Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Post-release)

teragon said:

Regarding the plot :

Spoiler

Well, yeah, it's pretty much what matthewdelacruz said, except Bruce doesn't want to kill Superman because of a nightmare, he wants to kill him because of the destruction that happened in MOS, and Luthor has been secretly fuelling his rage by sending him the notes like "you let your family die" and setting up Superman for stuff that makes him look bad ever since the end of MOS, 2 years ago in movie time. The nightmares are just a by-product of his hate, and also it seems Bruce is prone to weird dreams all together because he has more than one in the film.
There are however quite a few moments and things that you cannot have guessed from the trailers, and the first half of the movie does a pretty good job setting up the fight IMO, and the VS fight doesn't happen until late in the film. Before that it shows you how Bruce works as a detective in and out of the suit, and how Clark struggle with trying to do the good thing when he gets backlash every time he tries to help. And Luthor has a play in that backlash of course, actively setting him up to look bad more than once.

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I haven't seen the film yet but this notion would seem contrary to my concept of Batman -

dascoyne said:

I haven't seen the film yet but this notion would seem contrary to my concept of Batman -

Spoiler

that he's so easily baited into acts of passion. Isn't he supposed to be the methodical one? The guy who is ten steps ahead of everyone around him? He'd be the one guy who could look beyond sensationalism and regard issues merely on the facts. He should be the last guy you'd think would be manipulated, no?

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My take on that is because :

In theory yes, but this Batman has been doing his thing for over 20 years, and has lost any hope of ever truly getting rid of criminals. They kept saying it in the marketing, but it's true : he's older and weary, he's lost allies and is in a bad place at the beginning of the film.
He didn't need anybody to hate Superman though, he was in Metropolis when it all happened and he lost a building full of employees, that's the beginning of the film and you can see at one point the anger in his eyes. It started there, then Luthor kept anonymously taunting him with letters and sabotaging his victim funds for his employees etc, all of this over the two years span between the movies.
Basically it's a cumulation of things that set him off, more than manipulation. He does snap out of it eventually, which reinforces my believe that it was like a depression, you know, a bad mental state that took over and that was in him already before Superman showed up. Made him a lot more brutal too, he's down right scary. He doesn't give a crap about collateral damages to bad guys anymore and started branding the worst criminals he catches. Some of his scenes almost come out as a horror film really.

***Warning, this includes spoilers ***

I have to say I enjoyed BvS a lot more than I thought I would and it's certainly miles ahead of MoS. Mind you it is a ponderous and disjointed film. Affleck puts down the best Batman in ages. He's a comic-book level Batman so things like gravity, momentum and mass are also clearly comic book level (and that's fine by me) It almost reminds me of the limber, athletic Batman of the Neil Adams days. Gadot is Wonderful, she is a little bit too cute to be the stunner WW is supposed to be she does really well with the limited space that is given her. Cavill's Superman is being put forward as a torn and conflicted but he ultimately comes over as a bone-headed hambone rather than spend a little time showing how awesome Superman really is he uses shortcuts and a lot of Alex Ross imagery of Superman shown hovering from a low angle. Lois Lane by contrast is still an empty shell, her awesome investigating skills barely exceed those of a simple Google search, she ends up being the damsel in distress and the love interest with little or no chemistry. And then we have Luthor. At this point I really would like to say that the meme that all bad guys are hyper and uninhibited should be staked through the heart and buried under a thick layer of concrete, it's on the level of a 13-year old playing chaotic evil in D&D. Again we see a lot of shortcuts that are designed to show us he's a wunderkind but in real life people would have serious doubts about his sanity, only because he runs a multi-billion dollar corporation and he is openly eccentric and highly erratic. They seem intent on portraying him as a young cool and hip guy with that nonchalant, non-conformist streak but really it's more of a caricature.

Snyder seems to have fallen in love with highly evocative cinematic imagery it worked to his advantage in 300 and Watchmen because all the hard work had been done for him in the comics, all he had to do was to make it look big and cinematic. In BvS it's a mixed bag, at times it drags down the film and it becomes a bit disorienting as dream and reality freely intermix, good he remembered to add a shock awakening because quite a few members of the audience would be completely lost without it. The action is often good to adequate, he's got the pace mostly right so you can keep track of the action without too much trouble.

