Last week, I wrote a spoiler free review for Batman Vs Superman:
Dawn of Justice. During that review, I held a few pointers back because I knew
that, for anyone who hasn’t seen the film yet, it would ruin your experience of
it. Today, I won’t be holding anything back. If you don’t mind spoilers, then
continue reading, but if you haven’t seen the film and you want to watch it with
a fresh opinion, then by all means click away.
If you would like to read my spoiler free review of the film, then
click this link and it will take you straight there.
OK, now onto the review itself.
Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice is the sequel to Man of Steel.
Henry Cavill returned as Superman once more, along with Amy Adams as Lois Lane,
among others, among newcomers such as Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jeremy
Irons as Alfred, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, and Jesse Eisenberg as
Lex Luthor, among others.
In Man of Steel, Superman caused a lot of collateral damage during
his fight with Zod and his army. Zod wanted to reshape Earth into Krypton 2.0.
Zod is one of Superman’s greatest enemies. He is a warrior with all the same
powers as Superman, which essentially makes Zod an equal to him and therefore a
challenge to beat. During that film, Superman was in a dark place, struggling to
fit in and figure out his purpose, which from what I could see whilst watching
the film, allowed Zod to sneak on by with is massive machines and start the
terraforming process. Bruce Wayne blames Superman for the destruction of his
building, which isn’t strictly accurate, because although Superman didn’t stop
Zod, it was actually him who destroyed the building. That shouldn’t be an
excuse on Superman’s behalf, because he should have taken the fight far away
from Metropolis therefore away from the people.
This brings me to a point that I have to sneak in here. Most
people’s criticism with the film is the amount of collateral damage. Superman
is supposed to save Metropolis, but instead it got 99% destroyed. I will agree
that Superman did cause some of that damage, but compared to what Zod did with
his machines, all of Superman’s damage doesn’t seem worth complaining about. I
do have one criticism with the film, however, which does have some connection
with everybody else’s criticism. In order to reshape Earth into Krypton 2.0,
Zod positioned two of his massive machines at equal ends of the planet and when
they started the terraforming process, it shot an incredibly powerful energy
beam straight through the centre of the Earth, flattening everything around it.
So, Zod is now doing the most damage to the city. The complaint I have is when
Superman is attempting to stop the process, he doesn’t go to the one in Metropolis,
he goes to the one on the other side of the planet, in the middle of nowhere,
where there are no people. Surely, Superman should have destroyed the one in the
city, where there are thousands, millions of people that need saving. Now that
I have that off my chest, let’s get back to the review.
Bruce Wayne is essentially personifying everyone’s complaints
about the previous film and blaming Superman for all of the damage that has
been done to the city and his company. This leads him to building up a plan of
action to take out Superman for good. Whilst Bruce is investigating, he bumps
into Clark Kent of all people and begin a conversation about the two city’s vigilantes.
Clark Kent disagrees with Batman’s method of branding criminals with the Batman
symbol as that is the symbol for them to be put on Death Row, and Clark also
disagrees that the Police are helping Batman do this. Throughout the film,
Superman doesn’t do hardly anything compared to what Bruce does in order to
stop the other person. Bruce takes action, whilst Superman just tells Batman to
stop doing what he’s doing. That’s all, which isn’t very effective in the
slightest.
In Metropolis, it is understandable that the population of the
city have split opinions, and the officials in charge are against Superman’s
actions, because his actions leads to destruction, and even death. At the
beginning of the film, he was framed for killing a group of people whilst saving
Lois. The senator asks for Superman to come to a hearing where an official
debate will take place. In a way, I do agree with the difference in opinions.
The members of the public who were saved during the events of the first film
would be happy that they are still alive, whereas the senator would be thinking
rationally and ask the question, ‘what’s stopping this from happening again and
all those people who were saved aren’t anymore?’ or something along those
lines.
In conclusion to Bruce’s perspective, and the differences of
opinions within Metropolis, the film did a good job balancing that out realistically.
Even though it technically wasn’t him that caused all of that damage, he was still
involved with it and the only one left standing, he should take full
responsibility for that.
We all know Batman’s origins by now, but of course the film had to
explain it to us once more, although it did tell us simply and quickly before
moving onto what is more important.
Bruce’s storyline was different from any other live-action appearance
beforehand. Bruce is old, tired, seen everything, done everything, and is
starting to slow down due to feeling lethargic. Ben’s performance playing that
version of Batman was the best performance of the entire film, in my opinion,
and is also many other people’s opinions as well. A bit of controversy has arisen,
which is Batman’s abandonment of his no killing rule. We are shown Robin’s suit
in a glass case with the works, ‘jokes on you, Batman.’ This is in reference to
when the Joker killed Robin. After that moment, Batman gave up his rule and
subsequently killed the Joker, but he still pertained the hero aspect of his
actions, and continues to save the city of Gotham to this day.
