Urgh just horrible

Rating: 4/10 (30 March 2016)

This film is just horrible. What's wrong? Listing all the points would involve too many spoilers, and take several pages, so let me try to generalise. Or maybe I won't. Please don't read this if you plan on seeing the movie, although personally I would urge you not to, so as not to encourage or finance any more garbage like this to be made.
The movie is too long. Waaay too long. You could feel (and in several cases) hear the audience urging the film to end as we entered the last self-indulgent 15 minutes. I think we had maybe 3 or 4 endings one after another.
Early in the film Superman is demonised on very flimsy evidence and the (American) public come to hate him. He should have moved to Mexico where it's clear that he is still loved. The logic goes that because Superman is all-powerful the best thing to do is to destroy him before he destroys us. I felt that was a stretch to create a story that never really held water, was never believable in any way (yes yes I know it's a superhero movie). And even if the senate committee and general public felt that way, surely Batman wouldn't?
Around the same time that everyone is hating on Superman, Superman himself starts hating on Batman and his literal branding of criminals. So we're nicely set up for these two to battle it out, egged on (and manipulated) by Alex Luthor (son of Lex).
Ben Affleck turned in a decent performance as Batman but Henry Cavill was better. Really I shouldn't single out any of the cast as I have no quibble with the all-round good performances that were turned in by the strong cast. Although I wasn't keen on Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor but that's probably just me.
Back to the awfulness itself (having exonerated the cast I suppose I have to blame the director and writers). I think the movie didn't really flow and on the second occasion that a dramatic scene turned out to be Bruce Wayne daydreaming, I was ready for the inevitable BOO! JUMP OUT YOUR SEAT moment. Zzzz what a tired and lazy film technique.
Later on, a Lord of the Rings troll appears and a LotR "fire whip" too. Then we have a Harry Potter vs. Voldemort moment as Superman battles the troll, helped by Batman as they have since reconciled in a way that seemed absolutely as unbelievable as their contrived enmity.
Finally Wonder Woman shows up to save the day. I felt bad for her character and the actress: she should have got her own movie and not be tagged on to this one as what felt like an afterthought.
The dramatic final battle is a stunning waste of amazing CGI because by this time I don't think anybody cared who won. Well of course we all knew that good would triumph. But our journey with the characters had been such a long and boring one that I (and my companions) just wished it would hurry up and end.