Batman v Superman: the Dawn of Justice (2016)

Batman v Superman: the Dawn of Justice (2016), directed by Zak Snyder, written by Chris Terrio, Davids S. Goyer, starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams

The best thing I can say about Batman v Superman is, that at times it manages to be stupid fun in the kind of that makes you laugh at the absurdity. Sadly, most of the time, BvS is just an overly dramatic and fairly disengaging flick, that has been stuffed too full of things. I mean really, the name of the movie is Batman (Ben Affleck) v Superman (Henry Cavill). Isn't that enough content without tying in yet another monster that tries to destroy the world?

And let me be frank about it, when the titular battle happens, it is entertaining. It is the best piece of the movie in its whole absurdity when the eternally grumpy saviour of Gotham gives a beatdown to the boy in blue. Superman is relying on his strength, Batman on his wits and he manages to get an upper hand. Sure, Superman is holding back, as he's trying to get the dark knight on his side, but the grump just won't listen. He's all in, thanks to Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg).

There's also one bit in the ends monster battle, which made me smile, the Wonder Woman, who gave her first cinematic appearance here. Gal Gadot pretty much steals the show, but the fight scene itself is just too much. A huge butt-kicking of Doomsday, which ends in the death (yawn) of Superman.

The big problem of the movie lies in the script. It's a flat out terribly written movie and sadly enough, all the actors seem to have noticed it, as they give either a flat, lifeless performance or just plain ham it up like no tomorrow, which is what Eisenberg does. The only one who didn't pick up the quality of the script is Snyder, who tries to turn the limping wreck into an uplifting melodrama about modern gods.

Now granted, this could have turned the movie into an unintentional piece of comedic gold, but that doesn't really happen here. What does happen is, that the badly written action drama turns just into a stale, lifeless husk of a movie, that feels like it was pieced up together from ten different scripts and nobody noticed that the pieces don't fit.

The only standout performance in the movie comes from Gal Gadot, as she is just surprisingly good in her role. Affleck is serviceable Batman, as he's in good shape and does his sulking well enough. The same goes with Cavill and Amy Adams, who's again Lois Lane. There's nothing that stand out in any of them, really, but considering the material they have to work with, they could have done much worse.

Jesse Eisenberg, on the other hand, gives a flat out terrible performance as the main villain, Lex Luthor. His take on the richest man in Metropolis is just odd. He's an awkward, socially inept creep, who's done in such an over the top manner, that he as a whole feels like he'd be more at home in some art-house flick trying to describe the evilness of capitalism. Potentially Eisenberg could have been a good choice to play the character, but his take on it is just such a huge miss fire, that it baffles the mind.

In this 151 minutes long epic (of which there's 180 minutes long extended edition) Snyder doesn't only go ballistic with the fight scenes, he also goes nuts with symbolism and foreshadowing. This was the desperate moment when Warner Bros. decided they needed to establish their own DC Cinematic universe to compete with Marvel's brand of movies. This is another thing, that really hurts already a poorly written movie, making it unnecessarily convoluted while giving nothing worthwhile of these added scenes.

All I can say, that Batman v Superman deserves the 27% rotten it has gotten from as an aggregated critics score from Rotten Tomatoes. It really is a bad movie, that isn't saved even when it's just stupid fun, as it's not stupid fun enough.