MARCH 25, 2016
The only reason that this film exists is to answer the existential schoolyard question of “Who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman?” Yes, you’ll find out, but is it worth 3 hours of your time?
The film, officially titled “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (And what’s with the “v” anyway? Would “vs.” be so hard?) is the behemoth in this spring’s movie season, and a clumsier behemoth would be very difficult to find.
It’s officially a follow-up to director Zack Snyder’s 2013’s Superman saga “Man of Steel,” which I considered the worst major-release film of that year, and Snyder returns once again to take the worst parts of that film and expand on them even further.
When the film was announced several years ago and Ben Affleck was cast as Batman, the howls from the DC comic fan base were deafening in the film world. Turns out, Affleck is one of the least bad parts of “BvS,” since there’s lots of blame to go around across the board.
After the credit sequence kills off Bruce Wayne’s parents in flashback yet one more time, the film picks up where “Man of Steel” left off with the battle of Metropolis, seen now from Bruce Wayne’s point of view as he witnesses the high-rise building where his friends and employees work about to collapse. This could have been very simply done, but Snyder is determined to make this analogous to the World Trade Center on 9/11 — there’s the scene of the doomed employees praying, followed by the building imploding just the way one remembers on 9/11 and finally Wayne emerges through the smoky streets as the first-responders did on that day. Snyder probably thought this would make his film somehow more important, but it just makes it tasteless and pretentious.
So the contemporary references plod on throughout “BvS.” Superman (Henry Cavill, as charisma-free as ever) saves Lois Lane (Amy Adams) from an African massacre, but somehow he is blamed for the deaths that occurred and is called up before a congressional hearing. Benghazi, anyone? And of course, Superman, who is becoming increasingly unpopular among the American people, is smeared as an “alien.” The Fox News talking points are all over the place, but they’re drained of any meaning or significance whatsoever.
Snyder has always had a heavy hand in his epics such as “300” and “Watchmen,” relying on overly obvious imagery and heavenly choirs, as if his masterworks are something to be watched with awe. Snyder has posited in “Man of Steel” that Superman is some kind of Christ figure, and sure enough there’s a parade of crosses throughout this picture as well.
At about the 40-minute mark, Snyder finally gets around to start telling his story. Evil industrialist Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, in full giggly psychopath mode) sees Superman as a threat to his power so he decides to round up some kryptonite to help drain Superman of his power. Wanting to keep his hands clean, however, Lex stokes up the resentment that Batman (aka Bruce Wayne) has for Superman so that the bat can do the dirty work. Wayne blames Superman for starting the destructive Metropolis battle that killed his colleagues, while Superman sees the tactics of Batman, who burns a Batman brand onto the bodies of captured evildoers, as those of a dangerous vigilante. The stage is set for the main event.
The main event takes up the film’s final hour, as one CGI figure after another smash each other into walls and columns with nary a human emotion in sight. Then a mucus-like monster shows up. And Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) stops by, too. It’s endless.
Affleck plays the Caped Crusader in the same brooding mode as Christian Bale in the Christopher Nolan Batman movies (Nolan, not surprisingly, has a producing credit here). His Bruce Wayne is fine, though as Batman, he speaks in a kind of mumbling Autotune that makes him incomprehensible at times. Cavill, though very pretty, is still a blank page — you can never for a moment believe that his Clark Kent is a successful reporter. Eisenberg is full-on Honeybaked ham in his performance, though his over-the-top energy is at times welcome to help lighten the often soporific mood.
Luckily, the supporting cast is solid. Lawrence Fishburne makes for an appropriately grumpy editor Perry White, Jeremy Irons offers an effectively cynical take on Alfred the butler, and Holly Hunter is spot-on as a Southern Senator determined to take down Superman. Though she is asked to do some ridiculous things, Adams makes Lois an extremely believable reporter, and Diane Lane as Clark’s earth mother Martha is given the otherwise humorless film’s only laugh line, and she nails it like a pro.
The screenplay is by David S. Goyer, who wrote most of the recent “Batman” films and Chris Terrio (who won an Oscar for his deft script for “Argo”). There’s no deftness in this script, as the story structure is haywire here, jumping from scene to scene without any one of them having a point, thus stopping the narrative flow of the story in its tracks.
I have no doubt that cinemas will be packed with fanboys this weekend to catch this, but if my screening crowd last night was any indication, after 2 hours and 32 minutes, they’ll be leaving the movie theater with some pretty long faces.
GRADE: D
