SPOILERS BvS Discussion Thread

I nearly fell asleep.

Seriously, I nearly dozed off while watching this boring arse movie. Let's start with the lack of focus on the characters that should get more screentime as our first big flaw here. Given that Batman gets top billing over Superman and that he hasn't appeared in the DC Cine- *ahem* "Extended Universe" before, I wasn't surprised that he received the most focus. But it was completely unnecessary. Just as corvette said, we did not need to recap Batsy's origins again and see the Joe Chill scene once more. We did not need to hear him passive-aggressively arguing with Alfred or see him silently brooding anymore. Everyone knows who Batman is, what he's all about, etc.. I was just so surprised at how little focus Wonder Woman got. As a fan of DC's characters and their histories, I know Diana's backstory and general character, but I couldn't help but think about how utterly confused and bewildered by her presence less comic-literate people in the audience must have been. It's a crime that Wonder Woman has never even been near the big screen before, yet the entire audience is expected to know exactly who she is and why she's helping Batman and Superman out. I at least found it quite interesting that they are taking further cues from the original Earth-Two comic universe in that Alfred is introduced as being only slightly older than Bruce and having not raised him from childhood like modern versions of Alfred have.

The fight scene between Batman and Superman was poorly handled, but at least quite well choreographed. Superman gave Batman was too many chances, the most glaring being the part where Batman tries to load the krytonite round and it takes him like a minute, yet Clark just kind of stands there and watches him do it.

And then there's Doomsday. As soon as Doomsday shows up, it becomes clearer that DC are trying to imitate the success of The Avengers, but whereas the Avengers fight all around entire cities against whole armies of monsters, Superman and Wonder Woman (Batman's not really a part of the fight) battle this big, spiky asshole in one boring ruined location. No explanation is given in the film to explain how Diana's sword can cut Doomsday while nukes barely bruise him, and as with a disturbing number of things in this film, the audience is just expected to accept it. I don't really get why they basically turned him into Titano the Super-Ape. I suppose that they felt the need to make him massive and give him heat vision to make him seem more threatening, but considering that he only had to fight two superheroes, it probably wasn't that necessary. While it was kinda cool and "holy shit!" inducing to make Doomsday a giant, I couldn't help but make the comparisons.

I personally found Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor to be something of a highlight. While it's made clear from the get-go that something's clearly not right with him, I like how this version passes off his insanity with a facade of eccentricity and can get away with it since he's a philanthropist. It's going to be quite interesting to see where they take this character after Superman's (apparent) death, that is if he is brought back at all (I think I heard somewhere that Eisenberg didn't really like playing the part). I wonder whose rogues gallery he might join?

Speaking of Superman's death, it took me off guard. I thought that a cheap "lol, just a coma bro" resurrection scene would be coming, but I was surprised when it didn't. I don't really know what that whole thing with the dirt on the coffin was or what it meant. If it means that Superman survived like in the comics, then it was at least more subtle (but less cool) than the ending of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Either this Superman has greater gravity powers or something else happened, I don't know. Don't really care too much to be honest. In the same way I don't particularly care that this version of Batman kills people.

As you can see, I'm getting into the good parts now. It's not all whine-whine-whine. Batman's vendetta against Clark makes sense and it was a great way to link the previous film's plot with this one and the realistic reactions to an all-powerful alien's destructive antics is handled surprisingly well. It's quite good how this film kind of acknowledges Man of Steel's primary flaw, that being Superman's insane over-destructiveness and shows how it totally wasn't okay. But there was simply too much buildup to the climactic fights that we all knew would be way over-hyped. A lot of what was shown on screen could have been summed up far quicker and more interesting action could have happened instead.

A flaw second only to the focus based flaw I mentioned was that they simply tried to stuff too much into this film and did not use the time wisely to do that. They probably could have managed to fit in more of Wonder Woman or Aquaman or Cyborg if the film hadn't wasted our time with scenes of Superman and Batman brooding and doing pointless shit. The dream sequences were a complete waste of time and an obvious attempt to create interest in the DCEU with plot lines that they will probably elaborate on in future films. When a Flash movie (a Flash movie is coming out, right? I can't keep up anymore) is released, the "Lois is the key" scene might make perfect sense, but for now it makes no sense at all. Suicide Squad better be good. If it isn't, then I'm giving up all hope for this franchise.

Also, Zack Snyder probably thought he was real clever by making a big deal out of Batman and Superman both having mothers named Martha. It perhaps leads to the most anti climatic and awkward end to a fight scene in any film to ever exist. Batman goes from trying to murder Superman in cold blood by stabbing him through the chest with a kryptonite javelin to saying that he's a friend of Superman's to Martha Kent. You would think that a dramatic, serious scene between Superman and his mum would happen at some point after she was kidnapped and nearly tortured to death, but that never happened.

4/10