The entire movie feels like there should have been more, so point taken

It's a mess. Basically two films slammed together and then jammed into a blender. There are so many bizarre editing choices here. Lois picks up a handful of dirt at the funeral, so cut to Lex getting his head shaved (I did get a kick out of this film beating X-men to the classic baldy punch). Then cut back to Lois still holding the dirt several minutes later. You have Fisburne's line about Kent clicking his heels together and going to Kansas, so do we cut to Superman in Kansas? Nope, we go to Lois standing in the rain. The whole movie plays out like this, with those exceptionally obtrusive dream sequences being the worst offender.

Affleck feels like the only one of the big three that comes out of this looking well, though his Batman is undermined by being such a fucking maniac (How many people does he kill in this? 20?) and kind of dumb manchild as well. He brands criminals with a symbol that gets them killed in prison. The fuck? Why? Eisenberg's histrionics were as bad as I feared; he is Jim Carrey's Edward Nigma. And I'll echo David's thoughts on Gal Gadot. There's a mountain of material here that could easily be picked apart.

I really don't understand Superman's character here (whose first act in this film, keep in mind, is obliterating a criminal through several walls for pointing a gun to his girlfriend). He fails to communicate to anyone about his motivations until he's essentially on trial. How is it that neither Martha nor Lois can guide him to actually act like a human being?

I'm sure I'll have other thoughts, because there is a mountain of material here that can be ripped apart.

How fast is Superman supposed to be exactly? We see him save the cockpit of an exploding rocket in a very strong visual, but how exactly does he know to be there? Does he chill out around every rocket launch on the very off chance of a catastrophic failure? A similar issue comes up with him saving Lois. We've never given a sense of where he is during his hiatus, but based on that, apparently he's just been chilling in Metropolis the whole time?

Saw it again. Maybe the worst superhero movie I've seen since the boom began with X-MEN in 2000.

Also a few minutes back he didn't save Martha from abduction.

Glad you liked it.

The film worked more on second viewing.

This is absolutely the worst part of the script, bar none. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing when this happened.

Why can't Batman just stop based on the plea that Superman's mother is going to die? The only explanation I can think of is the emphasis on Martha is their justification for showing the Waynes being gunned down for the 10,000th time.

The one person I thought would hate it....didn't.

This can't be Zack Snyder's cut of the film. The editing is borderline incompetent.

First SH movie to get a Razzie?

The Flash dream sequence is particularly dumbfounding. He looks more like a transformer. The only cue that uninitiated audiences get to that actually BEING the Flash is the sparks of lightning that happen when he prevents the robbery in that surveillance footage. Even more bizarre, his warning and the prior dream sequence suggests that, in the wake of Lois's death: Superman goes insane, forms some sort of cult of soldiers, causes a volcanic apocalypse, and... aligns himself with insect men? It's striking visuals but it's absolutely batshit insane.

Fantastic Four won last year......

Now that I've seen the movie, I understand your hesitancy in reviewing it before the dust settles.





Wouldn't that be supershit insane?

Borderline?

Since Clark Kent "died," too, does this mean Superman will just exist as Superman in future installments, without any pretense of a human secret identity? The way, say, Thor is just Thor.

I just can't fathom the way this film is cut. It actively takes scenes that work and arranges them in the most haphazard way possible. If I was conspiracy-minded, I'd be convinced Warner Bros. locked Zack Snyder out of the editing room and then sabotaged him.

It would have been a wise financial decision.

I thought the...interesting editing panned out well a few times. A fine example being when Lex is telling the senator his research "wishlist," and it cuts to him accessing the Kryptonian ship, retrieving Zod's body, etc. I thought turning this series of events into a montage moved everything along crisply.

Sure, but that's the rare sequence where Event A actually cuts to or into Event B. The rest of the film is Event D cutting to Event R and then doubling back to event G and hey what's Event P up to before settling on event E.

More of a pet peeve than anything: I absolutely hated how they felt the need to cut back to the Africa shooting while Lois hears about Lexcorp's involvement. There's no extra information gleamed from this. Why filmmakers feel the need to show much moments that have about an hour ago is beyond me.

I was wondering the same thing because clearly being Clarke takes a toll on Superman but then again just keeping one identity is not that interesting from future movies perspective.

Then again, it is not as if Snyder has shown much (any) interest in playing up the Kent/Superman dichotomy. This franchise's Clark Kent is just Superman with glasses on, particularly in Dawn of Justice where there is minimal time for any Daily Planet action beyond expository requirements.

I loved the way that scene was panned out as well.

Though one question why exactly this senator was agreeing on Lex's over-the-top "wishlist" I know that at the start Sen. says "we can help each other" but since we don't see any situation prior or later to the agreement it just feels like Lex is the only one demanding here.

After three years in which every rumor, announcement, and tease was scrutinized at length by rabid fans and hardened skeptics alike, Batman v. Superman has finally arrived in finished form and can be judged on its own merits. And the final result, regrettably, is even more frustrating than the already divisive Man of Steel. The film's single biggest problem is that it's so eager to put the cart before the horse with regard to getting this shared universe to Justice League that precious little in the story feels well-developed. There's certainly plenty of room to explore the darker Superman psychology that Zack Snyder and crew introduced in the previous film, but we never get much more than quick, petty lip service as to why Superman is either necessary or a menace. Likewise, Batman's story is woefully underdeveloped (did we really need the umpteenth retelling of the origin mythos that everyone in the audience already knows in place of, say, some more explicit development of what makes Bruce Wayne/Batman tick in the present timeline of this universe?), and his motivation for targeting Superman is sketched so thinly that it feels like it's compelled more by the needs of the script than anything developed organically within the film. Unfortunately, the character who acts as the connective tissue between the two - Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor - is a mixed bag. The decision to reframe Luthor as a young billionaire (genius?) is bold, and Eisenberg goes for broke with the scenery-chewing, but his eccentricity makes his dark and twisted villainy in the second half of the film tougher to swallow. As for the titular showdown... it's fine. Snyder's visual style works as well as it has in his past films, and there's something fun about watching these two titans finally duke it out on the big screen, even if it feels hollow from a storytelling standpoint given that it's inevitable that they'll both survive and team up. What sinks the battle isn't a stylistic choice in how it is presented on a visual or aural level, but rather how it comes to an end (REALLY? You hired an Oscar-winning screenwriter, and THAT'S what stops a fight between BATMAN AND SUPERMAN?).

I wanted to like this film. I really, really did. I wanted to put aside my adoration for the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy, and my belief that it couldn't be rebooted effectively so soon after those films proved to be the definitive screen version of the character in so many ways. I wanted to forget that I would love to have a glimpse into the parallel universe where the "new Superman sequel" actually came out in 2009 and was directed by Bryan Singer. I wanted a cast with so much talent to deliver something special. I wanted Zack Snyder to deliver something that succeeded in being as dark and challenging as his underrated (but yes, admittedly very divisive) Watchmen adaptation. I wanted this movie to succeed on such a level that it could reap similar cultural and financial success as the MCU while taking a radically different tonal approach.

Unfortunately, this big bout just doesn't deliver the goods as anticipated.

C

Yep and it would be tough for them to bring him back as Clarke Kent with the funeral and all.