Movie Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
Somewhere during the titular bout in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I hated myself for liking superhero movies. This feeling is almost certain to be temporary, dissipating when Captain America: Civil War rolls around in May. But there’s something singularly bleak about what will heretofore be abbreviated as BvS – something distinct from the post-9/11 political provocations of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, or even the gratuitous metropolitan mayhem and murder for which BvS’s predecessor, Man of Steel, drew such flak. BvS is wracked with self-loathing in almost every way, and it’s contagious.
Start with the title characters, colorful forces of nature in the comics who are here diluted into dull knots of idiotically articulated psychological angst. Having spent the entirety of Man of Steel agonizing over his place on his new home world of Earth, it turns out that Superman (Henry Cavill) has only scratched the surface of his capacity for moping. The majority of BvS’s first half is devoted to people talking about Superman: is he a god? Is he benevolent? Is he to be feared? Should he answer for the destruction he caused in Man of Steel? Superman also talks to people a lot about himself, but he’s pretty passive about it. This Superman is sad to be Superman, but he has no choice. And even if people don’t like him, well, he’s Superman. Sticks and stones can’t break his bones, and names will only make him sadder.
Batman (Ben Affleck), meanwhile, is a crotchety old bastard driven by self-flagellation over his failure to save a former Robin, as well as a number of his employees who were killed in Man of Steel’s final battle. Batman is traditionally a logical character – perhaps the most logical character, as superheroes go. But he seems ignorant of the handful of major heroic deeds we see Superman carrying out around the world, doggedly choosing the path of vendetta. There are only two possible outcomes to Batman’s childish campaign: kill Superman or be killed by Superman. This Batman is fine with either. He hates Superman enough to take the man’s life, but also seems to hate himself enough that dying in the process is just as good an outcome.
Cue the big, nasty, clangorous battle about two-thirds of the way through BvS – which, it should be noted, lasts a surprisingly short time before Batman realizes that Superman actually is an okay guy, for the dullest imaginable reason. Then it’s off to a second big, nasty, clangorous battle with some real evil, which is punctuated with supporting characters noting that the metropolitan areas being leveled are actually uninhabited. BvS is interested in addressing Man of Steel’s careless carnage, but only in the laziest way possible.
Chris Terrio, an Oscar winner for his screenplay for Argo, scripts this shambling, ugly narrative. It’s hard to say a man who wrote a screenplay as crackling and character-driven as Argo’s is out of his depth, but Terrio clearly has no idea what to do with this material. He wastes the first half of the movie navel-gazing about the psychological motivations of two of the most straightforward characters in the history of fiction, and throws up his hands completely when it’s time to actually stage some action. Director Zack Snyder, a frequent target of nerd rage, here earns the dubious distinction of making his least irritating directorial effort yet. Snyder has almost entirely eliminated the speed-ramping effect he so widely popularized in 300. He now stages some capable scenes, but far too many obscured in murky darkness and glaring lens flares.
The main problem is that no one here seems to be having any fun – not Snyder, not Terrio, and certainly not the lead characters or the people playing them. Cavill, as he’s openly admitted in press interviews, is only in this for the money. It’s still hard to figure out what Affleck is doing here, hot off his Oscar win, although he manages to get in a zippy little scene with Wonder Woman (up-and-comer Gal Gadot, the only real spark of life in this quagmire). There’s an abiding cynicism here that seems to arise from an urgent need to churn out product. BvS and its clunky subtitle are saddled with the hefty task of almost singlehandedly advancing the concept of DC Comics’ cinematic universe, mirroring Marvel’s and kicking off in earnest with its Avengers analog, Justice League, in 2017. But DC ignores Marvel’s keystroke of genius: building up the public’s interest in its super team one solid solo movie at a time. DC is just making a mad rush to the big payday.
Megalomania is certainly increasingly present at Marvel as well, of course; two-time Avengers director and Marvel architect Joss Whedon recently announced he was done with the studio, worn down from all the empire-building he was required to do on last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. The big difference between the two burgeoning “cinematic universes” is that Snyder’s not even close to tired. With two dull and dreary dollops of DC product under his belt, he’s already plowing forward into the two-part Justice League. As characters portentously discuss assembling the eventual League at the end of BvS, Wonder Woman asks Batman: why does he think the new team is going to have to fight? “Just a feeling,” Affleck replies. “Because this is 2016 and we have to come up with something to put asses in seats,” is seemingly implied. There’s a sense of obligation to a public who just loves them some superheroes, no matter what form they take. But when they’re rendered with the kind of vapid and vicious stupidity on display in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, there’s precious little to love – and the circle of self-loathing eats its own tail.
Patrick Dunn
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