As a result the film meanders and tangents a lot, surprisingly it keeps the pace and somehow avoids becoming boring, I didn't have a moment where I became aware the film was dragging and wished it would pick up speed.

One of the better moments for me was to see that the Cave Troll from Lord of the Rings made a full recovery and appeared in BvS. Incidentally BvS breaks LOTR's record for most endings.

Another very noticeable moment was the rather unexpected shout outs to the audience, or rather the critics, with several mentions that the area where they were fighting was unpopulated. On the other hand I found it rather odd that only 18 months after Metropolis was badly damaged there was nary a crane or a building site to behold as far as I could tell.

MoS, I think, suffered from a lack of thinking everything through which made it feel stupid and obtuse. BvS avoids this most of the time, the most obvious stupid movie moment that would never happen in real life is the actual big fight, Supes makes a half-hearted try to explain things and then gave up, but then his quick-tempered, violent nature seems to be one of the traits of this cinematic version of the character. It's apparent with the truckstop, when his mother is threatened or in his big showdown with Batman.

And while it sounds like a I have quite a few points of criticism about the film, it's not much worse than an Age of Ultron, which I also enjoyed. It's far from perfect but I do look forward to see more Batman and Wonder Woman on screen, they deserve it !

I do have one recommendation, please have Jeremy Irons do a commentary track as a slightly inebriated Alfred.

Does Zach do the overcrank-undercrank-overcank punch thing?

Rotwang said:

***Warning, this includes spoilers ***

I have to say I enjoyed BvS a lot more than I thought I would and it's certainly miles ahead of MoS. Mind you it is a ponderous and disjointed film. Affleck puts down the best Batman in ages. He's a comic-book level Batman so things like gravity, momentum and mass are also clearly comic book level (and that's fine by me) It almost reminds me of the limber, athletic Batman of the Neil Adams days. Gadot is Wonderful, she is a little bit too cute to be the stunner WW is supposed to be she does really well with the limited space that is given her. Cavill's Superman is being put forward as a torn and conflicted but he ultimately comes over as a bone-headed hambone rather than spend a little time showing how awesome Superman really is he uses shortcuts and a lot of Alex Ross imagery of Superman shown hovering from a low angle. Lois Lane by contrast is still an empty shell, her awesome investigating skills barely exceed those of a simple Google search, she ends up being the damsel in distress and the love interest with little or no chemistry. And then we have Luthor. At this point I really would like to say that the meme that all bad guys are hyper and uninhibited should be staked through the heard and buried under a thick layer of concrete, it's on the level of a 13-year old playing chaotic evil in D&D. Again we see a lot of shortcuts that are designed to show us he's a wunderkind but in real life people would have serious doubts about his sanity, only because he runs a multi-billion dollar corporation and he is openly eccentric and highly erratic. They seem intent on portraying him as a young cool and hip guy with that nonchalant, non-conformist streak but really it's more of a caricature.

Snyder seems to have fallen in love with highly evocative cinematic imagery it worked to his advantage in 300 and Watchmen because all the hard work had been done for him in the comics, all he had to do was to make it look big and cinematic. In BvS it's a mixed bag, at times it drags down the film and it becomes a bit disorienting as dream and reality, good he remembered to add a shock awakening because quite a few members of the audience would be completely lost without it. The action is often good to adequate, he's got the pace mostly right so you can keep track of the action without too much trouble.

As a result the film meanders and tangents a lot, surprisingly it keeps the pace and somehow avoids becoming boring, I didn't have a moment where I became aware the film was dragging and wished it would pick up speed.

One of the better moments for me was to see that the Cave Troll from Lord of the Rings made a full recovery and appeared in BvS. Incidentally BvS breaks LOTR's record for most endings.

Another very noticeable moment was the rather unexpected shout outs to the audience, or rather the critics, with several mentions that the area where they were fighting was unpopulated. On the other hand I found it rather odd that only 18 months after Metropolis was badly damaged there was nary a crane or a building site to behold as far as I could tell.

MoS, I think, suffered from a lack of thinking everything through which made it feel stupid and obtuse. BvS avoids this most of the time, the most obvious stupid movie moment that would never happen in real life is the actual big fight, Supes makes a half-hearted try and then gave up, but then his quick-tempered, violent nature seems to be one of the traits of this cinematic version of the character. It's apparent with the truckstop, when his mother is threatened or in his big showdown with Batman.

