not all bad, but like, seriously Snyder and company, really?

Rating: 4/10 (24 March 2016)

So, what is this movie? It's easy to try and say that a movie is ONLY great or ONLY bad, and that's not good film criticism. Though I won't get into every nook and crany here, it's unfair to slam it as a complete waste. There's clearly a lot of work put into a movie like this and people who put together the sets and costumes and that jar of... well, nevermind. This movie is neither horrible, something to really hate and write letters about, nor is it anything to be especially blown away by. By the end I felt like I got Novocaine shoved down by eyes and ears, and that's not the way to do spectacle, or coherent storytelling.
Some pros? Excellent casting; Ben Affleck, totally contrary to any fears from the talk early on by fanboys and geek-trolls, fills the role of Bruce Wayne better than Bale did (still no Keaton, but for his age it works), and Jeremy Irons knocks it out as well. Eisenberg... is acting in a totally different movie, and may even be miscast, but it's one of the most wonderful pieces of ACTING that I've seen in a long time. Gal Godot is fine and beautiful though she isn't given much to do. And some of the scenes with Holly Hunter were OK.
The rest of this is full of what the f**k. You're going to pull out something this weird and ambitious and just... DULL? I almost applaud you for it, but I can't, and I get why the Justice League stuff is here, I do, it's in the title, but it jams up the story into having to be THIS thing instead of it just being Batman and Superman (which, yeah, it's stupid for them to fight in the first place - have them have a squabble HALFWAY into the movie, and then go from there and have an actual collaboration, show them really trying to save the city or cities from destruction). It's a whole lot of sound and fury signifying very little; for all of what it's meant to line up for an entire franchise to come, and it is that down to the letter, it's not a good sign for the story *on its own terms* when this isn't organically linked but feels crow-barred in. Some may disagree, and I still understand the nature of building up a world for DC characters (a world I like very much in the comics), but in this story? With these two characters and the crazyass stakes Luthor puts forward? It doesn't add up.
And while it's no surprise how far blockbusters of this size and budget and mammoth Noah's Ark sized proportions fit in so much stuff, the CGI and visual effects are not convincing. Like, this is to the point where the DC animated movies (I'm looking at you Dark Knight Returns and Superman Doomsday) are more, well, I don't know if *realistic* is the world, but there's more consistency to the tone that is going on. Yes, in a 2D animated movie it's less of a nightmare than to watch the last 30/45 minutes of this movie where Superman is dispatched by Lex Luthor (nevermind why, it's stupid) to fight and kill Batman because of this or that and then Batman almost kills him but doesn't because stupid reason (that is shown again after being the opening scene of the movie) and then there's Lex Luthor's actual plan and the Wonder Woman shows up and then-and-then-and-then...
It's that kind of story, where it should be more of the consequence-follows-action route, but the story is less about filling audiences with wonder about what these two major figures of pop culture can do and is more about where the cogs in the plot will take them next, and how the ugliness of the world bogs them down too. Rarely have I seen a major motion picture in the past several years, comic book or otherwise, have such a grim color palette outside of, I don't know, Children of Men or The Road, and be so serious about it (except for Einsenberg, who to be fair is having the time of his life in a movie where no one else is really allowed to... well, maybe Irons has a satisfied goofy line or two).