For the uninitiated, pitting Batman vs. Superman probably seemed like an endlessly fascinating prospect. “Why would they fight?” “Aren’t they both good guys?” And “How could Batman beat Superman?” were all questions that comic fans have been fielding from outsiders since Warner Bros. latest attempt was announced. DC Comics enthusiasts might find the prospect to be old hat by now, but it’s easy to understand why this is a big deal – it’s two of the most recognizable icons in the history of fiction duking it out on the big screen. Presumably, Zack Snyder was hired to apply his specific visual talents to the material to make Batman V. Superman as entertaining as possible. And there’s no doubt, he can stage a larger-than-life fight like this in his sleep. But when it comes to those aforementioned questions? Well, he doesn’t bother to answer them. He’s not interested in the “Whys” and “Hows” – or I think as they call it in the movie business, the motivations?
Instead, we’re given a bloated film that barely frames the conflict with any sort of intimacy and manages to not find time to include much sense of fun.
To bring Bruce and Clark together, it takes the full cast in criss-crossing plot threads that actually weave together extremely well, initially. Amy Adams’ is given more to do as Lois Lane this time around, at least in the first third of the film. She, along with Laurence Fishburne’s Perry White (a legitimately fun performance that gets peppered with several “god dammits” because we just couldn’t have Perry say “Great Ceasar’s Ghost!” in the year of our lord, 2016), provide Henry Cavill with an opportunity to run around in plainclothes again. Over in the Batcave with Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons gives a playful performance as Alfred – perhaps the only performance in the film that is entertaining the entire time. He really is the perfect combination of the comedically put-upon manservant that Alfred is known to be, with the harder-edged overtly ex-special forces-type guy that DC seems to want to push him as lately. For a while, Bruce plays detective and Clark plays reporter, and this is where the movie is at its best. Unfortunately, this isn’t saying much, because these two civilian plot threads play out so conveniently for the characters that you’d wonder if they’d be better off just sticking to their non-vigilante day jobs.
It isn’t long before Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor enters the picture, wanting to capitalize on a public fear of Superman and a burning desire for power to go along with all his intellectual brilliance. Eisenberg initially plays Lex like a millennial iteration of Gene Hackman’s Donner film version. He’s got a fast talking, smartest-guy-in-the-room personality, with a skewed delivery and a couple legitimately good lines. He’s not “Lex Luthor”, but it’s a decent performance before he’s asked to buckle down and get overly maniacal. Once he gets down to business, he oscillates from “convincing enough” to “Jim Carrey Riddler.”
While the movie’s individual scenes weave together well initially, there is a very specific point that introduces a greater narrative outside of this singular film itself, where the narrative cohesion goes completely off the rails. What occurs is so nonsensical – so miscalculated – that it beggars belief and completely betrays that aspects of this film were being hastily edited in at the last minute. And this occurs several times over. These classified scenes not only do not make sense within the context of the Batman V. Superman narrative, but one cannot be sure that they will ever make sense. This is coincidental exposition of the worst-kind, and so clumsily put together that confusion will be the order of the day. If you thought that “Iron Man 2” lost steam by being overly concerned with world-building, Batman V. Superman may break your spirit. After this, Clark and Bruce don their costumes with more regularity, and ultimately reveal how shallow the depictions of their characters are, as written. They certainly both look the part. Affleck clearly worked hard to legitimately don the cowl, and he doesn’t disappoint in that regard. This film also features the best-looking, best choreographed action in Batman’s filmic history – you will not be disappointed if that’s what you’re paying for. But the character is presented as a narrow-minded blunt instrument, to a fault. So much so, that rather than having a history of philosophical head-butting that leads to a physical conflict (as seen in the most famous iteration of this fight: Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”), it merely comes off as Batman barreling headlong into something he is too pigheaded to understand. Likewise, Cavill is such a good physical fit for Superman that the fact that they can’t write the character for him is maddening. Superman spends much of the film floating in melancholy, not knowing how to react to the world around him. As an alien outsider, he’s a blank slate, which after a total of roughly 5 hours of running time with Snyder’s Superman across two movies, is no longer an excuse for underwriting the character.
