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Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice Review


Ah, Batman v. Superman. A team-up that fans have been waiting three-quarters of a century for; the live action big screen debut of Wonder Woman; the lead-in to a future Justice League movie. To put it mildly, there was a lot on the line for DC here. Fortunately, the film acquitted itself nicely for the most part. Details after the jump, but beware: SPOILERS AHEAD!

The biggest gamble of the movie was Ben Affleck as Batman: Chistian Bale's turn in the Dark Knight trilogy set a pretty high bar, and Affleck's last turn as a costumed superhero was the much maligned Daredevil. Not only was Affleck an excellent choice for the role, he may very well have redefined the live action Batman. His take was equal parts cutting-edge detective and kick-ass action hero, showing off some impressive gadgetry before performing what may be the single best Batman fight sequence ever filmed (no, not the titular face-off against Superman, though that was everything promised and more). His Bruce Wayne was equally fantastic: whether it was acting as the careless playboy, demonstrating his physical prowess, or treading the fine line between commitment and madness, Affleck's time out of the cowl was just as good as when he was suited up.

Henry Cavill returns as Clark Kent/Superman, and he continued the conflicted role he established in Man of Steel. I enjoyed his work then and I enjoyed it now, especially his ability to portray a Clark Kent that isn't a goofball. His actions were not always the smartest, but they were believable: you always got the impression that he wanted to do his best but kept coming up short. His death at the end of the movie was built on this, and so felt like a natural (if somewhat rushed) progression.

Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman was, sadly, as underused as expected. The actor and character both deserve their own stand-alone movie, with the proper time and space to develop fully. What we got was good, just insufficient.

Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was exactly what we saw in the trailer. It was a very SuperFriends-esque character, so if that's your preference you'll love it. Personally, I prefer the DCAU Clancy Brown or early Smallville Michael Rosenbaum interpretations of the character, where he's more "cold and calculating xenophobe" and less "big green metal suit nutbar." Your mileage may vary.

As a DCU fan, it was great to see the myriad nods to history. The most frequent Easter eggs came from The Dark Knight Returns, including armored Batman facing off against Superman, Superman absorbing a nuclear blast and having to regenerate in the sun, and the spit-second silhouette of Batman in a lightning flash from TDKR #1. There were also nods to The Death of Superman such as the battle against Doomsday and the S-shielded coffin; the Dark Knight trilogy with the burned-out ruins of Wayne Manor; and Lex Luthor's creation of Doomsday from a cloned Kryptonian that had certain parallels to Project Cadmus and Justice League Unlimited's second season.

Another plot point was Lex keeping tabs on the world's metahumans (reminiscent of The OMAC Project), which was actually a pretty clever way of acknowledging future members of the Justice League without trying to shoehorn speaking roles into the film. It was a shame that the filmmakers chose to cast Ezra Miller as the Flash, though - Grant Gustin has been the live action Flash since the CW show debuted in 2014, and it would have been a nice bit of continuity to see him used here. One of the great things about the Marvel cinematic universe is how everything fits together: Clark Gregg is agent Phil Coulson in the movies and in Agents of SHIELD. I wish DC had done the same here.

Unfortunately, all these plot points are also the film's biggest overall failing. There are so many things going on, we are left with very little room for anything to really develop.

For example, there was a lengthy dream sequence in the first half of the movie where Batman sees a dystopian future showing what could happen if Superman's power was left unchecked. While the sequence itself was well done, and it was awesome to see a Gotham by Gaslight-inspired Batman being attacked by Parademons from Apokolips, it really added very little to the overall film and killed the momentum built to that point.

Also, the end of the film had the same problem that The Lord of the Rings suffered from: too many endings. Even worse, the endings were shown in narrative rather than chronological order, making the whole thing feel disjointed. They should have kept all the graveside scenes together, made Batman confronting Lex in his prison cell a post-credit sequence, and ditched everything else.

Overall, Batman v Superman was a flawed film, but the scenes that worked were so good that I consider the overall effort a win. A little more trimming would have helped tremendously, since the real issue behind all the problems was that they were trying to do too much. The characters, action, and settings were all top notch, and giving them a little more room to breathe would have made a "good" film that much better.

Collector/Modeler Interest:
Jada, Moebius Models, and Spin Master all have 1:24~25 scale replicas either in stores now or available in the near future. All three options look excellent, so it's only a matter of whether you want a diecast replica (Jada), styrene kit (Moebius), or RC vehicle (Spin Master). Or you can take my approach, and get all three.


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