And while it sounds like a I have quite a few points of criticism about the film, it's not much worse than an Age of Ultron, which I also enjoyed. It's far from perfect but I do look forward to see more Batman and Wonder Woman on screen, they deserve it !

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I agree with you in that I enjoyed it. Was it the greatest thing ever.. no. It had pacing issues but it was better than MoS. Truthfully the critic score does not represent the actual movie. There are some genuinely awesome parts of this movie.

"Current tracking suggests a robust opening of at least $120 million-$140 million when the movie launches on about 4,000 screens in the U.S. One media analyst, who asked not to be named, said that given the costs and need to launch a series of future films, “anything under $1 billion in worldwide box office will be a disappointment.”"

Snagged a couple of free passes to see this. Have to admit from what I've read, and yes I enjoy reading spoilers...I highly doubt I would pay to see this film. Well see, I am going with very low expectations.

I feel it's rather telling that in a film titled Batman v Superman it turns out that Wonder Woman was the most enjoyable part.

Jesse's Lex was exactly as bad as I expected, though in a different way. I read a review that nailed part of the issue, he seems to think he's in an Aaron Sorkin film. His scheme was decent in a comic book sort of fashion. It'd have been nice it they'd touched even slightly on how he deduced Clark and Bruce's identities or what his interest in the metahumans was. The latter just stank of trying to fast track the team-up without actually building to it (much like the hall of Spider-villian gadgets in ASM2). The cameos were a waste of time, and having Flash show up in what might have been a dream with his vague wording doesn't help. I'm also uncomfortable with Flash advocating killing someone.

Speaking of which, Snyder has a fundamental misunderstanding of both Superman and Batman. Batman straight up killed people. At least in the Dark Knight trilogy they have the occasional "it's a wonder no one was killed" line to give him a pass on smashing cars with the Tumbler. There's no wiggle room here, people clearly die. Also, he repeatedly used guns. Not against doors or robots, but against humans. Repeatedly.

Then you have Superman, knowing full well that Batman is a vanilla human, throwing him through buildings under the assumption that the armor can save him. Superman wasn't fighting with the intent to kill, but Batman is alive only thanks to comic book physics. They were both fighting to kill, even if Superman wouldn't admit it. But hey, they at least learned their lesson when it came to the big fight. Every five minutes they remind us the area is abandoned so their won't be casualties. Kind of hollow after Batman's killed three dozen people, but it's something.

Did the budget go down for this one, since they set the last hour of fighting at night to mask the dodgy CGI?

I lost count, did Lois have to be rescued three times in this movie? That's a higher number than the last film, right? Full-on damsel mode/love interest with just a tiny bit of doing her job to keep her from being one-dimensional. Martha Kent somehow topped Aunt May as the superfluous surrogate mom, which is impressive. But she had to be in there so Superman and Batman could hug it out over having mothers with the same name.

Speaking of useless parents: of the two options for a dead father to give Clark a pep talk to keep heroing they chose the one who had previously told him repeatedly to hide his powers and let people die? Was Kevin Costner just cheaper?

The whole thing was about a half hour too long, and completely joyless. I somehow enjoyed it both more and less than MoS, which just says how unbelievably uneven I find MoS.

Some good stuff: WW rocked, Batfleck was fine (if you like Frank Miller's take on the character at any rate). WW's theme was the only piece of music that wasn't banal, which makes sense.

Wonder Woman's too far into production to really be impacted by this piece of poo, but hopefully they take a step back and reassess everything else. Get Zack Snyder away from these films, please!

Well... This guy clearly wasn't a fan - nsfw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTKDtoBR-2M

And I kind of agree with some of these plot holes/lingering questions:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/24/10-questions-batman-v-superman-left-me-asking

Im sorry, but Im usually cool with opinions not being wrong etc, but if you like this movie, you hate film. Its probably the worst edited, boring, grim, predictable movie, with the most mishandled characters I have ever seen. Zack Synder obviously hates Superman, and while thinks Batman is cool, doesnt know how to direct him on film. I wouldnt even say it was a Batman movie, it was a ******* Bruce Wayne movie. Everything was so disjointed, Im never going to watch a movie that has that editor in it ever again. Everything that was cool was shown in the trailers. Dont bother with anything else. Alfred was decent, and WW had literally 3 seconds of cool, other than that, dont waste your damn time. If you liked this movie, get a catscan cause your synapses are broken.

