DC Fan Girl Disappointed

Rating: 5/10 (12 January 2019)

I grew up on DC comics and comic book characters. And as much as I loved Wonder Woman, I was very disappointed by this movie. Not so much the storyline which I felt was very out of character for Superman and Batman to hate each other on sight without provocation or cause, but because there had to be a dozen different possibilities to introduce the Justice League than start out with Superman's "alleged" death and Batman's guilt over inadvertently causing it. I had my doubts that Ben Affleck could play a convincing Batman and they weren't unfounded. He did well as Bruce Wayne, but I didn't feel the Batman love as I did with Christian Bale or even Michael Keaton's portrayals. Henry Cavil still delivered a solid performance as Clark Kent/Superman as did Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and Jeremy Irons played a PERFECT Alfred. The biggest disappointment by far on screen was Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. I don't know if it was written that way, directed that way or just how he felt he needed to play the role, but his portrayal of Luthor was all wrong. Lex Luthor wasn't psychotic or even an actual psychopath, he was a narcissist, he was ruthless, cold, calculating and brilliantly evil, but he was NOT crazy or insane. They made him to be a lunatic with a wide streak of psychotic insanity and a massive chip on his shoulder. Yes he had that hate for Superman, but he wasn't "cray cray" crazy the way they had Eisenberg play him, it was honestly cringeworthy to watch. The total and complete fear and distrust they had Batman show for Superman was so ridiculous for Batman. Batman was cautious and distrusting, but never to the point of wanting someone who had showed no purposeful hate or evil to die. Batman didn't kill it was against his code of ethics so to have him want Superman dead was pathetically out of character for him and a total waste of film time. This could have been an amazing movie and even Superman's death should have been a bigger plot than it was, it was almost like an afterthought rather than the focus of the story. Poorly written script, partially decent cast with so-so cast to support made this a good film to watch IF you really have a love for DC characters and have nothing else good to watch.