Story V DC

Rating: 7/10 (27 March 2016)

Spoilers at the end!
This movie is better than I thought it would be. I had low expectations because of Man of Steel and other Zack Snyder films, but this was enjoyable. If you'd have asked me five years ago how I felt about Ben Affleck being Batman, I would have went into a blind rage at the thought of it. But he's been working on his acting skills and is easily the best part of this movie. Bruce Wayne/Batman's motivations are clearly laid out and understandable. He gets the most screen time and development so his part of the story makes sense. Superman, while competently portrayed by Henry Cavill, just isn't nearly as developed and the movie, and future DC movies, suffer from this (more on that in spoilers below.) Lex Luthor is just a mess; it's never clear why he wants Superman and Batman dead. How these three relate is the movie and how they relate is the problem.
This is a slow movie, at the start. Kids likely won't like this movie because there just isn't a lot of action. Most of the fight between Batman and Superman is behind each other's backs, until the third act. I didn't mind the pace (slow movies can still be engaging) but I can see why others will. This movie is also a lot of setup for the Justice League. I suspect Zack Snyder wanted to make a different movie, but DC and Warner Bros wanted him to include the extended DC Universe.
When the action does pick up, it's really good. The visuals, just like all of Snyder's films, are very beautiful. The fight choreography is really good and every fight is exciting even when the end fight has a lot of CG that isn't very convincing.
Overall, I did enjoy the film, but not everything sold me. You might not want to bring the kids because the pacing and themes might be a bit much to hold their attention. I was thoroughly engaged, but not everyone will be.
MAJOR SPOILERS
At the very end, Superman makes the ultimate sacrifice, but since his motivations haven't been fully fleshed out, it not only lessens the impact, but we haven't seen Superman being good. The movie appears to be setting up the Injustice storyline. While that's fine, Superman's decent into evil will lose a lot of meaning, when he gets resurrected. It skipped a lot of steps to make that particular story happen.