Batman v Superman: A tedious, mess of a franchise launcher

Rating: 5/10 (26 March 2016)

BvS Dawn of Justice exists primarily to live up to the second half of its title, to serve as a launching pad for a DC Comics film franchise to mirror the wildly profitable cinematic Marvel Studios universe and a desperate attempt of Warner to birth a new cash cow. 1 Hour and 45 minutes of, "Can we please get to it already, bored to DEATH," and 45 minutes of 'YES! Chant' and your inner child being pleased and giddy, minus stupid CGI Doomsday. All the plot holes and illogical pacing in the first hour and 45 minutes makes the movie so haphazardly assembled and a mess, i honestly wondered if a reel had gone missing from the projection booth... Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg sucks as Lex Luthor in look and presence...he is so intensely annoying that, very early on, you wish Batman and Superman would just patch up their differences and join forces to put the squirrelly rascal out of his, and our, misery. On to Batman and Superman...can DC Films ever get a live action Superman right? I thought after Man of Steel, we were going in a good direction with Superman and it would continue on in BvS. WRONG! Cavill Superman is a cardboard expressionless, brooding, sour faced Superman who still questions helping humanity with anything and who seems like it's just not worth it to do so most of the time. What a poor way to frame Superman. Superman is supposed to be the absolute light in the dark. He is the hope, the beacon of the type of person we should all strive to be. Instead, we get the Diet Coke version of Batman with superpowers. Instead of the BvS fight being "Day versus Night" as Lex so eloquently put it, it's more like 'late evening versus slightly later evening.' Superman has to have that sort of boy scout feel to him, he doesn't have to be campy like Reeves or anything, but god, crack a smile man...wave to the crowd, kiss a couple babies, BE THE WHITE KNIGHT! Because you seemed more like Hancock than anything, who didn't give a damn, in this movie. Batfleck, I think he did great as being the overly paranoid Batman in so many variations of shows, comics, and animated movies. So I was happy there. He delivers. Is he better than Bale? I'm going to need more screen time to determine that. However, if you're the type of Batman fan where his 'One Rule' of never killing people should be upheld, you better throw that notion out the window because this Batman has absolutely no problem killing people. I think he might actually kill you for Jay-Walking, he's that into killing criminals (slight exaggeration, greatly maim and disfigure for sure, but you get the point). Remember in The Dark Knight where the Joker was like, "You're going to have to break your one rule..." Batfleck would have easily broken that one rule, no questions asked, Joker would have died and Gotham would be a safer place. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Seems perfectly fine, will need more screen time though as she didn't get to act much, so I'm looking forward to seeing her in her own movie. There was a point where she's laughing and smiling as she's fighting, like she loves the thrill of combat, if they make her into that kind of Wonder Woman. I'm totally for it. And now, we get into the final 45 minutes of the film, the good stuff, the stuff that as a kid, I wanted to see on the big screen. It delivers and it doesn't. Batman and Superman fight for 10 to 15 minutes, cut out some of the lame crap in the first hour and 45 mins and give us more Bats and Supes going at it, the movie is called Batman v Superman, after all. Once this fight happens it's immediately off to fight Doomsday for 20 minutes or so and then wrap up job to set up the other movies and end this one. CGI Doomsday is stupid, they used that card WAAAAY too soon. Doomsday could have been the bad guy in the Man of Steel sequel, that would have been better than using him here in this movie. I'd rather Lex have created some humanoid-machine hybrid of Zod, than them use Doomsday, but I guess you needed some threat to bring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman together. All in all, the last 45 minutes of pay off is barely worth the hour and 45 minutes of nonsense, bore and chore. But I can't deny that the last 45 minutes was some good cinema and what we should have had the whole time. I'm still waiting for the universally loved DC Film (not counting Nolan's Batman flicks) that will bring all fans together and finally give Marvel a run for its money, but it is not this day and it is not this movie. This day, I continue to wait for that to happen.