A real disappointment.

Rating: 5/10 (27 March 2016)

As a big Batman fan and while not a Superman fan I did enjoy Man of Steel, I was cautiously excited for this movie. My personal opinion was that Superman should have received another solo movie and maybe even a new Batman solo movie before they began to combine universes, and it is for the reasons that I wanted those solo movies first that Batman v Superman is a disaster. I really can't think of anything about this movie that was really impressive and far more that were frustrating. I don't want this review to turn into a list of reasons why this movie fails but with so little to praise it may seem that way.
First off none of the performances are not bad. Batfleck is doing all he can but there is such little time to truly develop Bruce Wayne the way he should be that the character really just lacks depth and becomes fundamentally flawed. Cavil is a fine Superman. He fits the look and has been able to bring his personality to the character. i was not a fan of the casting of Jessie Eisenberg initially but he also is not bad in this movie, but he like Batman is severely underdeveloped. Luthor seemed to just go through the regular steps without a real clear motive. Wonder Woman's introduction is probably the best part of the movie. I don't really enjoy her being some sort of covert spy, but once she dons her normal garb and starts getting into the fray she gives us one of the only positive things to look forward to.
The first half of this movie is a real mess. The pace shifts violently and throws the viewer off. I could not tell if we were in a totally different scene or just moving up a few minutes. We get another Batman origin story which just seems unnecessary at this point. The trailer shows the scene showing what Bruce Wayne was up to during the end of Man Of Steel, so one of the most exciting scenes in the movie we have basically already seen before. There are obviously big parts of this movie that were completely cut out, and sometimes it feels like they were making two different movies and then just combined them and threw in some shameless and really lame fan service foreshadowing future movies.
Zach Snyder has always been an impressive visual filmmaker. His final fight scene in Man of Steel may be the best superhero fight scene to date, which is why this movie is so visually disappointing. We get beaten over the head so often with bigger and bigger fight scenes that have no substance or real excitement to them and unfortunately this movie falls into that trap. Lots of stuff gets destroyed, things explode and more stuff gets destroyed. On a side note visually both the Batmobile and the Batplane look terrible. This may be the worst visual adaptation of Batman ever. The suit looks boring and his coolest gadget is a phone that can copy other phones when both are placed on a bar.
I wanted to like this movie, but at every turn it gave me more reasons to hate it. I have not even mentioned the length, at 2 hours and 20 minutes or so it is one of the worst forms of self punishment let alone the 3D which was a waste as usual and even sickening. It seems as though too many things were forced into this movie and not enough time was spent trying to make it the best it could possibly be. I don't know who's fault this is but i hope it is a lesson to future movie makers in the superhero, and frankly any genre. Quality is always better them quantity. Bigger is not always better, even for a superhero movie the characters have to be compelling and the time has to be taken to make the small things great rather than shove as much different crap into a movie as possible.