Decent start to the Justice League franchise

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2018)

'Batman v Superman's main aim is to set up the two Justice League films coming out in the next three years and combat Marvel's dominance of superhero films. It has the tough job of reintroducing/shoehorning a new Batman (Affleck) into the 'Man of Steel' world (even though the tone's darker, like Nolan's Batman films), with Bruce Wayne driving around Metropolis during Superman (Cavill)'s big fight with General Zod from the previous film. Why? Not sure - he just appears reckless. We also have to see Batman's parents die again - must be at least the third time on film...
The film tries to blend together two popular graphic novels - 'The Dark Knight Returns' from the late 80s and 'The Death of Superman' from the early 90s - with varying degrees of success. I wish it had more of the former, but it instead almost makes Lois (Adams) the main star and puts her in the middle of everything. There's heaps of political manoeuvring and "is Superman a risk or not?" with Lex (Eisenberg) and a Senator Finch (Hunter), but it all takes 90min to set up and there's finally a pay-off, but it leaves a lot of action that needs to be squeezed into the final hour.
I didn't like that Gotham was right across the harbour from Metropolis (a la San Francisco & Oakland), rather than hundreds of kilometres distant as it's supposed to be. Batman has a few too many dreams/visions for my liking... However, the score's great, Irons was good as Alfred, but underused, as is Perry (Fishburne). FYI, there's no after credit scene, so don't bother sitting through the extra 5min! When they get to the big Doomsday battle at the end, and Wonder Woman (Godot) joins in, it is pretty exciting and eventful. A good film, just not spectacular.