Cynical Celluloid

The eagerly awaited match up movie of the decade, Batman V Superman has certainly come up against some flak hasn’t it. Marking the initiation of the new Batman as portrayed by Ben Affleck and continuing Henry Cavills run as the Man of Steel it has to be said that there was going to be a lot of eyes on this and because it’s a genre film, a lot of critical attention given to it. For this review I’m going to split it into a two section piece, the first part will be mostly spoiler free. You’ll be able to read it without having the story spoilt any further than the publicity has done already. The second part will be not so restrained but it will be obvious where that starts and I advise you not to go beyond the first part unless you have seen the film or don’t care about spoilers.

So…

We pick up a couple of years after the events of Man of Steel, Metropolis is nearly rebuilt after the catastrophic damage done to it in the fight between Superman and General Zod. Superman is a controversial figure loved by many but feared by others and still held responsible to a great degree by some important figures and some of the victims of the fights fallout.

Bruce Wayne, who lost some friends and colleagues in the mess is harbouring a large amount of resentment towards Superman and begins to make moves to take him down a peg or two, Superman in return thinks Batman is a dangerous vigilante with no restraint, legally or morally, as he goes as far as branding and torturing his prey. Meanwhile Lex Luther is developing weapons to destroy Superman and is manipulating the leaders into to allowing him access to the weapon that was used to destroy Metropolis so he can destroy the Man of Steel. A showdown approaches for the two vigilante heroes, the god like Superman versus the Dark Knight, a showdown that is being engineered by Lex Luthor for his own nefarious purposes.

Dawn of Justice is… well it’s pretty much what you’d expect it to be if you were able to mute your over enthusiasm for the film prior to watching it. It’s a mixed bag of the predictable and the quite exciting, in short it really doesn’t do the lifting it should have done considering the crazy hype it’s been creating for itself. First off lets just say that it’s not an awful film in and of itself, I’ve seen far worse efforts in the superhero genre and this doesn’t by any means scrape the bottom of the barrel like some have but it isn’t very good to the fans or the characters. What’s good in it? Well most notably Ben Affleck makes an impressive debut as the Batman, considering the howls of disbelief when he was announced to don the cape post Nolan he brings a serious amount of gravitas to both faces of the characters persona. Henry Cavill certainly looks the part and delivers a decent performance despite the problems related to this iteration of Superman.

Of course considering this is the first outing for the new Batman it’s pretty much his movie complete with (yawn) the retreading of the origins story…. again…. I’m beginning to think that Bruce Waynes suffering is something akin to pornography in the eyes of the DC movie writers. To it’s credit though, and this is the onlyreason I’m not going to lay into it more than I have to, it is kept very brief and concise and there is a legitimate reason for this to be here this time. I have to say this was one of the things that really stood out in this version of the origins of Batman, it’s not used to reintroduce him, it’s actually important to the story for once though I still kind of wish they could have done it without retreading that oh so familiar ground for the umpteenth time. It is possibly the most beautifully realised version though, I will give it that.

There are plenty of very emotional moments, Zack Snyder has managed to infuse some sense of real tragedy into the characters that informs their actions on screen and when the two heroes are battling each other it’s hard not to feel a twinge of sadness at seeing two beloved characters brutalising each other and make no mistake, this is a very violent movie, it delivers bone crunching blows and death but dozens. I would have to say on that ground that this is not a kids film. Fantasy as it is it’s brutal on many occasions and the tone makes Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy look like a happy go lucky romp. Considering the overtones of terrorism and the invocation of 9/11 in the destruction of Metropolis along with the subsequent struggle with a sense of threat and security this is not surprising. In this respect the film is reflective of current society and if you are given to exploring themes of a film then this is one to watch develop. Batman in particular certainly carries something of the worst of the CIA with him through most of the movie and as thousands of innocent bystanders die with little more than a brief acknowledgement by anyone other than Batman we see why he himself is pretty much radicalised. Yes this movie is quite political and I don’t think that’s by accident.

Like I say though this is a mixed bag and there are many more things that bring this down. First off, that tone. I like the darker tone of Nolan’s films, for the character it works, but here the tone is really fucking depressing, like starving orphan depressing. It’s a world of misery that’s been created in no small part by those we love and that makes it a challenge to enjoy. Just a little humour, a little lightening of the spirits along the way would have been nice but here we see two of the comic book worlds biggest heroes as utterly miserable and rather jaded shadows of their former incarnations.

First off Batman is a zealot, an overly keen deliverer of death and torture on many occasions where Superman is pretty much over the deaths he participated in seeming more concerned about the PR damage. Further to this he’s lauded despite having helped level half the city with only a few apparent ‘radicals’ who are perfectly justified in hating him for the loss of life and limb. Mix in that and the doubling down on the God symbolism and it’s clear there is a commentary of kinds going on.

