A few months prior to this day, if anyone had asked me what the worst superhero movie (and honestly, maybe worst action film) could possibly be, I would have said without hesitation that fabled classic of doom, Batman and Robin. George Clooney, bat nipples, Mr. Freeze, it's just a stupendous disaster.
Well friends, Batman and Robin has been usurped, by none other than...Batman himself.
Yep, Batman Vs. Superman is unequivocally the worst thing I have had the misfortune to put myself through.
I've seen a lot of things in my life. Terrible non-equity tour of Beauty and the Beast, misguided teenage girls squeaking out Defying Gravity on youtube, church solo messups, but none of them can compare to the disaster that unfolds in Dawn of Justice.
I don't even know where the begin. So here's a non linear bullet list (like the bullet I wanted to put through that batmobile)
-There's a whole ten minute scene dedicated to how Kryptonite works. Because clearly, as American citizens, none of us know how this extremely obscure. hardly ever discussed, and definitely not iconic substance affects Superman.
-Hackneyed religious imagery is everywhere. I'm usually the first person to jump on board the symbolism train, but in this instance, it just ain't that deep fam.
-Apparently for anything Lois Lane says to be interesting, she must be naked in a bathtub and she must have sex with Clark directly after. I'm not even kidding, that may be the worst scene in this steaming pile of a film.
-I desperately wanted to usher away the talent of Julianne Moore, Jeremy Irons, and Laurence Fishburne to something more fun at the very least. Thankless roles in an already thankless movie. I spent pretty much every Daily Planet scene hoping that dear old Perry would just deck Clark already. (I would have paid so much money to see Perry actually just rip everybody in this movie a new one. Seriously, so entertaining).
-Not even a twitchy Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor could give this thing any leverage. He's clearly having a lot of fun and could possibly have given us a really interesting interpretation of the character if the writing for this movie could have been any fraction of an inch better.
-In a way, the same goes for the much contested merits of Ben Affleck's Batman. If the writing had been any better, he would have been awesome. But instead, he has to suffer through this scene.
Batman: Do you bleed?
Superman: *flies away*
Batman, grumbling: You will.
That dialog got approved by not just one, not just two, but SEVERAL PEOPLE.
-Like most superhero movies, I was expecting the obligatory forty five minute battle that will inevitably clog up the ending of the movie. This one is like.... an hour and a half of this movie's already ridiculous TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF SUFFERING.
(I'm really sorry for all the caps, I'll get to that).
-We have to watch Thomas and Martha Wayne die on film for the.....millionth time. New actor and everything. Aaaaagain.
-I was vastly more interested in our side characters. Ezra Miller's Flash, Gal Godot's Wonder Woman (believe it or not, thus far she is def passing my audition), Jason Momoa's Aquaman, etc. all are literally ten thousand times more interesting than the angst of Batman and Superman. Everytime they'd pop up for a few seconds of cameo, I would spend the next unnecessary ten minutes of the movie thinking about what their solo movies are going to be like. For real.
-On that note, if Wonder Woman had gotten to the scene sooner, I can guarantee you this movie would be and hour and a half shorter.
-The plot is nonsensical. Superman goes on trial, Batman is grumpy, everyone is living in the most post 9/11 nightmare ever set to film. For some reason, the Daily Planet is still a newspaper. For even more unknown reasons, there's a monument to Superman made literally for just everyone to graffiti with xenophobic slurs. Darksied???? Lex Luther's now somewhat of a hacktivist. He sneaks into that weird Kryptonian mancave thing and does stuff. Lois, while not a shining example of a woman with agency anyway, is literally a blowup doll in this movie (again, how can you waste the prodigious talents of the amazing Amy Adams?), everything has to be framed within the context a religious Renaissance painting, literally nothing happens until the overlong bloated battle, and not even the best efforts of many can make up for that.
And here's the biggest issue of all: How do you mess up this badly?
This should have been the easiest win of all time. How hard is it to deliver a satisfying match up of Batman and Superman?
Apparently, the hardest thing in the world.
I mean, the merits of those two names alone should promise great things.
But nope. Zack Snyder chose to take on the universe instead of just the beginning of JLA. Religion, post 9/11 American culture and paranoia, big business, scary science, news corporations, the idolization of those in the public eye, etc. Except he doesn't deliver on any of those concepts either, so what we're left with makes no sense.
Seriously not worth your time, even if you love superheroes. Because if you love superheroes, chances are you love a good story, heroic people of both the super and non varieties, doing things big and small to make the world a better place, satisfying action sequences, a dastardly villain, maybe a little romance, some good jokes, and a bit of hope for when you come out of the theater and go back to work or school the next day.
Batman v. Superman has none of that.
-Randi
