Batman V Su
perman: Dawn of Justice (2016), directed by Zack Snyder, was an incredibly hyped film that ended up dying in the eyes of critics. I have heard many things about this film spanning from it being the worst film of the year so far, to it being the best comic book movie ever created. I agree with neither as it was a visual masterpiece with atrocious story telling which combines to make a half decent film.
Zack Snyder has previously directed a slew of films including Man of Steel, 300, Dawn of the Dead and so on however, I’ve noticed a trend in most of his films; excellent cinematography, horribly paced story telling. Unfortunately, Batman V Superman did not escape this trend.
Like his previous films, the visual aspects are incredible and I often found myself at the edge of my seat at how powerful the imagery was. From the opening scene with Bruce Wayne as a child to the end fight scene, its clear that care was put into how each cut flowed into the next. The vivid colours and well placed slow motion moments added to the dramatic feel of the film.
Going along with this, the fight choreographer, Guillermo Grispo who has worked with Zack Snyder many times in the past, does not fail to impress with the clever and fast past action sequences. It’s easy to tell what’s happening to each character in these fight scenes which really adds to the value of the film. The fight scenes with Batman in particular were extremely well done since they flowed well and worked for the character they introduced.
However, this film does have quite a few noticeable errors that can be narrowed down to one main fact; they couldn’t fit the massive plot into a two and a half hour movie. This film was created in order to build a universe for the many sequels ahead. In doing this, it almost seemed like the screenwriters forgot that they needed to tell a story in the movie. Sounds harsh but another comic book film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, had this exact same problem.
Firstly, There’s essentially three different plot lines that eventually converge into the finale. We have the plot of Batman attempting to stop Superman, Superman attempting to stop Batman, and whatever the hell Lex Luthor’s doing. I say that casually because Lux Lethor’s purpose throughout the film is confusing the first and second time around and seems unnecessary from a critical point of view. On top of this, when I asked my friends what they thought Luthor’s motive was, they all gave me different answers. This is an obvious problem. Throughout the film, Batman and Superman are trying to figure out what Lex Luthor’s plan is and the audience is left in the same situation despite having personal screen time with the villain. If the audience is shown what the villain is doing behind the scenes, we should also know his plan otherwise all of the scenes we were shown are useless. It would be more effective to sit the audience down with the heroes and follow their journey with discovering what the villains plans are. It almost seems like something the writers were trying to create an interesting way of having Batman and Superman fight which ended up being more confusing than necessary.
Secondly, there are too many hints alluding to many different possibilities for the plot. For anyone, like myself, who knows quite a bit about the DC universe, these hints are almost blinding and take away from flow of the narrative. As each new idea appeared, I became disconnected with the main story and turned my focus on figuring out what each cameo meant. This added to an already confusing plot creates a mess of a film instead of adding to it. On top of this, making it to the end credits only to realize that all of these questions aren’t answered is unacceptable. It leaves the audience confused with a twinge of disappointment at knowing that these many questions won’t be answered until a sequel is made showing, that it requires a sequel and can’t stand on its own as a film.
Ben Affleck brought Batman to life. A lot of people were unsure of Ben Affleck being cast as Batman and he did surprise me though with how much he took on the persona. He looks and behaves like a mentally worn down man who has seen some things.However, anyone who knows Batman well will know that Batman essentially has three different personalities. Batman, Bruce Wayne in public, and Bruce Wayne at home. Though he did portray Batman, and homely Bruce Wayne well, I did notice how he dragged these dark and silent characteristics into his public appearances. What I appreciated the most is that Ben Affleck portrayed Bruce Wayne so well that I didn’t see Ben Affleck, I saw Batman.
The only other performance worth mentioning is Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg is an extremely good actor. It’s important to note that he once again has an extremely good performance a
nd despite receiving a lot of criticism for how he played Lex Luthor, I think most of this criticism is wrongly placed. His performance is good yet, it was the way he portrayed the character that threw fans off. Lex Luthor is a naturally crazy character in everything he appears in, the only difference is that he doesn’t visibly appear crazy until now. I think most this criticism comes from humans (including myself) generally being creatures of homeostasis. Meaning that anyone who is unfamiliar Lex Luthor and decides to walk into this film will probably leave enjoying this crazed villain.
This film has amazing visuals but the lacking plot drags this film down from the potential it had. I do not believe it is as bad as some people have said and I would recommend this film to anyone wanting good fight scenes who can ignore a poorly narrated story.
The critic in me: 5/10
Personal Enjoyment: 6/10
Spoiler Review
When I left the theatre after watching this film, I ranted for at least an hour about everything wrong with this movie to my family who had the unfortunate luck of being in the same vehicle during this tirade. I clearly had a lot to say however, I will try to keep this concise to a few main points.
