A CGI Festival, SPLOSIONS! But Beyond That... Pretty Empty

Rating: 3/10 (27 November 2016)

I tried to remain neutral about the selection of Ben Affleck to play the part of Batman, after all, how exactly do you follow up Christian Bale, who undoubtedly set the bar for superhero blockbusters so high that no one will ever surpass it, and who can forget Daredevil, an uninspiring yarn that should have never seen the light of day? But, interestingly enough, Affleck was decent in this movie, Henry Cavill even better in the role he has personified now for a decade. The real problem came down to the role of Lex Luther, and the strange way the Luther character was presented.
Luther is meant to be an ultra intelligent villain with an insatiable appetite for power. From the very beginning it seemed as though the director Zach Snyder strayed away from this, instead trying to recreate Heath Ledger's "Joker". Luther is presented as a loose cannon loony toons with major daddy issues, hell bent on the anarchic destruction of the planet, for no reason whatsoever. Sound a lot like The Joker? Yep, same here. And worse yet, Eisenberg just doesn't pull it off. He might be in his 30's, but he looks 15, and simply doesn't have the persona for the part. Rather than recreating Heath Ledgers role, they should have allowed Luther to more closely resemble the Kevin Spacey/Gene Hackman version.
It also appears they spent a good portion of the movie trying to set up sequels for a number of other superhero characters, including bringing Wonder Woman into the fray. Her fight with the Doomsday monster left a lot of questions. And that brings up the Doomsday villain himself. The movie entirely screwed up the origin of Doomsday, who in the comic was an ancient beast created long before Krypton itself supported Kryptonian life. And somehow Luther just interacts with the ship, which in its good graces allows him to do whatever he wants with it. Oh sure, no security features at all, it asks Luther questions, apparently knows it is breaking protocol, but it helps him create this crazy monster anyway. Made no sense.
So many other problems, Luther's interactions with the spaceship, Batman's relationship with Alfred came off as cold, Batman cattle prodding villains, could go on and on, but I digress. In conclusion, the movie is worth seeing in terms of CGI, but the plot is terrible, character presentation is muddled at best beyond the apparent hatred between Superman and Batman, and in the end you are left rolling your eyes at the idea they'd even make a sequel (which by the way, they set up at the end). If you saw this in the theater, my condolences.