A new take on the superhero genre

Rating: 10/10 (7 May 2016)

This is very different to your usual comic book movie. It ignores the usual formula and is actually much closer to Snyders other venture in to comic book law Watchmen. Gone are the laugh a minute huge set pieces of the marvel films, and instead we get a rather harsh look at how our world would react to these Gods suddenly appearing on our planet and going about their business with little regard to us as a species, or so it would appear.
What Snyder does here is put Superman through the grinder – having previously saved the entire planet in Man of Steel, there is a huge divide in public opinion of him and how involved he should be in human events. This is even more harrowing for Superman because he considers himself one of us, this is his planet and he is only trying to do what he thinks is the right thing. Now usually in the genre, it's pretty obvious what the right thing is – stop the bad guys, save the good guys. But in this world it is impossible to say who the bad guys and good guys are, and the notion that an Alien should be making that decision is the source of the main conflict in the film. The question of "should there be a Superman" is one that is asked throughout the film, and where the villain of the piece, Lex Luthor, firmly plants his flag.
Lex is an obviously hyper intelligent man. He was dedicated his life to the pursuit of human endeavour, and when this alien appears, essentially making all of his work pointless and obsolete, Lex decides that he needs to be dealt with or risk the human race becoming reliant on their God to carry them to greatness instead of pushing themselves towards greatness. This sets in motion a chain of events that leads us to the titular battle. Jesse Eisenberg gives a great performance as Lex, full of nuance and a massive amount of energy. There's a bubbling rage here, plastered over with a smugness and arrogance that only begins to show cracks when his own potential is questioned by the arrival of Superman.
Cavill plays his Superman with the same self-doubt and uncertainty as he does in Man of Steel. And so he should. This poor guy gets very little love for trying to be a good person. Even as Clark Kent, his editor has little interest in him trying to give a voice to the poor and disenfranchised people of Gotham. Long gone are the days where "doing the right thing" was the only moral code that a superhero needed to follow, and the way in that Snyder has deconstructed that idea along with the character gives me great hope that we will eventually see a more contemporary interpretation of the character in the Justice League films.
Now, the important stuff – Batman! The opening scene of the film is incredible. Its shows the death of the Wayne's in a way that we've not really seen before. Previously, the Wayne's murder had been about Bruce's father and the impact that had on him, whereas here his mother, Martha, is very much the focus of the scene (lots of nods to the comics here too!). The music here is pretty much perfect and really helps to expand on what is already a very emotional scene. This is inter cut with a young Bruce running into the woods at his parents funeral. He falls through a hole in the ground where he is attacked by thousands of bats who "lift him up towards the light" - a "beautiful lie" according to Bruce (an interpretation of a dream, so don't worry batfans, no flying batman here!). This whole scene perfectly sums up where Bruce is as a character- the moment his parents died he ran into the woods, not looking back, where he found the Batman - an ideology that convinced him he could find peace with the death of his parents by seeking justice for those who could not seek it themselves. This is the "beautiful lie" that Bruce is referring to in the scene with the bats. He has since realised this and become completely jaded with the world, to the point that he has pretty much abandoned the idea of differentiating himself from the criminals he seeks to bring to Justice (he's still lost in the woods). It feels like a continuation of where Frank Miller took the character (there are scenes lifted straight from The Dark Knight Returns) and while its not something that sits that well with me, I understand why they have done it, and I see how his interactions with Superman can influence him to be a better Batman (or bring him out of the woods). Hopefully that's where they take it in Justice League, and there's every indication that they will.
Finally, the world building they are doing seems massive – we get introduced to an Atlantean King, a man who can travel so fast he can skip time and dimensions (please god let Justice League open with the scene that leads to Flash's appearance to Bruce in his "dream") and an Amazonian Princess. Speaking of Wonder Woman – Gadot plays her with the grace and strength required for such an iconic character and I can't wait to see more of her. Her music was also one of the many highlights of the films score.
Overall, I loved this film. It's so different to the rest of the genre and feels like they're opening up a much greater universe than those which we have previously been exposed to. Everybody plays their part well and it's a fill that is filled with real stakes and genuine questions being asked of us as a species that we can't always give an answer to.