Like I mentioned in the non-spoiler sections, there are way too many cameos in this film. In most films, a few hints are added to be fun for the audience or are necessary to the plot but, too many of these are just confusing. For example, Robin’s armour
that is briefly shown does have some importance. It alludes to the comic, “A Death in the Family”, which tells fans that there will, in theory, be no Robin introduced. It creates a better understanding of this film instead of making it harder to understand like the dream sequence with Darkseid, Flash showing up in a vision which alludes to the Flashpoint Paradox, and the amount of detail on the walls. People are trying to figure out what it all means and by the end of the film, we still don’t know. Hints should be added with purpose and should not distract from what’s happening in the film.
The main introductions for Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman seemed too simple. By that, is there an easier way of introducing these characters than having someone open an email with all of the information? We know the writers can create an interesting cameo appearance, as they did with Darkseid, so why can’t they do something a little bit more creative with the special and more relevant appearances?
Batman hates Superman and the reason behind that are quite clear from the beginning and they make a lot of sense when looking at his character. We see his family get murdered when he was a child so, when the saves the little girl at the beginning and we find out that her parent is dead because of Superman, we can clearly understand and empathize with why Batman hates him.
On the other hand, call me dumb but I needed a friend to point out to me why Superman disliked Batman. The entire idea of Batman branding villains to essentially get killed later in prison seems too complex for a story like this, and Batman’s motivation for branding villains is left unexplained.
Superman’s motivation is extremely 
important to the plot and to have a final fight at the end. when the motivation for this is lacking, it leaves the audience wondering why they are fighting to begin with. If the title didn’t state the that Batman would be fighting Superman, the audience would be left wondering why this happened. Especially with how Lex Luthor was involved. Before I give my thoughts on an alternative motivation for Superman, there is one thing I do need to explain.
The filmmakers need to decide whether they want Batman to return to his 1939 comic roots and kill people, or if they want to remain as the self righteous non-murdering vigilante the newer comics and films depict him as. While watching the fight sequences with Batman, there are many moments when I’m left thinking, “That bad guy definitely just died.”. They never blatantly show Batman killing people but paying attention, there are many scenes when Batman does kill people. For example, when he chasing after the truck with the kyrptonite, there are a few instances of Batman crashing people’s cars in such a way that they would not be able to survive. If the filmmakers chose a side, instead of playing on the fence since this is an important piece of information for viewers to know.
Going back to Superman’s motivation, if Batman was killing criminals instead of handing them over to the authorities, this would be good motivation for Superman to dislike Batman.
The fight scene between Batman and Superman seemed fixed from the beginning. Because Superman didn’t want to kill Batman, this fight wasn’t an accurate show of their abilities. Since Luthor captured Superman’s mother, his focus is obviously going to be on her safety rather than killing Batman. Logically, Superman does try to get Batman to understand his situation during the fight instead of focusing solely on killing him. This change in mentality limits Superman on how far he is willing to go. We know that he won’t win. Even if Superman accidentally destroys Batman to where he can no longer continue, Superman only wins this fight if he rescues his mother.
The fight scene between Batman and Superman itself was well done. There were moments when each foe had the upper hand. The characters showed what makes them them, from Batman’s strategic planning to Superman’s moral dilemma. I enjoyed this fight scene and how it played out with having their mothers shared names become relevant. It was an interesting twist and was visually appealing.
This film was visually appealing which made the film tolerable. I don’t believe it is as bad as some people have said yet, it is definitely not as good as it could have been.
Meggan S.
realistic as possible and I truly believe that it added to the message and emotion in the final product. It can be shocking but it had a reason which is more than what can be said for a lot of other films that include excessive gore.
beats the bad guy, saves the girl and wins her affection. We can say that he’s taken inspiration from this for a few reason. First, he works as a stunt driver on many of these films and watching closely to that scene, when Shannon says that he’s “only the day player”, Driver physically clenches his teeth because he knows he’s not the hero. On top of this, his jacket is in the style of the 80’s. Why is this significant? It means that at the end of the film, he got everything he wanted. He did save the girl and he did beat the bad guy, like what happened in the elevator and when he killed the person that threatened her safety. The melancholic part of this is that he got everything he wanted before he knew 
Personally, I was impressed. I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would and within the first few scenes, I already found myself laughing out loud. This film is a fun ride for anyone wanting a less than normal crime comedy. I don’t really have anything bad to say about this film because it is very well done and very enjoyable.
The Finest Hours (2016) is directed by, Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm, Lars and the Real Girl), and stars Chris Pine and Casey Affleck in an old fashioned Disney adventure. Let me just start by saying that I actually really enjoyed this film and it surpassed my expectations. It was fun and compelling, especially when knowing that most of the events in the film are historically accurate.
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