Batman v. Superman: Good?

Do you bleed? Well, you’ll probably want to, after sitting through this mess of a movie.

“Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” is the sequel/spin off/cash grab of the Superman film “Man of Steel.” It stars Ben Affleck as Batmurderer, a ruthless vigilante who slaughters crooks by the dozens and desires vengeance against Superman for poorly defined reasons. Since this is also a rushed setup for a “Justice League” movie, the film also features Wonder Woman. However, she hardly makes an appearance, so I will not mention her again.

The movie is so fundamentally flawed that it is a perfect gold mine for critics like me. I will never be able to list everything wrong with it, so I will just go with some of my favorite complaints.

First up, the plot: From the very beginning, the film is hard to follow and frustrating. The whole thing is littered with scenes and sequences that go nowhere and seem to have nothing to do with the storyline. The most notable of these are the many dream sequences Batman has, in order to give the semblance of character.

Next is the cast. While Ben Affleck as Batman is a distressing choice for some fans, he is probably the only lead that seems fine in his role. Jesse Eisenberg delivers an absolutely atrocious performance as Lex Luthor, apparently attempting to be somewhere in between a genius and a jokester, but ending up just plain annoying. Jeremy Irons plays Batman’s assistant, Alfred, and though it is not worst portrayal of the character, it certainly leaves a lot to be desired. Lastly, it was a very strange move to cast the troll from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” as Doomsday, the legendary Superman villain, although compared to Eisenberg, he isn’t too bad.

Finally, we have the style. “Man of Steel” divided audiences back in 2013 for its incredibly dark take on what was traditionally a very lighthearted superhero. In this film, it seems the producers have taken the worst parts of that and amplified them tenfold. It is utterly devoid of character and humanity, mindlessly transitioning from overblown action scene to overblown action scene, with little reason to care for anyone or anything. In a movie whose very title promises a battle between two legendary superheroes, we are given little to no reason to root for anyone to win. Batman kills without batting an eye or listening to reason, and Superman has little identity.

The Christopher Nolan “Batman” films took a dark tone in order to emphasize their various themes and characters, but here it feels like darkness is working against them both, as this installment desperately tries to separate itself from the Marvel films.

As of today, the film has broken a box office record: It has seen the most dramatic decrease in profits from its first weekend to its second, a whopping 81 percent drop.

While the film will still break even, on paper, we should hope that Warner Brothers will learn from this and deliver more competent projects in the future. The DC Comics universe has a lot of potential, but right now, it needs a lot of work.

Overall score: 1 out of 5 on the Super-Bat scale.

Advocate Staff