What a meandering mess of a movie!

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2016)

(And yes, I've watched the extended edition in it's full 3 hour glory, the one that is supposed to fix things over from the theatrical cut).
What a bloated, insipid, AAA bombast-fest of a movie. I get that we're trying to take liberties with these characters (now that they've already been done so many times, and quite recently too) and I get that we're trying to "modernize" the way we showcase them (being that they're well, children's stories).
But most of the mistakes of this movie show that Snyder, Terrio and Goyer don't really understand these characters. Or basic narrative storytelling for that matter.
Where to start?
Characters are all underdeveloped and their arcs are non-existent. Plot is overly complex and convoluted, and while most of the points are skimmed over, barely addressed or explained in any way within the movie, what we do get are extended dream-like sequences that explore character motivations that don't make any sense in the first place, while succeeding in adding absolutely nothing to the story itself.
The movie takes itself way too seriously and the dialogue in particular is pretentious and downright stupid at times - I actually made me go "Wait, what?!" at my screen for at least 5 times during the movie.
There's barely any weight to the scenes, the way they flow and the narrative itself feels forced and artificial.
Oh, and the plot.
Batman goes on a dark path killing people and branding them with the fat bat logo for no reason. Superman spends the majority of the movie being mopey and depressed as a side effect to being invincible or something.
The whole premise of the movie is just a big stupid misunderstanding between the titular emo characters to get them to bash each other's faces. It could have been easily resolved by having them actually talk to each other rather than wandering around having "intense scenes" all over the place for most of the duration of the movie.
But don't worry, the one thing that will bring our two heroes together in the end is the fact that their moms share the same name. (What a stupid, stupid scene).
Too much CGI, too much future movie setups, too many real-life media personality cameos (Jon Stewart and Nancy Grace, really?) and too many things going on that aren't really important, even for a 3 hour movie.
The soundtrack (Hans Zimmer, mind you) and fight choreography is also surprisingly bad for this budget level.
As far as the actors go, Jesse Eisenberg is believable as an obnoxious cartoon psychopath, but he's no Lex Luthor. (Terrible, terrible casting choice.) Ben Affleck makes a half-decent fat psycho Batman (he's not this movie's biggest problem, by far). Henry Cavill is capable of so much more but his character is never used in any meaningful way. Gal Gadot is predictably gorgeous as Wonder Woman but I don't really understand how she got the part through that thick Israeli accent. Or, was that a deliberate choice, as part of her character background? I'm sure we'll find out in the incoming stand alone movies, no doubt.
Please stop handing over the next DC Universe projects to Zack Snyder. Jesus, studio executives really have no idea, do they? (Allegedly they gave this movie a standing ovation on a private screening before launch.)
I thought Man of Steel was surprisingly decent for it's reputation, but this is just stupid.