A missed opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2016)

This was a film that I was very excited about seeing, I thought the casting of Ben Affleck in the role of Batman was a good one, he is an interesting and talented actor and I thought he would bring a new dimension to the role following on from Christian Bale. It is shame that whilst he is good in the film he is never given the opportunity to shine and that is down to the films shoddy narrative and structure. You go to a superhero film to be thrilled not to be overwrought by the heroes constantly moping about their actions and what has happened in their past. In this film not only do you see the death of Bruce Wayne's parents once but at least three to four times. Even during the middle of one of the major fights in the film, it pauses to show his parents' death - again!. This constant brooding of the main characters is the films major plot for over an hour of the first part of the film. You end up wanting to scream, yes his parents died now go and kick the hell out of superman!!!! Even Superman is not immune to this brooding (at one point he inexplicably ends up taking to his dead father on a mountain). So for the first hour its brooding, then we get the best part of the film, the showdown between the two main characters. This is handled extremely well and if you're a fan of the comic A Dark Night Returns, you're going to love the nod to its battle between the two. The final 40 minutes of the film are good but there is absolutely no reason for the character of Doomsday in the film. It really comes across as a way of adding another bout of city destruction which kinda ruins the whole plot of why Batman hates Superman in the first place. The structure of the film would have been much stronger if they had used Wonder Woman to calm the situation between the two rather than Lois Lane. The other weak point is that they are relying too much on people knowing the characters and their DC counterparts. If you don't know them then you are going to miss a lot and end up even more confused by the plot. Thirty minutes could have easily been cut from this film to give it a much tighter structure. It's worth seeing and there are some good parts to it. But Warner and DC need a lesson from Marvel on how to make superhero films that are fun to watch.