"Dawn of a New Age: Setting Up For Sequels Before Being It's Own Thing."

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2016)

Batman v Superman is an aesthetically pleasing film, with great visuals and action, a grim and dark tone that surpasses Man of Steel and great performances from Ben Affleck as a much more brutal Batman and Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot doing well respectively for their roles, but even though Zack Snyder has a disparate style to his comic book films and it has a brilliant soundtrack from Han Zimmer to elevate some scenes, the film lacks substance and it is a desperate attempt to bring in and adhere all the needed things for the sequels and the upcoming Justice League films making it feel like a sloppy, slapdash and haphazard film only to serve as an excuse to bring all these heroes together, without really filling in the void that is needed for it to be a good film.
As a comic book fan and have admittedly anticipated this film for a long time, it isn't a fair excuse to dismiss the flaws and look at it in the eyes of a fan because even if you look at it in that way, the film remains to be dissatisfying and disappointing to say the least. Even as a comic book fan, the film still doesn't capture the true essence of a well structured comic book movie because the film suffers from having TOO MANY plot points in the film that could've been taken out or completely ruined the film because some of them weren't even developed well enough even though it had such potential.
Granted, the film still has some meritable moments and things that will probably be an excuse for you to still watch at the end of the day. The first act will really make you feel invested in the film and the action is crafted much like how Zack Snyder would normally do it and the cinematography is rather well done in the film. Ben Affleck's portrayal of Batman is also one of the standouts of the film and can even be said as the best part of it, he was able to bring out a Batman we've never seen before and Affleck really brought out something special and a menacing feel to the well known character because he literally kills people in the film. Henry Cavill remains to be a superb Superman while Gal Gadot does well in her role as Wonder Woman which in some scenes with her will make the audience clap (mainly because of Hans Zimmer's beautiful riff).
But behind all of this, it remains to be a mess of a film. Lex Luthor is vexatious and quite bothersome, Jesse Eisenberg does bring out a new kind of Luthor even though it can be excused that he is Lex's son (Alexander Luthor), it doesn't change the fact that his mannerisms and his acting is exasperating and at certain times will make you roll your eyes. The way Doomsday is handled is also half-assed and it felt like the filmmakers were apathetic to this character because he was resorted to only becoming a tool to unite the trinity. Let's also go on and look at the "Dawn of Justice" and how it was handled, it was a real mess. It felt like there were 4 trailers within this film to set-up the Justice League and it was completely useless and it nullified some of the best aspects of the film which was the political drama and conflict after MoS, sadly they were all thrown away to make way for these set-ups. Lastly, the real reason why we're going to watch the film, The fight between Batman and Superman, quite frankly it was underwhelming. Sure it was brilliantly executed action and visuals and the motivation for them fighting was okay, but the resolution and the way it ended was so lazy and indolent and will kind of make you cringe, it makes you really think that the fight could've been resolved or avoided if Superman and Batman just talked for a full minute and have Superman explain his situation.
In the end you're probably still seeing BvS and will disregard this review, but the pursuit to being analytical and objective about this film is what reviews are for and whether or not you're still in denial or not the fact remains that BvS is a huge disappointment and an incoherent and sloppy mess.
Verdict: 6.3/10