Genre: Action

Director: Zach Snyder

Screenplay:  Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Michael Shannon

Running Length:  152 minutes

Synopsis: Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day saviour, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.

Review:  It was inevitable, after the incredible box office successes of the Marvel Comic Universe, that competing comics giant DC would want a piece of the pie too. And thus the DC Extended Universe was born, with the first salvo fired being Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (shorthanded to BvS for the rest of the review), and a slew of movies announced all the way to 2020. However, based on BvS alone, one wonders if the DCEU is already off on a wrong foot from the get-go. While the film does have its merits and some high points, BvS is also mired with issues, ranging from terrible writing, an overlong (way, WAY overlong) running time, and a complete lack of joy in the proceedings.

Given that the film title states that it’s Batman v Superman, one would not expect that it takes almost 90 minutes for the premise to be setup, and that the setup is such a weak and unconvincing one. The conflict between the two superheroes is just not believable, and even though it presents an interesting angle (essentially, who watches the watchmen, a theme also explored by Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation in 2009), the twists and turns needed to get there just does not work on any level. This is not aided by the lack of anything for the audience to get emotionally invested in – while the film tries to be serious and weighty, there’s very little narrative and backstory for the audience to latch on to, which gives BvS very little dramatic heft. And do not get me started on how the “animosity” is resolved eventually, which is so contrived it truly beggars belief.

While the same self-seriousness worked well in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, it already proved to be a bit of a miss in Man of Steel as it was quite a departure from Superman’s established canon, both in film and in print. This is further exacerbated in BvS – while no one is expecting a comedy, Snyder and his scribes do not seem to understand that being serious doesn’t mean sapping the joy out of a superhero movie, especially one that contains both Superman and Wonder Woman. BvS doubles down on the dourness of Man of Steel, and is indeed one of the most (if not the most) downer of a superhero movie I’ve watched in years.

Despite the initial outcry, Ben Affleck is actually a reasonable replacement for Batman, both in his physicality and in his performance. However, Henry Cavill remains a very wooden Superman, only looking the part when he shows up in the iconic spandex suit and cape. Jesse Eisenberg is terribly miscast, and his supposed psychotic Lex Luthor comes across more like an annoying teenager with a ridiculously long list of nervous tics and twitches. It is truly hard to believe that two intelligent beings like Batman and Superman falling for his rather simplistic schemes of manipulation. The women all fare better, but are all relegated to nothing more than window dressing in the film. Gal Gadot in particular shows great promise as Wonder Woman, and there is hope that her standalone movie next year would fare better than BvS.

Zach Snyder is a director that excels in crafting visuals, and it is not surprising that some portions of BvS are indeed very good looking. However, there is definitely an over-reliance on CG, especially in the (anti)climactic showdown between the heroic trio and Doomsday. Speaking of Doomsday, he is a complete bust as there’s absolutely no background to the villain, existing solely as a prop to advance the plot, and one that looks very unevenly animated, despite what must be a massive CGI budget. Coupled with way too many quick cuts in the last action-packed hour, and a relentlessly booming and overbearing score by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, and it’s just quite an exhausting ordeal of a movie to sit through. BvS functions more like a (very long) teaser trailer to the upcoming DCEU movies, but in their eagerness to launch the franchise, it does seem that Snyder and team have forgotten to make BvS itself a movie that would stand on its own strengths.

Rating: * * (out of four stars)