Review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) by Gary F — 26 Mar 2017

Go watch the full version of the movie. The Extended Cut is what we should have gotten in theaters, but because the studio didn't think people wanted to see a 3 hour movie, Snyder was first to cut things out.

All of the holes are filled quite nicely in the Extended Cut.

And for the theatrical cuts flaws, the stuff the movie did right far outweighed the bad. And even in the theatrical cut, Batman and Superman's reasons for fighting eachother were still far more solid than the plothole filled reasons Captain America and Iron Man were fighting eachother in the MCU's knock off. Superman was fighting because Lex had his Mom and gave him an ultimatum to kill Batman or see his Mom die. And Batman thought Superman was this Godlike alien who didn't care who lived and died and who he blamed for the death of one of his friends from Wayne Industries who died in the Zod fight from Man of Steel.

Oh, and let's address the "Martha" thing. It wasn't a "plot convenience" that their Mom's were both named Martha. Their mom's have been both named Martha for decades in the comics. And the scene was to show Batman the error of his ways and show that Superman was more human than he believed, and showed that Superman had people who loved him and made him human. And Batman's love for his mother, which has been an element in the comics where they showed how close he was to his Mom is what made him vow to save Clark's mother. Because he couldn't save his own Mom, the least he could do is save Superman's.

I would have given this the same rating I gave Captain America: War (a 2.5), but after viewing the extended cut, I gave it another 1.5. Because the movie was great when you see what Snyder was trying to do.

This movie is the shining example of why studios need to back off and let directors do their thing. Because the problems that were in the theatrical cut are nearly non-existent in the theatrical cut.

So Warner Bros., just come on. Stop butting in. Let your logo pop up and leave it at that. If people can sit through 3 hours of Hobbits walking and doing not much else, they can sit through 3 hours of a comic book movie. Especially when those 3 hours are well worth it, and much better than 2 hours 30 minutes of a movie that is missing some elements that ties everything together.

So theatrical cut gets a 2.5 from me (like Civil War).

But the extended cut gets a 4.

See the Extended Cut if you haven't already.