Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

It's finally time for me to review/ramble about Batman v Superman. I'm pretty late on this, but it takes me a while, sometimes months to see new movies. I'm going to be talking about SPOILERS so, click away if you don't want to see any.

This movie is an interesting creation, it fulfills a lot of comic book fan's wishes, finally, we see Batman fight Superman! I'm not one of those fans. I like Batman, I like Superman, but I have never once had the desire to see them fight. I'm just weird I guess. The plot is... simple and yet convoluted, it's an odd beast. I never felt lost within the film's story while watching, but I also felt like the film was psychotic. It's a rare feat when I watch a two and a half hour movie and say to myself "This movie needed to be longer.". A lot of things happen in a short period of time, and having some more time to develop things would have helped. Then again, cutting some stuff out could have helped too. I think the biggest problem is the subtitle: Dawn of Justice. By that, I mean the Justice League set-up and yes, even Wonder Woman, were not necessary and only served to bloat a movie that was already freaking huge.

On the topic of Wonder Woman, very few people I have interacted with thought she was awful, and most thought she was amazing. I admit, I'm not too familiar with Wonder Woman, but I found her to be very "meh". She wasn't bad, but I think amazing is FAR too strong a word for Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman. I think a lot of people were like "Oh my God! It's a female! And she is fighting!". I think Gal did well enough, and maybe when she has more than five minutes of screen time, she will be an engaging and great Wonder Woman, but that time isn't now.

Ben Affleck as Batman was good. It's the cool thing to do nowadays to say "I always thought Affleck would be great.", but when he was cast, I told anybody that would listen "Affleck will be great.". I was mostly right, he was a good Batman/Bruce Wayne. Not my favorite, but he was definitely a good fit. I know a lot of people think Henry Cavill is a boring Superman, but I like Cavill as Superman and I like him a bit better as Clark Kent. I think the issues fans have with him is more of how he is written and directed, not how he acts the part. Amy Adams does an above average job as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne gets a little more personality in this film, he's good enough. Now, for the part that will likely irritate others, I really liked Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luther. Yes, he is much different from the typical Lex we are given, yes he is crazy and yes, he's better for it. From Gene Hackman to John Shea to Kevin Spacey, they were great, but it was fun to see a different take on Lex.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. There is a fight with Batman and Superman, where Superman declares he doesn't want to fight, but good old Batman isn't interested in things like talking and listening. So they fight. Batman is going for the kill and Lois stops him, Batman has a "Hey, our moms have they same name, cool, let's be friends." moment. Anyway, skipping ahead a little, this leads to a fight between Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman against Doomsday. Doomsday is a combination of General Zod's body and Lex Luthor's blood. The fight is... destructive. Things get torn apart pretty bad. Superman impales Doomsday with a kryptonite Spear that Batman was so nice to have brought, and Doomsday impales Superman with a bony protrusion on his arm. Superman is dead. The mixed feelings aren't because Superman died, it's because it's kind of not necessary. Between Man of Steel and BvS, it doesn't feel earned. It's okay and adds a somber touch, but it ultimately just didn't need to happen. At least Warner Bros. got it out of their system, they've been trying to kill Superman since the '90s.

I get that a lot of people love dark and gritty stuff, it's got it's place, but Superman needs a little different setting. Now, granted, he is sharing the screen with Batman, so this needs to be dark and gritty so his fans don't cry foul, but Superman is getting screwed up. There are a LOT of people that are under the impression that Superman is boring and not relevant, and that's a shame because if they could look past their desire for everything to be dark and abysmal, they'd see that Superman is more relevant than ever. If you think he isn't interesting, then you don't get the character. He's not an alien god that just flies around without emotion, he's just a guy from Kansas trying to do the right thing. Like us, he wants to make the world a better place, but instead of hiding behind embarrassing online hashtags and being a cyber bully, he takes action. He is a figure of hope, and that pisses some people off. "How dare you hope! Everything is dark and meaningless, hope is for suckers!" scream the depressed hipster gods of apathy. Hope, is what gives us the strength to live each day. Hope, is all we have sometimes, and it's enough. He is so much more than what we see on film, and it's a shame that most people don't get to see the real Superman.

Final Score: 16 dead Jimmy Olsens out of 24.