Boreman vs. Snoozerman: Yawn of Justice

Rating: 3/10 (27 March 2016)

Remember the sloth character from Zootopia named Flash? He is a perfect way to describe how slow, boring and uneventful this movie is: it has a name that makes you expect something fast or awesome, but in reality it's just incoherent, time-consuming and makes you want to bang your head against a wall. Batman v Superman is one of the weakest superhero movies I've seen in years, and is basically one long trailer for what is yet to come in the DC cinematic universe.
I'll start with what I liked. Ben Affleck truly killed it as Bruce Wayne and as Batman. He just didn't have enough scenes, which were arguably some of the only good scenes in the movie. His origin story is told rather briefly but with the respect it deserves. The movie covers young Bruce Wayne's childhood tragedy rather early and it executes the dark scene with emotional resonance. The character's tie-in to the destruction in Man of Steel makes perfect sense and sets up Bruce Wayne's character in the storyline on the right foot.
And then there's the rest of this movie. After the first 10-15 minutes or so, the movie is just a completely jumbled mess. The scenes are shown in a seemingly random order with not one scene following or preceding another in any logical or coherent way. You could've shown those scenes in any random order and it still would've made equally as much sense. It was very frustrating and made it nearly impossible to stay engaged in the story. So much so that the first 90 minutes were a complete snooze--it was so boring and uneventful that nearly put my friend and me to sleep.
In Batman v Superman, Bruce Wayne is furious at Superman for the destruction caused by his fight with General Zod in Metropolis because of the many people who died, many of whom were his employees. All the while, he is fighting crime as a masked vigilante, which happens to draw the ire of Clark Kent, a journalist at the Daily Planet. Kent and Wayne meet each other at an event hosted by Lex Luthor, the spoiled CEO of LexCorp who has his own plans on how to deal with the Man of Steel.
The movie does not know how, or seemingly isn't interested, to introduce or develop any of the characters in a way to make the audience care about them besides Bruce Wayne. Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor is the most annoying villain to grace a movie in many years. His quips, twitches and dialogue are such desperate attempts at humor that they only invoke cringes instead of laughs. I don't think the audience I was in laughed a single time at his dialogue, and it was a completely sold-out show. I'm not against a humorous take on the character, of whom I'm a fan. But there was nothing remotely intimidating or villainous about Jesse Eisenberg as Lex. He was basically an annoying, less intelligent version of Mark Zuckerberg from The Social Network. All the doubts that people had about Eisenberg's casting were, unfortunately, true. Worst of all, I'm pretty sure he had more screen time than Superman, who is hardly in the movie.
Bad characterization doesn't even stop at Lex Luthor. Wonder Woman is shoehorned completely. She is given no development and is in scenes that literally make no sense for her to be in. Clearly she was forced into the movie to introduce Wonder Woman, with not one explanation given for why she is there. It's a shame because Gal Gadot is a great Diana Prince. Lois Lane is even more useless than she was in Man of Steel. She served no purpose other than to get kidnapped, fall out of the sky, get rescued by Superman, and worst of all, have subplots that serve as a distraction from the few action scenes in this movie.
I would talk about the action in this movie but there is just so little! I'd say this movie is about 15-20 minutes of action in a 150 minute movie, and nearly all of the action is saved until THE VERY LAST 20 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE. That's right, you have to sit through 130 minutes of incoherently jumbled scenes, boring dialogue, slow exposition, and an abundance of annoying Lex Luthor scenes to get to a tiny sliver of action. The titular fight between Batman and Superman basically reminded me of two old guys wrestling until they got tired. It was so brief, so slow and so unimpressive that it made me miss the overlong fight in MoS between Superman and Zod, which was 10 times better than this fight. The thing about that fight is that it made no sense. There was NO reason given for why Batman even struck Superman, since he gave the first strike in the fight. Superman approaches Batman peacefully and says he wants to talk things out, but for some reason Batman just starts beating him senseless like a bully. In fact, there was only a reason given for why Superman would want to hit Batman first, but the opposite happened instead. It was so forced that the movie even forgot to give a reason for it.
In the end, Batman v Superman accomplished what many people doubted it could: it made Ben Affleck into a believable Batman. But it got almost nothing else right. This movie is certainly up there with Fant4stic, 2003's Hulk and Daredevil as one of the most boring superhero films ever made. If you're looking for a mindless action movie, don't even watch this movie. If you're looking for a good movie with Batman, stay miles away from this movie. It will do nothing but disappoint. I got a free ticket to see this movie but I still feel like I want a refund. I think that says enough about how good this movie is.