Safe & decent effort, way better than what critiques said.

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2016)

Not simply a follow up story of MAN OF STEEL (2013), BvS: DOJ is more of a DC's formal first take to introduce its cinematic universe in a desperate attempt against the continuing huge success of MARVEL's establishments so far. And like Rome, MCU also wasn't built in a day. So, it was a huge task for Snyder & his team to live up to the expectations of finally bringing DCs 2 most beloved & 'World's finest' superheroes together on the screen for the very first time. The stake was high but the wait was long due The movie kicks off with Bruce Wayne's perspective on the destructive battle between Superman & General Zod and his ideology as well as different popular opinions regarding whether our world is ready to deal with such a super powerful & independent man from another planet which have been destroyed already. From that point the whole first half was all about this introduction & build up of all the major characters & the basic plot line of the story. The approach & execution in response to that plan wasn't perfect but at least they didn't rush to show & introduce so many things all together at a time.The second half comes with the most anticipated & "the greatest gladiator match in history"and that's the best part of the movie, IMO (though they stupidly already gave away most of those scenes in the clips, teasers & trailers officially released online). This was a much better 2nd half than MOS; liked the way they put & justified Lex Luthor's plan behind all this along with his back up plan of introducing a common threat where Gal Gabot as Wonder Woman mostly steals the show. But yeahthere were some aspects that I like to point out as the disappointments or failures. First of all, I didn't get why Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex Luthor strangely borrowed elements or character attributes from Batman's pivotal nemesis "Joker"?! At times it was indeed felt like watching a character blend of Luthor & Joker. Luthor is not only Superman's one of the major villains in the comic book stories who as 'a smart ass evil genius' often carefully team up with other popular & alien bad guys to fight against even the Justice Leaguehis characterization doesn't need to look like smarter or more devilish than what he already is in the comics or animated series. Eisenberg tried too hard here, I guess the responsibility for making him like a "Lex-Joker-Luthor" mostly goes to the writers. My 2nd disappointment was about the major elements of the popular DC Batman & Superman stories that they borrowed or get influenced by here. Not only the title itself, director Snyder even admitted in numerous interviews while making this movie that Frank Miller's epic THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS would play a major influential role in this movie, which was more than fine enough to digest & enjoy in this very first encounters between the Batsy & the Sup. But the thing that surprised me here when there was another very popular story arc emerges at the very end & heavily impacted the story & the ending. Definitely it wasn't necessary to borrow elements from 2 very fan favorite stories & then blend them together in this very first film of DCCU & the prequel story of JUSTICE LEAGUE; as if DC is running out of time to tell all the great stories at once & catch up with the MARVEL(!). As a whole, the ending was too much off beat & comes so early in the series. Lastly, the way Luthor as 'Frankenstein' launched Doomday herewas merely convincing even for the die hard DC fans! It was like one of those 60s & 70s Hammer's Dracula & Frankenstein story arcswhere sometime a drop of blood was enough for a resurrection! The screenplay was alright but sometime their frantic effort to make every single line sounded like an epic play was evident. Last but not the least, though I was one of those Batfleck haters but kudos to Ben Affleck for giving his best efforts to portray a passable Bruce Wayne & Batman here, as I still think there are much better actors out there to play this most iconic comic book action hero of all time. Loved Jeremy Irons' portrayal of Alfred also, as at times some of his style of dialog delivery & voice work highly reminded me of the greatest horror movie icons of all timeSir Boris Karloff! Overall, Snyder's BvS was a safe & decent effort, nothing much spectacular but at least he didn't ruined it this time like the heavy chaotic ending of MAN OF STEEL; surely it could have been a pure epic extravaganza but still & at least it was better than what I anticipated after all the recent negative reviews from the movie critiques.