One of the most divisive superhero films ever made

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2019)

Oh, man. Where does one begin with BvS? I believe at the beginning.
When I first saw Man of Steel in theaters, I loved it. I felt it was a good starting film for the DC cinematic universe like Iron Man was for Marvel. I was excited for future DC projects...right up until I read that the sequel would essentially be a major adaptation of my least favorite Batman story: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, an (in)famous graphic novel which ended with Batman beating the living daylights out of Superman. I watched several of the trailers that came out subsequently and felt my displeasure at the film rising, especially with the 'Do You Bleed? You Will' comment at the end of the first trailer. I heard about some of the casting choices and I was not too impressed at who Snyder had chosen to play Diana and Lex Luthor, but vowed to keep an open mind. Finally, I saw the trailer where they showed Doomsday, and I knew how it was going to end since I had read a certain other comic that they were using for inspiration: The Death of Superman.
Despite all my misgivings, I decided to go see the movie, since I really couldn't give a proper review of the film unless watching it. I managed to sit through most of the film, but after about two hours, I stormed out in seething anger. For several years, I openly despised and derided this film in both the Theatrical and Ultimate cuts. After watching and heavily enjoying some of the more impressive DCEU films like Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and yes, Justice League, I found that BvS was starting to grow on me in a way and I have learned to tolerate it.
The film still has its poor points. Most prominent is making Batman essentially everything he wasn't in Christopher Nolan's excellent Dark Knight Trilogy. I thought the idea that Ben Affleck playing Batman and Bruce was actually good casting, by the way. However, Ben didn't portray Batman as a noble knight, but as a down-and-dirty brute. Batman openly kills several people in the film directly, but also acts as a judge, jury, and executioner towards other characters.
Also, the comparisons to Superman to the Christian God got a little over-the-top, which is also something that drives me nuts about recent DC comics comparing the heroes to Gods, despite them acting incredibly flawed.
Of the Trinity of DC heroes portrayed in this film, Gal Gadot is the best as Diana Prince. Well, at least around the Doomsday battle when she is kicking some major-league butt. But I thought she was way cooler in her solo movie and Justice League.
Jesse Eisenberg is ridiculously stupid as Lex Luthor and thoroughly more ridiculously unbelievable than Hackman or Spacey. I know everyone compares him to Mark Zuckerberg, ironically, but this is not how I see Lex Luthor. I think Luthor should be a shrewd businessman who is like the Jared Harris portrayal of James Moriarty, not the Andrew Scott version of Moriarty who is a bratty little boy who doesn't want to share his toys with anyone.
Visually, this movie is peppered with iconic shots, which is something Zack Snyder excels at. The score by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL aka Tom Holkenberg is okay and slightly cool, but it just seems weird that Zimmer was brought in since he did the score to The Dark Knight trilogy films. Wonder Woman's theme is great, really, and Lex's score was the only thing I enjoyed about him, but everything else was odd with all the ominous choirs of angelic voices.
Also, I think some of the characters' potentials are wasted in this film. Wallace Keefe should have become Metallo instead of bringing Doomsday in. Also, Mercy Graves was woefully underused as well as Jimmy Olsen and Perry White. Plus, the Ultimate Cut's character played by Jena Malone was a true disappointment. I would have preferred to see in the final fight with Doomsday that Aquaman and Flash would show up, as well, essentially uniting the majority of the League. Finally, I think they should have tied in the Arrowverse shows and characters. A lot of wasted potential there.
That's the big problem with DC. Despite it having all its properties under one roof in comparison to Marvel back then (before the Disney-Fox Merger), DC doesn't tie its universes together for no real reason. And now with this recent news about DC splitting up its established Universe into two and not focusing on any more team-up movies, it's really annoying.
Ultimately, DC has been falling apart since the immense divisiveness of Dawn of Justice in regards to its Cinematic Universe. It's had a few solid hits, and now that Marvel is done with the Phase Three films, DC has time to flourish a unified cinematic and television universe. Instead, it's just constantly restructuring itself to the point of giving up on a successful Cinematic Universe. So, in short, perhaps Dawn of Justice shouldn't have been made like the final product it was.