Movie Review – Batman vs. Superman

[Spoilers are limited to things seen in the movie trailer]

I have to say, Batman vs. Superman didn’t wow me. That’s not completely true. Parts of it wowed me, but not many. Most of the movie tried to crank up the tension, which got a little tedious at times, and the payoff wasn’t always worth the buildup.

What I liked best

It was pretty awesome when they finally got around to introducing Wonder Woman. I could hear the giddiness of the people in the theater. I think we’ve all been waiting to see Wonder Woman on the big screen now for, lets see, FOREVER!

The fight scene she was involved in was okay. I thought that the biggest problem was that it was filmed at night, so it was hard to see details. Also the scale made it difficult. Doomsday is huge, and dwarfs the three that are fighting him. In many shots it was almost hard to even make out Wonder Woman chopping away at him with her sword. They had some closeup scenes, but I think they needed more.

The fight between Batman and Superman was good, but not great. I think the choreography of the movements, especially Batman’s, was too laborious. However, the way the fight actually went, the back and forth between them was decent.

Grade: C+

[Major Batman vs. Superman spoilers below. Don’t read until after you’ve seen the movie.]

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I found Batman’s dream sequences to be quite annoying. They started right at the beginning of the movie with the young Bruce Wayne levitating out of the cave, seemingly flying with the bats. Then Bruce Wayne awakens in the present day. I don’t think the dream sequences would have been so annoying if we had known from the start that’s what was happening. There were entire action scenes that never happened.

And it wasn’t just Batman. Superman had his “father vision” in the arctic. What was that all about? Was that his father’s spirit? Was it all Superman’s imagination? They can’t just stick things like that in there without some basic explanation. We got to see Jor-El in the first two Superman movies and they had a decent explanation for what was going on. This time they just plopped Jonathan Kent into the story and said, “Don’t ask how.”

I have to say, Superman is my least favorite superhero. He’s just too powerful. To me the most important characteristic of a superhero isn’t their powers–it’s their weaknesses. And Superman’s only weakness is kryptonite — which okay, at least there’s something — but that’s hard to keep playing up. I’m bored with every Superman fight because he’s indestructible. He was right on top of a nuclear bomb explosion and didn’t get much more than a sunburn. Come on, at least show him with his hair messed up.

And that brings us to the movies end. Yes, it was cool that Superman sacrificed himself to destroy Doomsday. But then they drag us through all these funeral scenes that take up about eight minutes, and end with the hint: wait a second, maybe he’s not dead. Oh really. That’s a shocker. Of course he comes back. He’s Superman. You can’t have a Justice League without him. So it isn’t, “if he comes back,” it’s, “how he comes back.”

My hope is that Superman won’t be in the next DC movie. Let Wonder Woman and Batman assemble the Justice League themselves and have a decent fight against a decent foe. Then bring Superman back for the following movie, or never. I’d be good with that as well.

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