Suffice to say the two central characters are ambiguous to say the least but played well enough by the two performers. Then there’s Lex Luthor, arch nemesis of Superman played by Jesse Eisenberg. Jesse Eisenberg is Jesse Eisenberg, as he always is. I don’t hear or see Lex Luthor, I see Jessie Eisenberg. He shouldn’t have been cast for this, he doesn’t convince as the evil mastermind and babbles when he should be convincing us he’s actually smart and dangerous and not feeble minded. He’s annoying and distracting and his performance here was just further evidence for me that he is unable to be anything other than that personality.

Wonder Woman appears… That’s pretty much it, she has very little screen time and other than a bit of ass kicking later on she doesn’t have that much to do other than set up the Justice League films. Ah the setting up of the franchise. Subtlety is not employed here, it’s a pile driven advert for the upcoming films plain and simple and crowbarred in with the delicacy and sensitivity of a fart in a lift. What a waste of screen time. And it’s a addition of screen time that adds bulk to the already very heavy and dense story that is hard enough going as it is especially when the final third of the film, post big battle, just grinds to a halt. The final battle, and no the titular battle between our heroic titans is not the conclusion of the film, is just disappointment by the bucket load. The CG suddenly downgrades to shocking levels and this final big bad is laughable and so astonishingly fake looking that any sense of involvement disappears like a turd down the toilet, flushed by the lack appreciation that we may just notice this thing is about as real as a political promise.

The story is really dense beyond practicality. There are way too many directions it has to go in order to set up the franchise as fast as possible and unfortunately that’s exactly what a large part of BVS feels like, an extended trailer for the upcoming films. This extends to the handling of the main characters in this film, this is a side effect of the constant reinvention of the characters we already know, enough with the bloody origins stories.

All in all the film is enjoyable enough the first time around but is heavily bloated and seems designed specifically to step away from the source material. You can judge for yourselves as to whether or not that’s a good thing but one thing is for sure that if DC continue in this direction that the films will look far more like a superhero edition of ’24’ than it will the characters we have grown up with. I like some darkness in the genre, I think Christopher Nolan balanced it really well with  a little subtle humour, but if this so far joyless universe gets too caught up in super-emo brooding and navel gazing then it’s likely to turn a lot of fans off. Hopefully the follow up films will deliver, hopefully this is just a troubled film because it’s trying to jam so much in, hopefully we’ll get a better Lex Luthor, hopefully the morality of the characters will get to re-emerge and they can be heroes again rather than brutal killing machines… maybe, maybe, maybe not…. Whatever this is it’s not for the old audience, not even the Nolan fans, and it’s not for kids unless your kids really like watching a bunch of miserable, self important superheroes going at it because aside from the spectacle of the battles it’s not exactly an aspirational or fun film. Too long, too depressing and too much of a clusterfuck of ideas.

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SPOILERS AHEAD….SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD….SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD….SPOILERS AHEAD

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Right, lets get into the nitty gritty here. Batman V Superman is a film that’s trying way too hard to do way too many things. It’s very clear on many occasions why this film is as long as it is and that’s largely because it’s franchise building. In a series of pointless cameos we are introduced to next years coming attractions (Aquaman, The Flash etc) though we aren’t really introduced, we learn nothing about them, we don’t get anything other than ‘found footage’ clips of them doing their thing. This incidentally is the only reason why Wonder Woman is in this film, she there to facilitate this and get a little bit of screen time in the bargain. She also is pretty much incidental despite having a role in the end fight. Sure she’s pretty bad ass but she’s barely a character and more a marketing tool for this franchises future. A not insignificant portion of screen time is literally there to setup a roll call for the next few years of DC films. Wow.

Putting aside the extended ‘Coming Attractions Reel’ portion of BVS it’s clear that DC have decided to go a very different route with their titular characters. Given that with Man of Steel really made Superman out to be a reckless arsehole who deliberately uses the city of Metropolis as a weapon despite the innocent population at risk from his actions (one wanders if his super hearing picked up every last death gurgle from his victims as they were crushed by the buildings they were in that he knocked down). DC have not really gone down the road of correcting that rather they have doubled down and made Batman into a hot headed, brutal killing machine. As dark as Nolan’s Batman was he was still a character who abhorred murder, in this one he revels in it. He shoots, he stabs, he in no uncertain way deliberately murders anyone who gets in his way and although he has reasons to hate Superman he pursues his obsession with the fervour you’d recognise from the US government post 9/11 and reason is utterly devoid from the character. It’s only returned to the caped crusader upon the mention of the common name of their respective mothers.

