This is not really a batman v superman film

Rating: 6/10 (30 April 2016)

After what Zack Snyder did with 'Man of Steel', i had no plans of actually going to the cinema to see this film, but fate has it, i ended up seeing it anyways, and that was because i bought the wrong tickets, i was actually going to see 'Captain America : Civil War'. But anyways, now i have seen BvS, and can say it was slightly better than i expected.
The film actually builds up nicely, it gives Bruce Wayne and Batman some backstory, we already had that from the Batman Trilogy from Christopher Noland, but probably doesn't hurt to get it served one more time, just in case we forgot something. Anyways, superman however isn't given any more depth, at all. That is a shame, because 'Man of Steel' failed really bad to picture what goes through superman's head.
This is because Zack Snyder is more of a visual artist, he focuses a lot on the special effects and the stylish presentation of the films he makes, he is not a very good director when it comes to character work.
So we have a good build up, a movie that for a long time felt like a 8/10 for me, it was suspenseful and engaging, for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, or so. problem is, this film is 2 hours and 30 minutes long, so that meant there was 1 hour to go. So what did we get in that hour?
Well you don't need to be much of a rocket scientist to figure it out, you get action scenes. One stacked upon the other. Batman is what pulls this film off at this part, as we have been given a lot of time to see his motives, and his reasons, we believe in his cause. Superman's cause is vague and difficult to understand.
But the real problem arrive when this movie turns, and is no longer about batman v superman, but turns into batman, superman & wonderwoman vs doomsday, that's where most of it went wrong.
It was unnecessary to involve this into this movie, they could have spared doomsday for the next film. Doomsday is one of the most powerful characters in any of the comics, it would fit better to see him fight the entire justice league, than just these three.
They of course involved this, because Zack Snyder want to show off his skills, and the movie studio want as much explosions as possible to show the kids, i get that. But you could have made an full movie with superman fighting batman, and made it fantastic, all the ingredients was in place. Instead in this film it ends with batman not killing superman, because their mothers have the same name.... oh my god...
Who writes this stuff?
And on top of that, why on earth would you use Lex Luthor's son? Is this suppose to be clever and creative?. It isn't. If you take your time to retell batman's story, and superman's story in 'man of steel' at least use Lex Luthor in this reboot you have created.
With "Lex Jr" into the mix, with doomsday, and with wonder woman, it gets crowded, and since Zack must please the kids, we run out of story building on the 1 hour mark, and from there, we go supersonic to the finish line.
Wonderwoman for example does not have much screen time in this film, but i think Gal Gadot plays her nicely, though little is told about the character, but she gets to show of some of her awesome moves at least.
The music in this film is sadly average. Hans Zimmer builds on the sound he created for 'Man of Steel' and it feels like ambient music all the time. Hans Zimmer should have rewrote the music for this film. In interviews Zimmer gave for 'Man of Steel' he told people he was nervous writing the score, because John Williams score was so epic, and so well known. It shows too, in what he wrote, because 'Man of Steel' is some if Zimmer's worst work, ever. It's not bad, but it's average. And a superhero movie must have more than that, it needs the epic sound.
There are of course plenty of "epicness" elsewhere in this film. The CGI are very good for the most part, though it is mostly filmed in the dark, the sound effects are good, the sound mixing are pretty good, the editing is not that bad, the cinematography is actually quite good.
And the best acting comes from Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons. They are the duo that save the film.
But this film did the same mistake that 'Spiderman 3' did, you try to serve to much on one plate.
I wanted to see more of batman's fighting, that was truly awesome, and was maybe the best thing in the entire film. Nicely choreographed fighting scenes that almost felt to brutal to be allowed to be seen by kids. If only batman and superman could have been the main event of the entire film, all the ways these two legendary comic heroes could outsmart one another, we could have gotten one of the best superhero films of all time. Instead they overdid it, again.
6/10 - OK film, nothing special