Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is basically a dumpster fire. But from that rubble, there is something salvageable.
It’s clear very early on in the movie that we’ve been asking the wrong question this whole time. It’s not, “Why Ben Affleck?” It should have been, “Why Zack Snyder?” Snyder opens his movie with a beautifully operatic retelling of Bruce Wayne witnessing the murder of his parents, then finding a cave full of bats on the Wayne property. It’s reminiscent of the opening of Watchmen, in which the director shows us that he’s capable of packing a lot of story into a short sequence. He tells all of Batman’s origin story in a matter of minutes before jumping to present day — or more specifically, the last 25 minutes of Man of Steel. We are then witness to Bruce Wayne’s perspective of the battle between Superman and General Zod, a street-level view of the chaos and destruction that earned Snyder so much ire from fans after the first movie. “Look,” he says in no uncertain terms. “Someone else is just as mad as you were about the destruction of Metropolis.” In Ben Affleck’s eyes, we see the blazing heat of a thousand Superman fans let down with one neck-snap.
Thematically, it’s a home run. The chance to revise what didn’t work about the first movie, then right all the wrongs with the incursion of everyone’s favorite masked vigilante. The problem is what follows. After we flash forward 18 months, we are met with a string of incoherently assembled scenes that peek in on the lives of Superman, Lois Lane, Bruce Wayne, a floppy-haired, twitchy version of Lex Luthor played by Jesse Eisenberg, and a few other non-essentials. It’s a mishmash of thematic and narrative inconsistencies, as if someone took a bunch of deleted scenes and reinserted them into the final cut of the movie. This is where a lot of the film’s momentum is stifled, long before the ugly, slapdash CGI villain Doomsday ever shows up for the fiery finale. It’s in these first 30 minutes that Snyder drives his film into the ground, never to recover.
It’s a momentum less, sloppy, almost mean-spirited take on these characters. Snyder doesn’t seem to like Superman very much, nor does he care about what makes him so beloved in the first place. A lot of the film is spent with Superman reckoning with the notion of being a hero. He’s not the cocksure Boy Scout you know and love, but rather a limp, broody reluctant hero. He teeters on the edge of not wanting to do the right thing, lending credence to Bruce Wayne’s theory that he could turn on humanity at any moment. The real truth is that it seems Superman would rather go into isolation than be an imperfect, albeit earnest hero. It’s the wrong read on Superman.
If the Superman dynamic weren’t bad enough, Snyder’s entire grimdark aesthetic — this notion that everything must be delivered with the highest degree of self-seriousness — also feels wrong. It’s like watching a movie, but having to rest an 80-pound weight on your chest. Batman v Superman relentlessly pummels its audience with dark, brooding moments that are meant to be thoughtful. But through a confluence of over performance, heavy-handed scoring and a director who just doesn’t know when to relieve the pressure, it’s more like torture than entertainment. That’s not to say that everything needs to be light and fluffy. Christopher Nolan proved that seriousness has a place in comic book movies, but you have to execute with momentum and not shy away from anything resembling levity. Also, would it kill Zack Snyder to shoot any of his action in the daytime? Not every chase and fight needs to be dark, wet and on fire.
Alas, Batman v Superman is an unenjoyable experience. As someone who has enjoyed Zack Snyder’s films — 300, Watchmen and Man of Steel included — I was surprised by how aggressively grating I found this film. Not a great start to what DC and Warner Bros. hope will be their big cinematic universe. Though as I mentioned at the top, not a complete loss.
The Batman
As a longtime fan of Batman, I can’t help but wish that Ben Affleck had played the role much earlier in his career. Christian Bale was a fine Batman, regardless of how you felt about his voice. But his Bruce Wayne always played a little cold. Affleck’s Wayne feels more like resourceful, mildly sardonic character who could survive the horrors of being Batman for a number of years. He’s an imperfect guy — we see him do some drinking, some womanizing — but he’s far more personable and relatable than previous versions of Wayne. He’s believable as a man who is worldly, tech savvy, capable of spycraft and most importantly, has the analytical mind of a good detective. To Affleck’s credit, this is the most well-rounded Bruce Wayne we’ve seen on screen since Keaton. Affleck clearly understands what makes Bruce Wayne tick, which is of vital importance to making the entire Batman thing work.
Affleck’s Batman is also good. His fighting style is that of a man who’s been to war and seen some shit. It’s brutal and merciless. While this diverges from the more humane Batman we’ve seen on-screen before, the Christopher Nolan version who had that one rule not to take lives, it speaks volumes about the horrors that exist in Batman’s past. One could read this as Zack Snyder saying, “You guys were mad about Superman killing one guy, wait until you see how many people Batman can kill!” But the correct read is that this Batman is an older, hardened radical whose worldview has been altered by his time as a vigilante.
The only problem with Affleck’s Batman is that he’s an affront to physics. His movement is often rubbery, a product of Snyder’s desire to get him into those fancy comic book frame poses. He moves in otherworldly ways when jumping around, but when he fights, it’s gnarly and wonderful. It’s the only place in the movie where Snyder’s aesthetic works. The action has a graceful, kinetic quality to it. Even though Batman is punching everyone into oblivion, it’s the most joyful the film ever gets.
Next: Batman v Superman Needs to Slow Down and Smell The Roses
The cherry on top of Affleck’s work is his delightful chemistry with Jeremy Irons as Alfred. They spend most of their time talking to each other over a walkie talkie, but there’s an affection there that’s missing from every other character pairing in the movie. It leaves me wanting more of Affleck, more of this pair and more of this brutal Batman. Basically, it leaves me with hope in my heart for Affleck’s solo Batman movie.
In a smaller way, the final battle scene leaves me with similar feelings about Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. She’s too little, too late to save this movie, but she’s awe-inspiring in motion. She is hindered by a lack of things to do narratively, but benefits from being the only purely heroic character in the film. While Batman v Superman is so bad that I worry it puts a lot of Warner Bros. big DCCU plans in jeopardy, at least we know that Wonder Woman is already in the works.
TL;DR
Batman v Superman, like the dreams that haunt Bruce Wayne throughout the movie, is a nightmare. As unlikeable and aggressively miserable as any other comic book movie in history. It never builds momentum, undercooks its villain and has what appears to be a genuine dislike for at least one of its titular characters. To say that I hate it would be unfair, because hate would indicate that there’s no redeeming value anywhere. Ben Affleck’s Batman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman are both interesting in a vacuum. I’m simply glad the rest of this movie is behind me.
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