Given as it was the elephant in the room, the carnage of the Man of Steel film is revisited and it’s bloody right that they did. Because of what I always thought was a massive misstep, having Superman demolish a city, the writers have had to try to justify their way back into our good books….. Did they manage to? No they double down. They make the same mistakes that Man of Steel did and not only do they try to justify what happened they get Batman to more or less do the same… though of course it’s okay to take the huge apocalyptic monster back to Metropolis because ‘The dock area is abandoned’. If this isn’t a case of desperate rationalising then I don’t know what is. None of this admits to the travesty Superman was in part responsible for, in fact it tries so hard to justify it it’s rather sickening.

It all feels like a clumsy take on 9/11 with Superman’s devil-may-care attitude to destroying all around him to get at the bad guys (shock and awe) and Batman’s newly found penchant for stabbing, shooting and killing anyone in his way. He tortures, he deliberately maims and he is frankly unhinged in a major and unpleasant way. While I would not say that the character shouldn’t be taken in that direction it felt that there was nothing there to counterpoint it. Superman is hardly any more moral throughout the film and the motivations for getting back on track are entirely selfish on both sides.

Lex Luther Jr is inexplicably able to manipulate his way into weaponising Kryptonite and even indulges in some terrorist activities when he uses a maimed survivor of Superman’s battle to blow up a government inquiry panel into the incident. Somehow Superman is blamed for it…. yeah, that’s convincing.

Of course this is all leading up to the titular battle of the titans. I grant you this is the best bit of the film and it’s exciting and tragic at the same time. The down side of it is that this feels less like an inevitability, their paths being forced in this direction, than it does like two belligerent, unrepentant thugs going at it. Granted Superman does have the confrontation forced upon him and Batman is much more the antagonist but Superman soon enough just gets on with it. It’s spectacular, it’s exciting but it is also rather sad and ugly seeing particularly Batman sink so far. He barely thinks any more, he’s got the blood lust.

Up until this point and despite the heavy load it’s carried in terms of the plot lines and franchise building the film does skip along quite nicely, or at least it doesn’t feel like too much of a drag to get here. You can forget that from this point. The film begins to wade through syrup and god does it ever feel like hard work. Lex Luther preps the final boss battle by stealing Zods finger prints and using the body and his blood to create a superduper boss to fight the heroes. Why his DNA is so bloody special, why the Kryptonian space ship has worse security lockouts than a high street bank, why the ships AI just goes, yeah the council of Krypton is dead so go nuts with the forbidden shit is all given short shrift.

All of this takes an achingly long time and of course the big bad, as I’ve mentioned, is realised in a less than spectacular way. It doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t look real and given that the justice league is coming up it’s fairly obvious that DC are going to need their main players, just google justice league and you will see who’s involved in hundreds of images. This fight has no stakes, no-one is going to be gotten rid of and the faking out of Superman’s death is so astonishingly unconvincing that it has no resonance. It’s important to realise that as some have pointed out, this storyline was a major one. The death of Superman is a strange opening gambit and I’m curious as to how you top that. Understandably fans are saying it’s something of a premature load blow in story terms.

Not only is this final fight tedious, once it’s done there is still some movie to go. Superman is dead (yeah right) and we see a nation and family in mourning and eventually we get the ‘surprise folks’ moment in the closing shot. Well colour me shocked.

Zack Snyder has been very heavy handed with these characters, there is almost no subtlety to how they behave. It’s the cinematic equivalent of that kid with the action figures who smashes them together to make them fight and makes them do things the characters themselves would never do. If it’s not Batman’s murderous actions it’s Superman’s arrogance and deification. I lost track of the Jesus invocation used in this film and used with the subtlety of a boot to the bollocks. We get it already, he’s a god/ false god, halle-bloody-lujah. It’s just as well that Thor doesn’t buy into that crap the way Superman does because that would really piss some people off. Of course we have the resurrection, of course we do… He is NOT the messiah, he’s a very naughty alien.

I’m going to wrap this up here, frankly I could go on much further but this is already a long review. This is the thing. BVS is fun enough in many ways, you’ll probably get a reasonable view out of it for at least the first time you see it. If you loved Man of Steel you’ll probably like this but for me, when I saw Man of Steel I felt very much the same about it as I do this. It was good for one watch but I have no desire to go back to it and of course the more scrutiny it’s given the more the film breaks down.

While Affleck is good in the role it’s a shame the character has been given the same shoddy treatment that Superman has suffered in his previous films. The heroes are no longer admirable, they’re bitter, arrogant people who are uncomfortably similar to their quarries and while that can be interesting and should be part of the discussion of the characters, here it feels more like a licence for taking away the impediments of their moral positions, they are not just like the villains, they are the villains. Is that what we want from Superman and Batman?