DuneMuadDib said:

I feel it's rather telling that in a film titled Batman v Superman it turns out that Wonder Woman was the most enjoyable part.

Jesse's Lex was exactly as bad as I expected, though in a different way. I read a review that nailed part of the issue, he seems to think he's in an Aaron Sorkin film. His scheme was decent in a comic book sort of fashion. It'd have been nice it they'd touched even slightly on how he deduced Clark and Bruce's identities or what his interest in the metahumans was. The latter just stank of trying to fast track the team-up without actually building to it (much like the hall of Spider-villian gadgets in ASM2). The cameos were a waste of time, and having Flash show up in what might have been a dream with his vague wording doesn't help. I'm also uncomfortable with Flash advocating killing someone.

Speaking of which, Snyder has a fundamental misunderstanding of both Superman and Batman. Batman straight up killed people. At least in the Dark Knight trilogy they have the occasional "it's a wonder no one was killed" line to give him a pass on smashing cars with the Tumbler. There's no wiggle room here, people clearly die. Also, he repeatedly used guns. Not against doors or robots, but against humans. Repeatedly.

Then you have Superman, knowing full well that Batman is a vanilla human, throwing him through buildings under the assumption that the armor can save him. Superman wasn't fighting with the intent to kill, but Batman is alive only thanks to comic book physics. They were both fighting to kill, even if Superman wouldn't admit it. But hey, they at least learned their lesson when it came to the big fight. Every five minutes they remind us the area is abandoned so their won't be casualties. Kind of hollow after Batman's killed three dozen people, but it's something.

Did the budget go down for this one, since they set the last hour of fighting at night to mask the dodgy CGI?

I lost count, did Lois have to be rescued three times in this movie? That's a higher number than the last film, right? Full-on damsel mode/love interest with just a tiny bit of doing her job to keep her from being one-dimensional. Martha Kent somehow topped Aunt May as the superfluous surrogate mom, which is impressive. But she had to be in there so Superman and Batman could hug it out over having mothers with the same name.

Speaking of useless parents: of the two options for a dead father to give Clark a pep talk to keep heroing they chose the one who had previously told him repeatedly to hide his powers and let people die? Was Kevin Costner just cheaper?

The whole thing was about a half hour too long, and completely joyless. I somehow enjoyed it both more and less than MoS, which just says how unbelievably uneven I find MoS.

Some good stuff: WW rocked, Batfleck was fine (if you like Frank Miller's take on the character at any rate). WW's theme was the only piece of music that wasn't banal, which makes sense.

Wonder Woman's too far into production to really be impacted by this piece of poo, but hopefully they take a step back and reassess everything else. Get Zack Snyder away from these films, please!

Click to expand...

Damn It, I should have read this first, but yes, mostly all of this. I couldnt agree with all of this, except even after the drive home, Im still pissed off at how awful this movie was.

"oh whats that?! Your moms name is martha too?!?! Ok we can be best friends now!!!"

"Lets see, I dont trust Superman because he leveled a few buildings trying to defend us from some tyrants, so I better lead Doomsday to Gotham off an uninhabited island for....reasons". God this movie is so bad. I want to punch Zack Snyder in the face. I think I hate him more than Michael Bay.

Yeah, you nailed it Dune, ZS just doesnt understand the characters. Superman is supposed to embody hope, and inspiration. Batman doesnt kill people. Snyder took those basic fundamentals of the characters and tossed them out the window. Even making Flash tell Batman to kill Superman?! It baffles me.

I agree with most of what MovieBob had to say in that video.
This movie takes itself too seriously, wants too much to be the epic start of mega DC blockbusterville, and just misses anything about these characters that makes them fun or interesting.
Cavil is a fine actor, and makes a decent Superman. I think Affleck is similarly fine. Neither of these guys are to blame for the steaming pile this movie turned into.
I remember reading the Avengers/JLA crossover from a decade ago, wherein Superman talks about how weird it is that Marvel's earth doesn't seem to be as hopeful or celebrate its heroes in the way that DC's does. There is nothing hopeful or super about this franchise so far, the film makers have no idea what they are doing with these characters, they don't understand the soul of what makes them who they are. It's just wrong all over.

