Earlier this year, the world got struck with a movie that officially kicked off the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). That movie was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Directed by Zack Snyder, the movie suffered by bad filmmaking and bad decisions by the studio. It alienated new viewers that did not know the source material, and made the fans watch as their favorite heroes/ villains got mutilated by studio executives and Warner Brothers studios.

Accessibility:

The movie for the non comic book viewing audience must have been confusing. I can’t even imagine how it must’ve been because as a fan of comics I got lost a lot of times and was just very confused as to what they were going for. With all of the dream sequences about the setup for the future movies like an Injustice movie, and future Justice League movies, it was just a packed in mess that a majority of fans wouldn’t understand on the first or second viewing.

Plot (Spoilers):

The way in which Batman versus Superman fails is that there is no coherent plot in the movie. Some characters like Lois Lane just serve no purpose to the plot other than to create a road bump for the characters to run over. It is just a series of events that loosely tie in to some parts, and then when it starts to form something it sidelines it in place of needless setup for movies that aren’t even close to getting released.

(SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT) The movie wanted to be so massive that it lost its substance. There is a lot of setup in this movie. There is too much for this one movie. It came in terms of dream sequences and E-Mails (yes i’m serious… E-Mails). It set up for all of these movies; Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, 2 Justice League movies, another Batman movie, and Injustice. Not only is that just insane, it comes out of nowhere and leaves just as fast and does not relate to the movie at all. They need to be more careful about the setup and take the route that Marvel does and patiently setting up a universe slowly but effectively instead of trying to catch up and falling flat on their face. It is inexcusable for them to go for a more quantity over quality type deal for their movies.

Not only that, there was a lot of things that just did not make sense.For the sake of having this going on forever, I will use the end of the movie as an example. Lex Luthor has this “master plan” where he is going to make Batman kill Superman so he could satisfy his god complex or Superman kill Batman for whatever reason, it wasn’t explained, but while Superman is fighting Batman Lex makes a monster for a backup plan. There is no reason for him to make Doomsday before Superman kills Batman or vise versa. If Batman kills Superman, how would he kill doomsday? And if he doesn’t kill Superman, and Doomsday kills Superman, then how would he stop Doomsday? Without set up for the actual plot of the movie itself, it just comes across as forced nonsense. There are way too many times something along these lines happen throughout the movie and they never get explained.

Portrayal of characters:

This is where the movie angers me the most. I can think of maybe 2-3 characters in the Movie they got right. Those being Wonder Woman, Alfred, and Batman(?). The rest are all either the polar opposite of what they are supposed to be or are underutilized/ overutilized. Superman, the title character, they want to make him someone that he isn’t. Superman stands for hope, truth, justice, the american way… instead they want to make him Batman, a brooding, edgy, dark mess. That just is not what Superman is. That is a Batman fan’s version of Superman. Zack Snyder, the director, has openly stated that he doesn’t enjoy even the basic things that define Superman. “I kinda came to the conclusion also that they couldn’t really talk in their suits, um, with any credibility…” -Zack Snyder in regards to the superhero costumes. That is a very basic yet iconic part about any superhero. It would be the equivalent of a coach saying “ I couldn’t take the football players seriously with their uniforms on.” If you do not respect the source material, then why do it at all? Also both Batman and Superman are hypocrites. Both are shown to kill people in the movie and in Man of Steel, the movie before this. Both of their motivation for fighting amongst each other are because the other kills people even though they both kill themselves.

Not only is Superman mischaracterized, the villains are too, but to the next degree. Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor offends me as a fan and a viewer. It was possibly the worst portrayal of any comic book villain since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin. But it isn’t even a funny type of bad like Arnold’s Mr. Freeze, it was just a terrible performance. At least with Arnold you can have a good laugh alongside him, but Jesse Eisenberg was again trying to make the character something that he is not. Lex Luthor is supposed to be a calm, collected businessman that occasionally has a temper. He always has a sense of control around him. The movie’s portrayal of him made him a rambunctious hip teenager that loves to monologue with no point, talk about his father, talk about why he thinks Superman is evil(?) and stutters a lot. He single handedly brought down Superman’s most iconic villain to a level that cannot be reached because it is too low. I walked out of the theater saying “Ding Ding Ding Ding…” because I was in shock of how horrible of a job the team that worked on the movie did with that character. I guess it makes sense that they made a plot thread (if you could even call it that) centered around Lex’s piss. He was trying so hard to be the next Heath Ledger (literally) and ended up embarrassing himself. In short two of Superman’s most iconic villains get molested because of the decisions of Warner Brothers and Zack Snyder.

CONCLUSION:

This movie is what a desperate studio puts out to compete with their competition that’s already leagues ahead of them. With lazy storywriting, horrible portrayal of characters, needless setup, and an overall rushed feeling BvS is a perfect example on how NOT to make a superhero movie. Please DC, start over, ditch Zack Snyder, and please make good movies on behalf of all comic fans, we are begging you.