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

Dawn of Justice delivers a half-baked movie that is an hour too long. There was enough content that the movie, if properly edited would make it a good one, or possibly two movies that might have been good.

There is altogether too much time spent on Lex Luthor and not enough on Batman and Superman, the two characters the movie is supposedly about. Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor gives an appalling wooden performance and almost every scene he is involved in fails due to his bad acting.

Luthor's plot in the movie is also so incredibly obvious that it seems ridiculous Batman, Superman or Lois Lane don't figure it out before the two heroes end up in a fight to the death. There are a few flashes of brilliance in this movie, such as the introduction of Bruce Wayne, his motivation to stop Superman told from his perspective during the Superman/Zod fight, and the (dream?) sequence of a future where Superman turns evil.

These scenes do a great job of setting the stage for what might have been a good movie, but afterwards it gets bogged down in a series of asides that feel like they've been cobbled together with no sense of order to create a Frankestein-like plot.

I feel the changes to Batman, making him a trigger-happy, gun-toting, criminal branding maniac was also a poor decision by the writing staff. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to root for Batman in this situation, since he's clearly not the hero.

Superman also does his best to not be a hero by readying himself to kill Batman at the behest of Luthor. All in all, a huge waste of time.