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Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
***SPOILER WARNING***
Not simply a follow up story of MAN OF STEEL (2013), BvS: DOJ is more of a DC's formal first take to introduce its cinematic universe by finally bringing DCs 2 most beloved & 'World's finest' superheroes together on the screen for the very first time. The stake was high but the wait was long due...
:
First of all, let me put the things that I liked & really enjoyed about this movie. Though I was one of those Batfleck haters but kudos to Ben Affleck for giving his best efforts to portray a credible Bruce Wayne & Batman here. Most of the action scenes lead by the Batsy were awesome; particularly the BvS epic fight, Warehouse rescue and the chase after the Krypotine stone were really well done. Loved Jeremy Irons' portrayal of Alfred also, even some of his style of dialog delivery & voice work highly reminded me of the greatest horror movie icon of all time...Sir Boris Karloff! And lastly the way Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman steals the show in the final battle (I wish I could kiss her in thigh!
) .
:
Now about the bad stuffs...
1) Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor: I really didn't get why they treated one of the most iconic DC villains and Superman's prime foe Lex Luthor in this terrible fashion by making him some wort of JOKER-ish maniac!?! Luthos is a 'smart ass billionaire evil genius', his characterization doesn't need to look like smarter or more devilish than what he already is in the comics or animated series. Eisenberg tried too hard here and I think the responsibility for making him like a "Lex-Joker-Luthor" mostly goes to the writers. DC own the JOKER, they don't need another villain acting crazy most of the time to justify his evil plans or character.
2) Too many plot elements: After getting & done influenced by Frank Miller's epic THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS then adding Doomsday story arc at the end was clearly a rush move for the very first film of DCCU & the prequel story of JUSTICE LEAGUE; as if DC is running out of time to tell all the great stories at once & catch up with the MARVEL(!). As a whole, this ending was too much off beat & comes so early in the series. Sup's death here was less convincing, felt simply staged (as JL is yet to form) and thus failed to deliver the appeal of really losing a great hero like him like the way that original Doomsday story delivered at that point. Moreover, the whole Doomsday creation theory here was kinda lame...like one of those 60s & 70s Hammer's Dracula & Frankenstein story arcs…where sometime a drop of blood was enough to "create or resurrect pure evil"! They are doing too much with Zod's wrecked ship, IMO. What that ship actually is? an alien zoo or a genetic research facility? Though it kinda make sense that after the destruction of planet Krypton they had to take & carry lots of their technological & historical stuffs with them to carry on Krypton's legacy in the universe.
3) Treatment & planning for the Batman & Superman: I think it won't be too much exaggerating to say that BvS is kind of an anti-Superman flick; where they left his character almost off-guard throughout the whole movie. He's frustrated as almost everywhere he showed up either that ended up with a controversy, defeat, humiliation & even this over-stuffed story cost his 'Death' at the end! From a movie with a title like this, I expected at least an equal standing & treatment for both Batman & Superman where they would become friends & take the initiative to form the JL together at the end.
Snyder in a recent interview already said, "one of the big things I wanted to make sure of was that as we went into Justice League, Bruce Wayne was the one who was gathering the Justice League. I thought it was really important to have Bruce Wayne be the samurai who goes and finds the other samurai, that to me was important. And with Superman around it’s kinda hard..."...why it would be so hard or wrong to see both Sup & the bat recruit the others & form JL together?! The thing is they are actually caring more about the Batsy and so they treated & I'm afraid they are going to treat further Sup as a plot device rather than giving him more time & space to develop as a strong & leader quality character that we see in the comics. Over the years, DC & WB only trusted & get benefited by BATMAN as their only potential character to make more money from. So I think that's why they're putting BATMAN in the front for the JL and kicked the Sup out of the picture for a time being.
4) Other future members of the JL: I agree with the complain about that "e-mail" thing, that was indeed a silly idea. They all (specially Flash & Aquaman, I don't much care about the Cyborg) deserved a much better intro. I was expecting to see them with their own point of view regarding what's happening in the world on Superman issue as well as when Doomsday appears as the new threat and started his show of destruction or at least when the world is mourning on Sup's death. Particularly, I was expecting Aquaman would appear from that pit of water or anywhere (or even the Flash at the site as when Superman brought the Spear out from the pit & too weak to carry it & finish the job) with the kryptonite spear and finish the job and later all of them going to have a special meeting somewhere else other than a shawarma restaurant
and decide to form the League for any future threat like this.
That dream sequence was fun and specially, Flash's appearance hints kind of their intention to adapt Flashpoint story arc in a future JL movie (most probably in the JL 2); where it will be interesting to see Jeffrey Morgan's Thomas Wayne playing Flashpoint version of Batman & Lauren Cohan as Martha Wayne turned Joker!!
Overall, Snyder's BvS has its flaws and though it comes with an untimely gloomy ending but at least this time it wasn't as heavily chaotic as the ending of MAN OF STEEL; surely it could have been a pure epic extravaganza and it's almost like a dream come true movie for the BATMAN fans (which made the movie worth to watch & highly entertaining at times) but again they did kinda INJUSTICE in other areas as I mentioned above.
