Confused, muddled mess.

Rating: 1/10 (18 May 2016)

For a while I've been treating this film like religion, if it works for you great, I don't want to take your joy. Seeing so much praise for this film, and obviously bitter fans crapping all over Civil War has forced me to say my piece.
I wanted to LOVE it. These are 3 characters that matter to me. On a surface level there are cool scenes, and cool images. Enough bombast and use of religious/mythological touchstones to overwhelm the senses. If you were to take a shot every time someone referenced gods/God/Angels, etc. you'd die of alcohol poisoning.
Batfleck was great, though this was a decidedly brutal version of Bats, that should work as a great contrast to the optimism of the Big Blue Boyscout. Except that character was nowhere to be found (a smile is hard to be found in this film), which is sad because Cavil is a perfect choice for Kal-El. At least we get Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman (I guess) on film together for the first time right? Except, strangely I don't think Superman and Wonder Woman ever talk to each other, in a movie that's more than 2 and a half hours long!
Those are personal gripes, but from a story/filmmaking standpoint the film is weak, and doesn't stand up to modest scrutiny. It confuses complicated with complex, and has plot lines that could be pulled out entirely without changing the story one bit. It relies on the fact that these characters exist in our minds as whole concepts. You know them even if you've never read a comic in your life, and you don't even realize we've gotten 2 movies now with Super Sadman. It does troubling things with these characters and it doesn't have the deftness to pull off the grim depths it was plumbing. Wonder Woman was great, in the few moments we got of her. This movie was ambitious, I'll give it that. It swung for the fences. But in doing so it whiffed hard and tossed the bat into the stands knocking out a fan. Also it was juicing and got a 10 game suspension.