It’s opening night and I’m still undecided. Spoilers ahead.
Am I going to see Batman v Superman tonight? The Rotten Tomatoes score is dismal, which honestly doesn’t mean much, but still. My timeline has not shown me one positive comment from those lucky enough to see it early. I haven’t read any reviews, but I have read several review headlines — two of them contained the word “mess” and the other one said “chaotic”. There will still be showings in the morning. It doesn’t seem like I’m going to miss much anyway. It’s probably sold out. These are the things I tell myself as I type Batman v Superman Atlanta into my Google browser.
But, it’s Batman v Superman. The two most recognizable, universal comic book characters in the world on the same screen in 2016 live action, making history. So I buy tickets for an 11:50 showing on Fandango.
My girlfriend and I get to theater. She gets in line for snacks, I go to get seats. It’s packed, so we end up in the second row, which is something that’s been happening more often when we go to the movies lately.
The title screen goes up.
Immediately, things become confusing. Zack Snyder thinks it’s a good idea to start this film by poorly rehashing Batman’s origin story, because none of the other Batman films of this decade have done it yet. Fine, maybe that was necessary, but it probably wasn’t. After that, we get to see a scene from Man of Steel via Bruce Wayne’s perspective, which is the set up for why Superman leaves a bad taste in his mouth — Kal-El’s fights with alien villains who want to destroy and/or control the world cause a lot of city damage and civilian casualties. Fair enough.
Alright, we’ve established a conflict here, there should be a little more lead up, and then we can get to it. Right? No. There’s more to set up, and then even more to set up after that. This is the time where a bathroom break is acceptable. My girlfriend chose to take a nap instead. In fact, the only scenes worth noting during this period are the introduction to Gal Gadot as Diana Prince, and video clips that Bruce Wayne discovers in a certain someone’s files of several very recognizable meta-humans doing some amazing things.
All of the other events that take place during this part of the movie turn out to have been carefully planned chess moves made by Jesse Eisenburg playing a sociopathic Mark Zuckerberg-like new school, genius trust fund baby version of Lex Luthor, or really weird dreams. His end game is to get Superman to kill Batman, or vice versa, so he can prove a point and clear his conscience of the fact that he is, indeed, a terrible person.
Batman and Superman fight. It’s a good fight, full of what any fan of either character would expect. Superman is being his extremely strong, but mostly noble, self. Batman is using gadgets filled with kryptonite and fighting kind of dirty. But, because the versus doesn’t really make much contextual sense and is, overall, just one really big misunderstanding that gets solved because both have mothers with the first name Martha, the payoff just isn’t there. Lucky for us, the entire point of this film is coming up soon.
New school Lex Luthor has created a Kryptonian mega monster from the body of General Zod and his own blood. Most hardcore fans will recognize it as Doomsday, but don’t worry casual fans, they wrote Jesse Eisenberg a really cheesy line when he unleashes the monster that will make it clear to you also.
Superman tries to fly Doomsday out of the atmosphere and what does the president of this fictional America decide to do? Nuke them both, of course. The nuke doesn’t work on Doomsday, but it looks like Superman is out of commission. Then Wonder Woman shows up to save Batman’s hide. They do some fighting for a bit, and then Superman wakes up and joins the party again.
Here it is, the entire reason this film was made. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman teaming up, beating the crap out of Doomsday is amazing to watch. This is literally the most exciting the movie is ever going to get. These three together are poetry in motion. This is the scene that they most likely spent the most time on in production and it shows during every second. During these moments I realize exactly what Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is. This movie is a really long, really expensive commercial for Justice League.
DC, Warner Bros, Zack Snyder, and company, struggle through almost two hours of terrible, pointless plot and 250 million US dollars all so that we could see some clips of the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg, capped off with an epic fight scene where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman work together to defeat an enemy Justice League style.
My personal opinion is that this was a major catch up move on DC’s part. While Marvel has had time to carefully establish each member of the Avengers, as well as make it possible for a movie like Civil War to even seem feasible, DC has not taken the same opportunity. So what do they decide to do? Just cram it all into one commercial, in the disguise of a movie about Batman and Superman fighting each other. Great idea.
DC, Warner Bros, and Zack Snyder you really tried it. And because that fight scene was so tight, I’m only half as mad as I would’ve been if it didn’t happen. However, next time I’d appreciate it if you just hit us with the good stuff from the jump. No subterfuge necessary guys, just keep it all the way real.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is not a great movie, but it is a great commercial — at least for 40 minutes.
What do you think about Batman v Superman? Let us know in the comments.
