Good Characters Driving a Decent Story and Fun Action

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2016)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice follows Superman as he continues saving people and fighting against the evils of Metropolis. However, he ends up causing mass destruction to the city, affecting many people. Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, meanwhile learns of his feats and decides that he can't be trusted, so he takes it upon himself to take Superman down.
I wasn't really looking forward to this movie after seeing Captain America: Civil War, the other superhero vs superhero movie that came out around the same time that I was largely unimpressed by. However, Batman v Superman was an improvement in every way.
For starters, the performances are much better than I expected. Ben Affleck is good as Batman. He's not great, but I certainly enjoyed his portrayal of him. Henry Cavill and Amy Adams are both good, but they don't go beyond that. Gal Gadot is good, but her accent seemed a little inconsistent from time to time. However, both my biggest surprise and favorite performance overall was Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luther. After the amount of hate he received for his performance I was expecting something awful, but he was great. The writing for his character was usually good, and the way he delivered each line was, again, usually good. Some lines were forced, and thus came off that way, but otherwise he did a great job.
Also the fights, they were fun. While they weren't as good as Man of Steel (which I thought had great action), they were still a lot of explosive, fast-paced fun that never strayed from the action for too long. The momentum never died until it was supposed to.
I appreciated how dark the movie could be. It was willing to take a couple risks in tone, despite it's goofy and somewhat dumb premise, and I liked that. It managed it pretty well.
And the story. Yes, Batman fighting Superman is a dumb idea. But the way it's presented is actually good. It puts the audience at the scene of the crime and shows you how the characters are affected and gives you reason to vouch for either side, despite it being mostly Batman actually. We get to see how people are affected, not just emotionally, but physically. Characters lose their limbs or their families, and we see all that. It isn't held back for the most part. The sequence of events leading up to the fight itself were mostly realistic and it just made sense why the characters would actually fight. It flowed really well, and due to the relatable reasoning for the fighting, I was able to get behind a premise as goofy as this one.
However, this is no perfect movie. The first 10-20 minutes are awful. It's terribly written and makes no sense half the time. There're several points that just don't make any sense, and these scenes are actually used throughout the main story, and they still don't make sense even then. Other aspects of the movie are pretty dumb, whether it's a poorly written line or a dumb story aspect, it's littered with these.
Some of the characters are kind of stupid, but it was mostly excusable due to how little it actually happened.
The fight between Batman and Superman was too short-lived. While it made sense in the context of the story, it was still a little disappointing. The movie is called "Batman v Superman" so I was hoping for more of that, but unfortunately there wasn't much. It was over too quickly and too easily. Still, it was fun and the action didn't stop there either.
Overall Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a fun time. The characters are pretty compelling, the action is a lot of fun, the performances are pretty good, the story is well-presented, but it's littered with stupid little things and Batman's fight against Superman could have been longer. In the end, I'd recommend this movie.