to do in this movie. I'm one of those guys who likes Henry Cavill and he's good in the movie as well. One performance that surprised me was Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, she was pretty good too. I liked the opening of the movie and the first maybe 30 minutes I thought were pretty solid, although kind of convoluted and way too much stuff was going on and the editing and transitioning from scene to scene was all over the place. Still, I enjoyed the first part of the film and most of the action and visuals are pretty solid throughout.
OK so there are many reasons why I mostly disliked the film and a lot of people are saying "well it's cause you're not a fan of the comics" or "you just want to seem smart because critics didn't like it." Truth is I didn't like Batman v Superman because the movie is a mess. I'm just gonna list the things I disliked about it without any particular order.
The movie tries too hard to set up its own universe with the Justice League and its characters that it forgets to be its own good film. It's happened before with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and now we get this. I really mean it when I say I wanted to love this movie, but I just can't. The editing is all over the place, scenes happen that do not need to be in the movie and the pacing is just off. Everything feels rushed and out of place. Jesse Eisenberg is a good actor, but he sucks as Lex Luthor. He's terrible, he could have been a much better Joker than Lex and it's not because he's a bad actor, but he is just a miscast for the role. Also, his motivations are pretty unclear. Lois Lane has absolutely nothing to do in the movie so they just send her off on these little tasks so she is kind of relevant. Luthor creating Doomsday out of a conveniently placed genetic chamber in the Kryptonian ship was so stupid and it felt rushed and shoe-horned into the movie, kind of like Venom in Spider-Man 3. Batman was good, for the most part. He is one of my favorite characters of all time and one of the things that intrigues me so much about him is his moral code. Well, not anymore apparently because Batman is a murderer in this movie. He's just killing people left and right. And when he decides he wants to kill Superman he just lets him live because their moms have the same name. Like, really? Also, why the hell does Superman suddenly decide that he wants the Batman to stop operating, for some reason? Why does Wonder Woman need to be in the movie? Gal Gadot was pretty good but the movie really should have been a lot more focused on Batman v Superman and that's it. Throw away Lex and Wonder Woman and everything else that does not matter, because your movie is about these two guys fighting each other. Also, this movie could have easily been 90 minutes long if it just focused on that. The pacing is all off and scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with each other suddenly transition into one another. That dream sequence with Batman killing guys in the desert with the flying thing had nothing to do with the plot of the film. Also, how the hell is a non-comic book reader gonna know that it was Flash who conveniently came back and said Lois is the key or something? How bad were those Justice League introductions anyway? Wonder Woman learns about them through an e-mail that conveniently already had the logos to their characters placed on the videos to them. Someone took the time to do that, really? So Superman dies at the end. That must have taken a lot of ball, right? Not really, because he's not really dead at the end. Saying Hans Zimmer's score is disappointing is an understatement, it's mostly loud noises all over the place.
I didn't know what was going on most of the time. The real reason this movie is getting panned by critics isn't the small details, it's the fact that it's a big convoluted mess of a movie that tries harder to set up a universe of movies than be a good movie on its own.