And now we get to the other main storyline in the film, Lex
Luthor. Lex is, essentially, and evil genius. He knows his way round a
laboratory, and also knows that his money can get him inside any laboratory in
the world, upon his command, as well as his reputation and influence. He is the
creator of Doomsday, a being derived from Zod’s body. This is my biggest criticism
I have with the film. Lex managed to get inside one of the crashed spaceships
that fell during the events of the last movie. And quickly became in charge of
it. And then quickly learned everything there is to know about Krypton, Zod,
Superman, and uses that information to created Doomsday. That was way too fast.
Considering that Superman, in every live-action feature, spends years in the
Fortress of Solitude, learning about his home planet, it did seem a little strange
that Lex was able to learn all of that information in less than a day.
However, when Doomsday did make his appearance, he was represented
well, I believe. In the comics, Doomsday cannot be defeated by the same thing
twice. He immediately becomes immune to whatever damaged him before, and is the
only character to actually kill Superman. You know Doomsday is a powerful being
of destruction when he can kill Superman, who once punched dimensions apart,
although that was only one time in the comics, but does show you just how strong
Superman can be, and for Doomsday to kill him, that says something. I’ll get
back to Doomsday later on, I first have to talk about the actual fight between
Superman and Batman.
It lasts for five minutes and ends with them becoming instant best
friends because both their mothers are called Martha. The trailers, and even
the promotional clip during Graham Norton’s chat show, promoted the fight
between Batman and Superman as being a climatic showdown. One can’t be the
other. Both are pushed to their limits. It would keep us on the edge of our seats,
constantly guessing who would win. Instead, we get less than ten minutes of them
knocking each other about. Batman did put up a good fight, however. He
constructed a metal suit and used Kryptonite to weaken Superman enough so that
he can get in a few punches. Visually, Batman’s fight scenes were some of the
best I’ve ever seen on the big screen.
Lois doesn’t do anything in this film. In the last film, she was a
strong and independent character, but in this film, whenever she attempted to
do something that would have helped move the plot along, she got herself
trapped and needed to be rescued by Superman, which brings me onto another
point that I disagree with. Throughout the film, Superman was able to rescue Lois
the moment she gets in trouble, wherever she is in the world, but the moment
his mother gets kidnapped by Lex, he can’t locate her anywhere. Lex is then
able to use his mother’s kidnapping as blackmail in order to make Superman
fight Batman. That doesn’t make much sense in the slightest.
Back to Doomsday. I feel that Doomsday was represented well. A lot
better than I thought he would have been represented anyway. But, at the same
time, he didn’t fit in this film as much as I thought he would either. As
powerful as Doomsday is, he really should have been the centre of attention. He
should have been the main antagonist. But, he did live up to his reputation and
killed Superman. Well, we all know he didn’t actually kill him for good, but to
everybody in the film, he is as good as dead. He will most likely come back half
way through Justice League part one, or at the beginning of Justice League part
2.
Wonder Woman’s performance throughout was brilliant. Her full
story will be told in her own standalone movie. This film was more to introduce
her already with her powers. Gal Gadot captured Wonder Woman’s personality
superbly, mainly because her casual appearances throughout the film, was just
enough to build up the character so we know who she is and what she is capable
of, only to be shown those capabilities during the fight with Doomsday where she
held her own by using magic.
This film also had a number of cameos from the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. I am looking forward to Flash’s standalone movie, because I would like
to see what they do compared to what they have done in the TV show.
In conclusion, everyone’s performance was what held this film
together. I’m afraid the plot let it down very much so. It did have a few good
moments: When Batman and Superman did eventually fight, it was good whilst it
lasted, but the trailers built it up way too much that it did feel disappointing
at the end of it. And the final fight with Doomsday was epic, but should have
been longer to show just what Doomsday is truly capable of. It seems as if it
tried to cram so much into a single film that is spoilt itself. I don’t think
we would have minded if DC split up the three major plot points into their very
own film, would we? Hey, if MARVEL can do a massive cinematic universe with
over 20 films, why can’t DC. It seems as if DC wants to try and rival that of
MARVEL, but in doing so they rushed so much as they tried to reach the climatic
endings quicker. You know what they say, slow and steady wins the race.
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
My book, Sector 22: Zoey, is now available on Amazon, eBay, and SkyCat Publications' website:
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