Dreadful film-making with no understanding of original characters

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2016)

This movie was probably the most awful superhero movie since Green Lantern. It's very hard to find a point to begin with, what makes this wannabe homage to iconic comic books such a dreadful experience. Maybe we can start with the absurd and weird dream sequences, which are very hard to distinguish from scenes in the "real world". They made no sense whatsoever and seemed completely out of place in this movie.
What bothers me the most is, that Zac Snyder doesn't seem to understand the characters he is dealing with. The Batman in this movie is completely overwritten in his anger, hate and dreadfulness. Though the opening scene is handled OKish, I found it quite hard to understand, why Wayne would feel such rage against Superman. At least, Superman has done good stuff, as we are shown throughout the movie. Why Batman/Bruce Wayne wouldn't try to talk to Superman in the first place is beyond me. Instead he wants to outright murder him, which is not something Batman would do. Despite being cruel and quite vengeful, he still feels himself bound to justice. That's a very important part of his character, Snyder isn't able to grasp. And by the way: The whole opening premise collapses like one of the many buildings in this movie during the final fight, which is so ludicrous, even Wonder Woman cannot make it look exciting.
On the other hand there is Superman/Clark Kent. Both roles are severely underwritten. Clark Kent has - in contrast to Bruce Wayne - basically nothing to do and remains a blank sheet throughout the hole movie. Unfortunately, Superman doesn't show to be a richer persona, as well. His lines of dialogue must fit on paper napkin, the meaningful ones should find enough space on a post-it-note. The biggest problem of Snyder is, that he doesn't find many "Supermany" things to do for Superman. His unique abilities are, much like in Man of Steel", not really put to use. Instead, Superman ends up being thrown into and flying out of buildings a lot of the time. There is some punching, some eye-beams, then some throwing again. It's so tedious.
In the end, Superman and Batman should find themselves on the same side, arguing about the means to reach their goal of bringing justice to people. It's this conflict, that makes Frank Miller's iconic graphic novel "The Dark Knight" so gripping. This movie is anything but.