WARNING: Mild spoilers follow, but I won’t give away any major plot points (none that the trailers haven’t already given away that is).
As a kid, one of the earliest memories I have is that of me and my mother plopping in front of the TV 7pm Friday nights to catch Batman: The Animated Series on Studio 23. It was a ritual that deeply burned in my mind a deep admiration for Batman. From Michael Keaton to Val Kilmer, George Clooney to Christian Bale, I matured alongside the character’s portrayals and characterization. Same goes for Superman. When Man of Steel was released in 2013 I vehemently defended it like son does a father. “It doesn’t have to completely follow the comics! Quality of story is not commensurate to source accuracy!” I would scream. Like John Legend, I gave all of me and loved its perfect imperfections.
So why the lengthy intro? Well, this is just to give you a disclaimer that even though I tried and tried and tried to make myself love Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — put aside the bad and embrace more of the good, see the beauty behind the madness — I just can’t. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a disappointment not just as a superhero movie (again, my “fanboy-ism” is not the issue here) but as a blockbuster in terms of scripting, plot structure, characterization, and reliance on CGI.
The film starts strong putting its best foot forward as it showcases the world director Zack Snyder‘s envisioned through the eyes of the caped crusader himself, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). His oh-so-familiar origin is given a smart spin by making it a what I would assume is a recurring fever dream that just shows how deeply damaging that one event was to that little boy who is now past middle age. We get a sense that this is a Batman who is much more damaged than we thought — haunted by hallucinations and forever disturbed. Emotions grow even higher as we are taken back to Man of Steel’s “Battle of Metropolis” now seen through the eyes of Bruce. The previously-seen catastrophe is made more human as we are fed the names and faces that fell part of the collateral damage. This is the emotional fallout that makes us empathize, pulls us in, lets us feel the gravity of the story that’s about to unfold…that’s if things didn’t completely and utterly go down a ravine after this point (yes, the amount of story depth the movie has could be boxed in its first 30-40 minutes).
Like a juggler on a unicycle being thrown additional Superman, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Wonder Woman shaped balls, the story’s balance starts to fumble as more players and subplots enter the mix. Think of it this way: if a whole Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire season was forced to compress its numerous hanging subplots in the first two-thirds of a 2 hour and 30 run time, things would be pretty messy. This is a big mistake that BvS commits. It tries to create plot complexity by adding individual characters arcs that are meant to converge later on in the movie. Sadly though, this convergence doesn’t feel earned by the time it happens. The pacing becomes so hodge podge, so jagged, as the film tries to showcase each arc that when the director tries to feed us this forced synergy of subplots the audience could barely care and not be immersed enough in the film’s convoluted story. It is a mess that not even the spectacle of the movie’s action and slugfests can fix. These sequences become merely eye candy devoid of emotional weight and drama.
Characterization is also another pitfall Batman v Superman couldn’t climb its way out of. The main conflict between these two gods, Batman and Superman, should be philosophical and heavy yet here it feels reduced to a surface-level, too easy to fix (and, not surprisingly, they do so at a pace that kids in a playground would be proud of), that I can’t help wonder why these geniuses — as they are put up to be — don’t know any better. Their fight is not that of a long-brewing war of ideologies but that of a schoolyard pissing match brought on by manipulated tempers and emotions. The cringe-inducing feeling that these characters should be smarter than this hovers all throughout the film.
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Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is genuinely the only saving grace that crops up towards the latter parts of the film. She is charismatic and mysterious, strong but carrying an air of enigma that draws you in making you want to know more about her. But even with an intense score by Junkie XL to herald her arrival, things are just too late to salvage the film. By the time the completed DC trinity commence their final battle, things have devolved into a shaky cam CGI shower comparable to mediocre video game cutscenes. I admit, there was kind of some potential towards the end but as they say, it was simply an attempt at arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.
In the end, no matter the hype, no matter how many Justice League easter eggs and hero cameos were shoehorned into the movie, there isn’t enough that could be done to fix a film whose problems lie in its foundation — plot and characterization. Yes, you can watch the film for visual spectacle but it is just that…fireworks, dazzlers that fleet after a few seconds. As the armors clash and eye lasers spark about, the winner of the fray becomes inconsequential, it is the loser that we must pay attention to…and that is no other than us the audience.
PS: But then again, this battle may be lost but the war is just beginning. Here’s hoping for a better Justice League Part One next year.