Continued belowAt one point during their first in-costume meeting, Bruce asks Clark “Do you bleed?” – a specious line that has been so memed to death that mentioning it here could not possibly be considered a spoiler. If you think the movie would fill out and apply context to that line, however, you’d be mistaken. It’s yet another in a long line of pseudo-philosophical musings that Snyder’s movies feel intellectual for presenting but never expound upon or draw together with any thematic throughline. The movie tosses out so many of these questions, but never comes close to asserting an actual point of view on any of them. The word “god” is thrown out anytime writers David Goyer or Chris Terrio want to remind us of how serious and massive the stakes are – how these “superheroes” break the bounds of what the viewer can morally comprehend. If the DC superheroes of old were meant to be our moralistic ideals in action, the Warner Bros. movie heroes hold those morals above our heads and taunt us. They barely spend any time in this movie acting like “heroes” at all.
It’s not because Batman V. Superman has any interest in challenging what’s “right” or “just” – it’s because it has no interest in giving any of these characters a consistent moral stance. In Man of Steel, Jonathan Kent discussed the prospect of letting a bus full of kids die to protect Clark’s secret from the world. Jonathan answers his Gordian “conundrum” (placed in quotes, because this should not be a conundrum at all for Superman, of all people) with a world-weary sigh and a “Maybe?” This is the way that all moral questions posed in Snyder’s Superman films are confronted, if they’re confronted at all. Again, Clark must learn the same lessons about his “role” in society imparted by the influences in his life, and again these are awkwardly presented in a callous fashion. Any lesson from the Kent family is liable to be directly in conflict with another. Bruce Wayne, too, has moral struggles of his own to overcome. In this case, they are either lessons that he hasn’t learned in over 20 years of crime fighting or the wrong lessons learned from the trials and tribulations he’s faced in his life. In that way, the morality is so confused and contradictory throughout the entirety of these films that it’s not just a matter of Zack Snyder not understanding the core of the characters he’s working with – he and the writers can’t even manage to pick any one version and stick with it.
And anyway, is “do you bleed?” a question that Batman would even care about? Or one that merely sounds cool? Batman V. Superman misapplies the core traits of its characters time and again in the name of visual flair or mature content. Man of Steel failed in showing Superman as someone who would attempt to do the impossible to save everyone. Much was made of the probable death toll of the battle with General Zod in Metropolis. Batman V. Superman chooses to solve this problem by having characters overtly mention how few people are around or how many were able to evacuate the areas of conflict, as if the innocents are characters in a G.I. Joe cartoon conflict. At the same time, the characters of the film attempt to solve every problem with blunt force and a disregard for the consequences. The script clumsily tries to tell you that the producers have learned from the “Man of Steel” casualty count fallout, while still breaking established rules over and over. Batman is immediately presented as a psychotic that does things from the very beginning of the movie that crosses lines we don’t normally see him cross. When he’s confronted with Superman, or even greater threats, there’s no arc to how far he will let his emotions go. Between Batman’s ruthlessness, the on-screen death toll, and the amount of direct gunfire, this is easily one of the most violent PG-13 films to date.
As with any Zack Snyder film, there are moments of true visual beauty. Again, he knows how to manipulate a frame to evoke a well-known comic book panel or visual cue. Fans of Frank Miller’s Batman will see their knowledge of the comics rewarded on many occasions. Likewise, Hans Zimmer’s score punctuates the action with thunderous bombast, and quiet contemplative moments. And Snyder knows how to create a stunning montage (or music video?) using the soundtrack as a tool, making isolated sequences of his DC Comics films physically look and feel far better than other entries in the genre. The visual effects, and really all of the technical aspects, are unimpeachable. But that’s never really been up for debate, has it? What is up for debate is whether Warner Bros. is going to continue down a road putting together a Justice League with this tone and feel. A Justice League with characters that hem and haw before taking action, instead of being symbols of good that rush headlong toward doing the right thing. A Justice League full of heroes that don’t feel much like heroes at all.
Final Verdict: 2.5 – Batman V. Superman stumbles through its central conflict by taking absurd diversions, relying on expository coincidences, and featuring characters that have no sense of what should be motivating them.
