CGI Action V Quality Storytelling

Rating: 3/10 (27 March 2016)

It's a shame this movie fails so profoundly at a storytelling level. It has a cast of good actors, although poorly directed, and some fantastic action moments, but the story, dialogue, and character arcs are so convoluted and disjointed it makes the action sequences nonsensical.
Before I criticize this movie's most basic cinematic failures further, I will say this, there are two awesome scenes in this movie. The first is Batman's infiltration of the enemy compound with choreography lifted straight from an "Arkham" video game. It gets close to some of the best Batman action on screen. Also, Superman's fight with Doomsday is nothing short of epic. In some moments it feels like a 90's Superman comic brought to life. Those two sequences were truly memorable moments on screen that I genuinely found enjoyable. It's just a shame that these moments are drowning in the sea of a poorly written, poorly directed movie.
At a very base level, this movie suffers from the same problem that Man of Steel did, which is character motivation. It's not clear why a lot of characters do what they do in that film or this. At times when character motivation glaringly needs to be addressed, a forceful beat will be thrown in that induces whiplash as it veers from the established narrative. This movie deals with misperceptions, manipulation, conspiracies, vengeance, and teamwork- all character driven concepts that are never established with much motivation at all. In fact the movie works hard to establish the motivation for the grudge match in between Batman and Superman, only for motivations to be switched, manipulated, and then discarded at the drop of a hat.
These terrible character arcs are done even more disservice by a disjointed, undeveloped plot. From start to finish this movie will have you scratching your head and even asking, "why did they put that in there?". There are countless misnomers, superfluous scenes, and straight up red herrings in the plot that are confusing and destructive to any semblance of a logical narrative. Jumps in time, dream sequences, subplot after subplot, and just random events with no exposition or explanation make this story as coherent as one of Jesse Eisenberg's speeches in the film. The existence of such bad plot and storytelling seems to be a product of the aforementioned flat character motivation. The plot tries hard to simultaneously create conflict and unity in between the two title characters, but it does so with the tact of a jackhammer, and the thoughtfulness of a goldfish. Add on top of that the countless other characters that are clawing for their own storyline and the mess just gets bigger and bigger.
The actors in this film do their best to make something out of nothing, that is make 3 dimensional characters out of 1 dimensional caricatures, but a bad script and poor directing leave all these actors out in the lurch. Jesse Eisenberg does make for an interesting performance as he combines a tad bit of Ledger's terroristic joker with an ADHD megalomaniac- but his performance becomes quickly tiresome as his actions continually beg the question of "why" and "what". Affleck is not the definitive Bruce or Batman as some may have buzzed. Instead he is a single note wrecking ball of vengeance that doesn't so much brood, but constantly boils with omnidirectional rage. Meanwhile, Cavil's Superman is a brick wall that, despite the brewing controversy over his god-like powers, is fixated only on Amy Adam's Lois Lane and an unrelated crime fighter named Batman in another city. At times Cavil's Superman addresses his public perception or the effectiveness of his heroism, but only as passing thoughts that almost seem out of place. Meanwhile Amy Adams is just bait for Superman, or at times convenient Superman apologist, and Gal Gadot's Wonderwoman is nothing more than a super-powered Deus ex Machina dropped from the sky that squashes any hope of this movie making sense.
At two and a half hours, this movie truly tests your patience as you try to follow the story, only to find that there isn't much a story at all to follow. The makers of this film were much more resigned to creating a seat-filling headlining bout and providing CGI spectacle than creating even the most basic of rational stories or characters. I once again can say, some of these action sequences are rewarding and greatly entertaining, but this enjoyment will quickly be pulled out from underneath you as the movie carries on and a character opens its mouth.