ViewGuide

Created Apr 09, 2016 12:09PM PST • Edited Dec 17, 2017 01:01AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is as heavy as its pretentious title suggests, with nary a great performance to elevate it. Yet this DC Comics blockbuster ably fulfills its duty of teasing nine sequels.

   It opens with a replay of Batman’s boyhood origin, Superman’s having been told by DC & Zack Snyder in the superior Man of Steel. Oriented half now, half in the ’40s, BvS presents an odd juxtaposition of iPads amid old-fashioned artifacts like newspapers and a candlepower beacon piercing the clouds: the Bat Signal.

   Somber in the extreme, BvS includes only a single note of levity, Martha Kent’s quip “I figured. The cape.”

   Nor does it have a happy ending, or a post-credit scene. Pity then that much of my theater waited out the interminable credits. That long list begs the question, how big a crew does $250 million buy? Thousands.

   Dawn of Justice does have great scenes and great intentions, even as it falls well short of greatness itself.

   See it grimly. See it if Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or any other DC superhero matters to you.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Ben Affleck

   Affleck has the best chin of all the Batmen before. Sadly, the Batman voice is as ridiculous as ever, which isn’t Big Ben’s fault. All modern Batmen have been so beset, Christian Bale most of all, one of the few flaws of The Dark Knight. Pity then that poor Ben has been afflicted with early-onset Birdman disease.

   Gal Gadot

   Gadot plays Diana Prince / Wonder Woman, a 5,000-year-old Amazonian princess and daughter of Zeus. Good to have an Israeli Wonder Woman allied with Superman, an id projection of an American Jew. Wonder Woman gets her own movie next year.

   Henry Cavill

   Cavill delivers a less impressive performance than he did in Man of Steel as Kal-El / Clark Kent / Superman. Of course, that was a much better movie, so it’s probably not his fault.

   Amy Adams

   Adams also impresses less as Lois Lane than in Man of Steel. As with Cavill, it’s probably not her fault.

   Jesse Eisenberg

   Eisenberg gets to be Lex Luthor, playing him as twitchy and addled. While he’s not that impressive in this movie, he’s promising for the sequel, in no small part because he will have a chrome-dome.

   Others

   • Diane Lane is affecting as Martha Kent, Clark’s adoptive mother. Same with Kevin Costner as the now-deceased Jonathan Kent.
   • Laurence Fishburne makes an appropriately gruff Perry White, though he suffers from the same downgrading as the rest of the Superman contingent vis-a-vis how they performed in Man of Steel.
   • Jeremy Irons is terrific as Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler and trusted confidant. Of course he is.
   • Holly Hunter lacks gravitas as a US Senator.
   • Tao Okamoto is dangerously sexy as Lex Luthor’s assistant.
   • Michael Shannon seems to appear as the dead General Zod. The effect was created using the physique of a fitness model and a head-shot of Shannon.
   • U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy cameos as a blowhard Senator. Now there’s a stretch.
   • Cameos: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Soledad O’Brien, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace & Charlie Rose

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    The whole Batman vs Superman thing is a DC Comics trick from back in the day: up the ante to sell lots of comic books. It was cheesy then and is so now, even if it’s dressed up with serious political issues.

    The film does include several great scenes, such as the one where Superman returns a rescued child to his parents during a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico.

    In the end, this über-origin story tees up nine sequels, per Batman v Superman Clobbers Box Office. Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman will be the first up.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Zack Snyder did a great job with an unwieldy story. Coming on top of the much superior Man of Steel, I’m looking forward to his Justice League movies in the next couple of years.

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    The 100 stuntmen and women pale in comparison to the super long list of FX and digital artists in the credits.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.5

    Batman remains what he’s always been, the most ridiculous superhero. He’s human inside the bat suit, after all. Iron Man is fully encased. This matters from a reality-distortion POV. Batman … never chips a tooth.

    This is a problem when Batman fights truly supernatural beings, which he rarely does in his own movies.

    Finally, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice purports to wrestle with serious political issues regarding how society fights evil. When is unilateral action acceptable? Whose fault is collateral damage? It does this ham-handedly, even for a comic book movie.

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 3.5

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0