Batman vs. Superman Movie Review

Or is it Superman vs. Batman?  Whatever, it’s barely worth a post.  I wouldn’t bother writing a review of a movie I didn’t like but to resolve my anger and to perhaps warn others.  If this review seems a bit half-assed and ill thought out, consider it appropriately inspired given the source material.  The person I saw this with thought the movie was okay, but really enjoyed my “Sheldon-like” commentary afterward.  Regrettably, I don’t have a transcript of that rant.  At best, this movie met my low expectations.  It could have been worse.  By the way, Batman and Superman actually first met on the Superman radio show from the 40’s, and not in the comic books.    

In spite of numerous callbacks to various classic comic book scenes, the first two hours of this superhero movie were apparently written by somebody who hates comic books, or perhaps thought them too juvenile to be entertaining for adults.  Doing a 9-11-ish riff at the beginning (still TOO SOON), put me in a bad mood to begin with.  Though the movie is PG-13, I don’t know how you can expect kids to sit through the majority of this film.  Trying to a make a superhero movie that somehow fits into something like the real world, just doesn’t work.  The more “real” you try to make it, the more absurd it becomes because the audience is forced to question more and more of the premise.     

In the last 45 minutes, you get most of the action you went to the film for.  Frustratingly, you also get some small doses of humor and humanity with it.  If you’d gotten more of that during those first two endless hours, you’d have given a damn about the big fight scene.  If there’d been none of it, you could have called it an artistic choice (a bad one, but a genuine one).  By sticking in at the end, they waffled and irritatingly showed that they could have made a more enjoyable film.  I shouldn’t sell the end of the movie short.  Without it, this movie wouldn’t have just been unwatchable, it might have ended the whole superhero movie genre.  (Not immediately, but a lot sooner than it otherwise would have.)  This movie wasn’t bad by superhero movie standards, it was bad by any movie standard, irritating fanboys and the regular public alike.

For the first movie meeting between Batman and Superman, I wouldn’t have chosen a mash up of The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman, much less have the centerpiece of the movie be these two heroes fighting each other.  I also wouldn’t have thrown in Wonder Woman, cameos of a future Justice League, and ominous, confusing warnings about the future.  For people who thought Wonder Woman was the best thing in the movie, I question what movie they were watching.  Perhaps they were watching classic Lynda Carter Wonder Woman clips on their phone during the first two hours of the movie and were confused.  She wasn’t in the movie enough or established well enough to be a factor.  And just to nitpick a bit, Batman’s elaborate plan for stealing Lex’s Kryptonite was to chase the delivery truck in his car?  And when he does actually succeed in stealing it from Lexcorp (which apparently involved just storming the building), they don’t show it?       

What made this movie look even worse to me was what happened on the following Monday night.  Unlike Batman vs Superman, I had eagerly been anticipating the Supergirl/Flash team up, and it did not disappoint.  I was smiling for the entire hour.  They didn’t fight.  They had fun.  There were laughs.  It was good to see Barry in something like a mentoring role (hopefully meaning that he’s learned something from his own mistakes).  They fought a couple of villains (with a pleasant surprise of an ending).  Everyone had a good time.  I know there’s a difference between a weekly TV show and a major motion picture, but you could at least take away that the characters were likeable.  Personally, I’ve gritted my teeth through several Supergirl episodes (as I am clearly not in the targeted audience for this show), but I keep coming back, mostly because she’s such a sweet character.  By contrast, I watch The Originals at least partially to see Klaus, who’s a terrible person, but fascinating and strongly motivated.  Confused and poorly motivated could describe myself and the heroes in Batman vs. Superman.  Not worth watching.          

  

Look, the Avengers was more than just a big fight scene at end.  People liked and cared about the characters.  Heck, even the villain was rather charming.  In BvS, nobody is likeable, even Alfred is just functional (and probably intentionally made up to look like Robert Downy Jr.).  You don’t care about any of the characters, and they’re not even interesting.  We can only hope that the producers fully learn this lesson before making their Justice League movie, and especially the planned solo movies.  In summary, everyone wanted to see Batman and Superman together in a movie.  What everyone got, from when the movie’s title was presented till the movie debuted, was Batman and Superman together in a movie presented in almost the worst possible way.  In other words, it was Hideki Anno and End of Evangelion all over again, just on a much larger scale. 

(I’m worried about Jason Momoa as Aquaman.  I liked him in Stargate: Atlantis.  I’m afraid he’s going to get drown making a bad movie about a stupid character.  What a terrible way to go.  Can we have him play Lobo instead?  He already looks like him.  I had suggestions for Aquaman and the Justice League that have gone unheeded.  Heck, let’s just make a campy Superfriends movie instead.  At least, it’ll be funny.  Come on, Legion of Doom hanging out in the swamp, Wendy, Marvin, Wonder Dog, and the Wonder Twins, the whole nine yards.  Tell me you’re not smiling over the possibility of an Adam West-like Batman teaming up with a Christopher Reeves-like Superman and Lynda Carter-esqe Wonder Woman.)