Other then the needed supes " dying" why could he not give the kryptonite spear to WW ? She had been dancing with doomy the whole time and seemingly could have stuck him with out a problem .

Superman really was a jerk in this one. He wants bats to quit because a couple child rape/murder traffickers got a boo boo. WTF ?
I have never been a huge fan anyway as even though he is superduper he always seems to get his ass handed to him usually by a human Who thinks just a bit .

So if bats and supes Mommy's had different names bats would have murdered him ??

It was a good popcorn flick which was what I expected maybe beven better than expected

I love it my Friend ask me what kind if bullet it was Lois had, I told him I did not know looked like a sabot or some kind of super secret movie bullet. I guess.

That was pretty much the answer given lol.

And about that a secret military grade weapon can't penetrate a little book not even halfway ???

Is there anything after the credits?

glunark said:

Is there anything after the credits?

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Nope !

Snikt said:

Damn It, . God this movie is so bad. I want to punch Zack Snyder in the face. I think I hate him more than Michael Bay.
?! It baffles me.

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Dizzam ! Lol

Leaving the theater my friend pointed to the tmnt poster and said something like " I really like how they are treating the turtles at lat good tmnt movies ." I wanted to lay into him like my name was moe and he was larry fine , curly ,curly Joe and shemp rolled into one lol


Seriously it is a very perplexing movie because this movie makes me want to sum it all up with.

GREAT MOVIE, I HATED IT !

because that is just the type of movie it is !

I guess because it has everything it needs to be great but like others stated a fundamental disregard of the characters basic personalities.

annanake said:

GREAT MOVIE, I HATED IT !

because that is just the type of movie it is !

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Based on a lot of the responses it seems like a lot of fans feel the opposite. i.e. "LOUSY MOVIE. I LOVED IT!"

dascoyne said:

Based on a lot of the responses it seems like a lot of fans feel the
opposite. i.e. "LOUSY MOVIE. I LOVED IT!"

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Makes sense
Although i like mine better if you don't know much about DC it is a good movie to Munch popcorn to. But even then it seems it is part of the superman franchise with Batman emerging as a new character . though it seems to assume we know batman it feels the need to revisit the death of his parents to help us understand there friendship over a mothers name? It then shows robins suit with pipe in hand and writing on it with no explanation for the novice viewer . and pops the Flash out of a computer monitor in a completely unexplained time travel event ???
Which convinces Batman to kill superman ?
If you know the characters it ruins the no killing rule way to quick and easy. If you don't know the character then you assume he is off his meds, crazy and hallucinating .

On lex I have never seen a prison where they shave your head going in even if they did.

They wax it too !!!!!

Just too hard to write in him getting hit with some sort of radiation during his experiment or some other reason for going Mr clean other than all prisoners get a free head waxing on arrival .
The pawn stars dude must have done time in metropolis.

I have to say punch for punch Wonder Women is the best fighter in comic movie history just like wolverine is the worst. Lol

If you scored like boxing she landed the most and took basically no hits just like wolverine Who always just gets beat up 3 to 5 times worse than a normal person would survive before he gets one blow in !

If she had a kryptonite blade doomsday would have juyt gotten slaughtered as soon as she showed up . oh yeah he pretty much did lol!

WW also has the same powers as the Highlander she pulled a sword shield and rope completely out of her ass .then replaced them when done .
the more I remember of the move the less sense anything makes !

Wally sent his checks back to bruce Wayne from the beginning with notes about stopping superman ?
Did he know Wayne was bats ???
How ?
If not how did that help anything ????

Then lex knows darksied is coming ????
How ???
Nobody thought Lex leaving the Superman hearing was at all strange ? He had no excuse . he was there and he left right before the bomb went off . superman saw him( along with everyone outside )but could say nothing just like he could not mention lex having his mother kidnapped until he lost to Batman and was going to die ?

That has always been a pet peeve of mine in movies . the drama action what have you depending on a character not just opening there damn mouth up and explaining something .