Daft editing, sadly lacking in explanations, but with a few highlights

Rating: 2/10 (28 July 2016)

I loved 'Man of Steel', and had high hopes for this film. I was not certain when I heard that Ben Affleck had been cast as Batman / Bruce Wayne, but he turned out to actually be a highlight of the film.
The beginning of the movie is excellent: the latest iteration of the Wayne family murder (what is this, the third generation of this in the last 25 years?), but nicely done... then a fantastic sequence of Wayne driving through Metropolis during the chaos that was the battle between Zod and Superman. Amazing. I was slack-jawed.
Then it all started to fall apart. Sequences with no explanations, very sloppy editing with jerky transitions between scenes... a comedic walk by Lex Luthor down a hallway paradoxically set to some super-serious Hans Zimmer music... stupid dream sequences that are way too long, out of place, not well explained... all silly and dreadfully stupid.
I was slack-jawed, but now for a different reason. This movie had gone from 'hero' to 'zero'.
What was worse was the ongoing use of bad CGI that did not obey the laws of physics. Not only was it easily identifiable as CGI (Chris Nolan would never have let that junk through, his CGI was always seamless), but the way things moved in reaction to the exertion of various forces never, ever looked right. Whoever did these effects had no clue how the laws of physics work. Again, I was horrified. Part of the allure of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was its incredible realism. Look as you might, nothing on screen really looked fake. Compare that with the car chase in the Batmobile, where nothing is moving the way it should when it gets hit by something else, and this just pales by comparison.
And then there is Lex Luthor, who is an absolute idiot until his very last scene. This take on the character is aberrant, bizarre, and stupid. They should just have brought in the guy from Smallville.
I thought that the bad blood between Batman and Superman was rather well explained; you could see their separate perspectives at least.
Now, on to a few positives: Wonder Woman was AMAZING. (Except, right before she comes on screen as Wonder Woman, she changes clothes and locations three times in about two minutes... again, bad, bad editing). Doomsday was also awesome, and when the three heroes take him on, it was spectacular.
Another positive was Ben Affleck in the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman. I know a lot of people just hate him; I've never actually hated him, I just take each performance on its own merits. I loved Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman. But this performance by Affleck was outstanding, in my opinion. There were a few moments when I actually thought he was better than Bale -- and that's something I never thought I'd say.
The positives, however, do not outweigh the negatives... I would have waited an extra year if it meant that the director and studio could put out something that was actually decent.
On top of everything else, there is very little 'fun' in the movie. It just comes off like it takes itself too seriously for its own bad CGI and bad editing. Almost as bad as a bad SNL 'spoof'.
Terrible job an what should have been an insanely awesome movie. Two stars. Change things up in the behind-the-scenes staff before the next installments in the series. Make the next ones more like 'Man of Steel', or the fun-loving, rather lighthearted Marvel movies will crush the DC franchise in its tracks.