***SPOILER WARNING***
Not simply a follow up story of MAN OF STEEL (2013), BvS: DOJ is more of a DC's formal first take to introduce its cinematic universe by finally bringing DCs 2 most beloved & 'World's finest' superheroes together on the screen for the very first time. The stake was high but the wait was long due...
First of all, let me put the things that I liked & really enjoyed about this movie. Though I was one of those Batfleck haters but kudos to Ben Affleck for giving his best efforts to portray a credible Bruce Wayne & Batman here. Most of the action scenes lead by the Batsy were awesome; particularly the BvS epic fight, Warehouse rescue and the chase after the Krypotine stone were really well done. Loved Jeremy Irons' portrayal of Alfred also, even some of his style of dialog delivery & voice work highly reminded me of the greatest horror movie icon of all time...Sir Boris Karloff! And lastly the way Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman steals the show in the final battle (I wish I could kiss her in thigh!
Now about the bad stuffs...
1) Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor: I really didn't get why they treated one of the most iconic DC villains and Superman's prime foe Lex Luthor in this terrible fashion by making him some wort of JOKER-ish maniac!?! Luthos is a 'smart ass billionaire evil genius', his characterization doesn't need to look like smarter or more devilish than what he already is in the comics or animated series. Eisenberg tried too hard here and I think the responsibility for making him like a "Lex-Joker-Luthor" mostly goes to the writers. DC own the JOKER, they don't need another villain acting crazy most of the time to justify his evil plans or character.
2) Too many plot elements: After getting & done influenced by Frank Miller's epic THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS then adding Doomsday story arc at the end was clearly a rush move for the very first film of DCCU & the prequel story of JUSTICE LEAGUE; as if DC is running out of time to tell all the great stories at once & catch up with the MARVEL(!). As a whole, this ending was too much off beat & comes so early in the series. Sup's death here was less convincing, felt simply staged (as JL is yet to form) and thus failed to deliver the appeal of really losing a great hero like him like the way that original Doomsday story delivered at that point. Moreover, the whole Doomsday creation theory here was kinda lame...like one of those 60s & 70s Hammer's Dracula & Frankenstein story arcs…where sometime a drop of blood was enough to "create or resurrect pure evil"! They are doing too much with Zod's wrecked ship, IMO. What that ship actually is? an alien zoo or a genetic research facility? Though it kinda make sense that after the destruction of planet Krypton they had to take & carry lots of their technological & historical stuffs with them to carry on Krypton's legacy in the universe.
3) Treatment & planning for the Batman & Superman: I think it won't be too much exaggerating to say that BvS is kind of an anti-Superman flick; where they left his character almost off-guard throughout the whole movie. He's frustrated as almost everywhere he showed up either that ended up with a controversy, defeat, humiliation & even this over-stuffed story cost his 'Death' at the end! From a movie with a title like this, I expected at least an equal standing & treatment for both Batman & Superman where they would become friends & take the initiative to form the JL together at the end.
Snyder in a recent interview already said, "one of the big things I wanted to make sure of was that as we went into Justice League, Bruce Wayne was the one who was gathering the Justice League. I thought it was really important to have Bruce Wayne be the samurai who goes and finds the other samurai, that to me was important. And with Superman around it’s kinda hard..."...why it would be so hard or wrong to see both Sup & the bat recruit the others & form JL together?! The thing is they are actually caring more about the Batsy and so they treated & I'm afraid they are going to treat further Sup as a plot device rather than giving him more time & space to develop as a strong & leader quality character that we see in the comics. Over the years, DC & WB only trusted & get benefited by BATMAN as their only potential character to make more money from. So I think that's why they're putting BATMAN in the front for the JL and kicked the Sup out of the picture for a time being.
4) Other future members of the JL: I agree with the complain about that "e-mail" thing, that was indeed a silly idea. They all (specially Flash & Aquaman, I don't much care about the Cyborg) deserved a much better intro. I was expecting to see them with their own point of view regarding what's happening in the world on Superman issue as well as when Doomsday appears as the new threat and started his show of destruction or at least when the world is mourning on Sup's death. Particularly, I was expecting Aquaman would appear from that pit of water or anywhere (or even the Flash at the site as when Superman brought the Spear out from the pit & too weak to carry it & finish the job) with the kryptonite spear and finish the job and later all of them going to have a special meeting somewhere else other than a shawarma restaurant
and decide to form the League for any future threat like this. That dream sequence was fun and specially, Flash's appearance hints kind of their intention to adapt Flashpoint story arc in a future JL movie (most probably in the JL 2); where it will be interesting to see Jeffrey Morgan's Thomas Wayne playing Flashpoint version of Batman & Lauren Cohan as Martha Wayne turned Joker!!
Overall, Snyder's BvS has its flaws and though it comes with an untimely gloomy ending but at least this time it wasn't as heavily chaotic as the ending of MAN OF STEEL; surely it could have been a pure epic extravaganza and it's almost like a dream come true movie for the BATMAN fans (which made the movie worth to watch & highly entertaining at times) but again they did kinda INJUSTICE in other areas as I mentioned above.