"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" | MOVIE REVIEW

Well... I sure as hell was excited for this one.

It took a while, but hey, we finally have a movie where Superman and Batman punch the living s**t out of each other on the big screen, and ever since this movie was announced, the hype for it was insane. Every casting choice and announcement made about its production was met with a lot of internet buzz, and for good reason. I mean, in what other live-action movie does Batman kick Superman’s teeth in and vice-versa?

Like many other people, I was excited for this movie. I’m a pretty big fan of Batman as a character, and I liked Man of Steel quite a lot. That being said, I went into this movie looking for a good time. And did I get it?

Yeah, I did, actually.

But I’m gonna be completely honest with you guys here. Before you go out and watch this movie, you have to know what to expect. You gotta keep your hopes and dreams in balance before watching this movie, because if you’ve already deified it in your head as some sort of Avengers-slayer, then you’re gonna be seriously disappointed. After all – this is a Zack Snyder movie we’re talking about here.

So Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (I’ll just shorten it to BvS, for the sake of saving some time) is pretty much about what the title – or titles – says it’s about. It’s about Batman and Superman punching each other to the death – among other things – and, somewhere along the way, justice dawns. And that’s pretty much the gist of it.

The suntukan of the century!

With this being a movie about Batman and Superman fighting, I have a lot I wanna say about this, so I’ll touch on what I did like, first.

Unlike everyone who watched that Daredevil movie from 2000-something, I wasn’t at all skeptical about having Ben Affleck donning the cape and cowl because, even though I did have the misfortune of watching Gigli, I watched Gone Girl, and that movie kicked ass. While Ben Affleck’s rendition of Batman might not be the Batman as many people know him to be, he offers some of the best Batman action I’ve ever seen in a live action movie, and I’ve seen a lot of Batmen. Ben Affleck kicks tons of ass as Batman, and that was what I wanted to see.

A man can only be accused of murdering his wife so many times before he snaps.

I thought Jeremy Irons as Alfred was a pretty good choice, too. Sure, he wasn’t as old as Michael Caine or Michael Gough, but he still came off as the reliable, always-have-your-back kinda guy, especially since Robin, as a character, was left untouched since the Schumacher disaster.

As for Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, I was kinda skeptical, initially. That was mostly because she looked like she weighed less than a hundred pounds at the time the announcement was made. As I watched the movie, I was glad to say I was proven wrong. I thought she was pretty good as Wonder Woman, and I think she gained a couple of pounds, too. She was bad-ass and interesting and had this nice little exotic accent going, which I thought was cool.

She was also super hot.

And, again, I thought Henry Cavill was pretty good as Superman. As for the rest of the cast? I’ll dive into them a bit later.

Moving on, let’s talk about the visuals. It’s pretty much a given at this point that, if you watch a Zack Snyder movie, you’re in for a visual masterpiece. I kinda wanna call this movie a visual orgy, actually – a lot of stuff goes down in this one. The action was really cool and really nicely paced. The way the fights played out was pretty kick-ass. It wasn’t like in Gods of Egypt where the camera was rotating around the action as it was going on (so much so to the point of disorienting you). The camerawork was steady and the shots were really well constructed.

Also, I though the opening scene was the absolute perfect way to set this movie up. In fact, the opening scene alone sold Ben Affleck’s performance for me, 100%. It just had so much power to it, and it had this really intense thrilling feeling as well.

Now, let’s talk about what I didn’t like too much about BvS.

Starting with this guy.

I’m gonna be completely honest here: Jesse Eisenberg didn’t do a terrible job. He actually wasn’t bad. However, he wasn’t particularly good as the character he was supposed to be playing. At times, he was a stuttering oddball that I couldn’t really take seriously, and there are times where he was just insane and out of his mind, which I kinda liked seeing. I felt like he was channeling a mix of Sam Witwicky and Heath Ledger’s joker. Which would’ve been okay if he didn’t bear the Luthor name.

Here’s where I think I didn’t like Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Lex Luthor: he wasn’t intimidating enough. I kinda figured that someone who runs a weapons company would be a bit more stoic and cold and business-minded, you know... kinda like Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. I just couldn’t see a person like Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor running such a company.

He would’ve been a fantastic Riddler, though.

And let’s talk about the plot and the way it was carried out into the movie. While it wasn’t nonsense like most critics made it out to be, it was all over the place. It was difficult to follow sometimes because there was always so much going on. There are so many storylines and story arcs that all have to tie together at some point that they kinda lose track of themselves. The plot was a bit of a mess, is what I’m trying to say.

I could see some of the twists coming from a mile away, too (but I’m not gonna spoil anything here, because I’m a nice guy like that), and the twists that would’ve been surprising didn’t really end up surprising me at all because this movie’s marketing team was, to use a business term, a really s**tty one. You’d know what I’m talking about if you saw that one trailer.

Guys, overall, BvS was a good movie. It’s not bad, it’s not just okay, but it isn’t particularly great either, at least in my book. It had tons of really cool action, and some really good performances from Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons, and it made me excited to see what else the DC Cinematic Universe has in store for us. However, the movie did suffer from the messy execution of its pretty okay narrative, and I couldn’t exactly feel any character growth from Superman (meaning to say, he’s still the same guy we saw at the end of Man of Steel). As such, I’m gonna give BvS a Happy Jarjar.

Hopefully Zack Snyder steps up his game for the Justice League movie (or, you know, they could always hire J.J. Abrams, which would be awesome), and by that, I mean figures out how to execute the narrative elements of his movies with a little more finesse and polish.

So, BvS – have you seen it? What did you think about it? Leave a comment, let me know (it’s good for website growth)! Would you like to see J.J. Abrams direct the Justice League movie, or would you like Zack Snyder to stay? Whatever the case, I’ll be signing off for now. Stay classy.

Did I mention Gal Gadot was super hot?