Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Review Thread

Thomas and Martha Wayne

Jonathan and Martha Kent

Yeah, that's always been their name. You just never thought of it cause... why would you?

Like emo Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3, there's too much hyperbole in people's reaction. The scene is badly executed, but the intent was good. Batman didn't see Superman as human. This moment was a trigger for him to see the truth. Plus, it led to the badass warehouse scene. So I'm fine with the whole Martha thing.

It's too simplistic a reed to hang that whole concept on, particularly given how fierce Batman's hatred was for Superman.

In retrospect, the film should have been more like the Superman animated cross over episode. Circumstances bring Batman and Superman together, they don't really like each other and have some tension, then are forced to work together and gain a mutual respect for each other. Actually, we should have had another Superman film first. Throwing the Superman of Man of Steel into this story so quickly made little sense.

Finally got around to the Extended Cut of the movie.

Chalk this up to another case of the Director's/Original Cut improving upon the theatrical quite a bit. If you're someone who hated the theatrical cut, then I'm not sure this will do much to push you over to the other side, but for those who DID enjoy the theatrical cut, then this is definitely worth checking out. Thirty extra minutes may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but those thirty extra minutes actually go a long way in making the story and character motivations more coherent. I actually have to scratch my head at the editing decisions for the theatrical cut even more now, because whoever was responsible clearly has no sense for proper storytelling. Should Zack Snyder have made a three hour movie to begin with? Probably not, because there was never going to be any way WB would've released that cut in theaters for the masses. HOWEVER, it does deserve to be said that the full version really is quite good.

The extra footage is largely a bunch of small scenes scattered about here and there, but the thing is, those scenes go a long way in helping shape the story and characters, providing relevant material and information needed for the full experience. The theatrical cut felt more like a Batman movie with Superman as a special guest star, but the extended cut feels like the opposite. Because of this, I found this version to ultimately have a more emotional impact, because everything about the movie was allowed to breathe and not feel as rushed and the emphasis was on all the right stuff. This three hour cut flows a hell of a lot better, too, and ironically, it might even feel shorter than the two and a half hour cut. A lot of the core aspects -- such as "Martha!" being the linchpin and the flimsy motivation of the titular fight -- are still here, but now the movie feels much more coherent and engaging. And in my book, it's definitely something to celebrate.

As of now, there's no reason to ever watch the theatrical cut again.

Upgraded from a *** to a ***1/2 for the Extended Cut for me.

If you'd seen the theatrical cut, with its awkward editing and pace and its weird narrative flow, the differences would definitely be noticeable.  I think they might've even re-ordered some scenes in the Extended.  You would've no doubt hated the theatrical even more if you thought this was a slog. 

Remember the old CS!? There were several members who just didn't want to see it made period.

Thinking about this, the only film I might hate more is ROBOCOP 2.

Doomsday SnoBorderZero Wyldstaar PhantomKnight

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition (2016)
Zach Snyder director’s cuts of DCEU movies seem to be a pretty big topic these days so it seemed like it was about time I looked at the last one of those that they “released.” This is also the first time I’ve revisited BvS since it came out in 2016, which I must say is something of a rare privilege: I barely have time to revisit movies I actually like and I very rarely give second chances to movies I didn’t like the first time and boy oh boy did I not like Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I was actually one of the few people who quite liked Man of Steel so this sequel was actually quite the disappointment for me, in fact it was one of the most unpleasant theater-going experiences in recent memories. It was a movie that made truly baffling decisions and just generally felt like an incomplete mess of terrible ideas.

I will say this: the director’s cut is an improvement. It’s not so much that any of the added material is all that novel or important (though the subplot about Superman being framed for the Africa attack does make a bit more sense) so much as the added material just generally gives the movie a bit more room to breathe and feels a little more coherent. If you must watch the movie you should probably watch this version. That having been said, nothing here “saves” the movie and there’s still a lot wrong with it. It makes the fact that Superman was framed slightly more coherent (the villains burned the bodies to make it look like they’d been laser eyed) but there’s still a lot about this plot that doesn’t make sense. Clark Kent is supposed to be a working journalist in this movie but doesn’t seem to have the slightest clue how to work a PR cycle and probably could have cleared up a lot by sitting down with Oprah or something. Beyond that all the old bad ideas are still here: I hate everything about the Mark Zuckerberg-ized Lex Luthor they went with and his evil scheme is stupid, the dream sequence comes out of nowhere, the “Martha” thing is laughable, stopping the movie to introduce the Justice League through videos on a USB stick is shameless, the Senate building explosion feels like an afterthought and doesn’t affect things as much as it should… the list kind of goes on and on. Some of the action scenes are a little better than I remembered (the finale with the troll thing wasn’t as aggregating as I remembered, though that might just be because I was expecting it this time around), though the chase on the docks still sucks.

So, looking back, what happened here? I looked back at my old review and even at the time I suspected there had to be some kind of tinkering in the editing that hurt the movie and the director’s cut would seem to indicate that there’s some truth to that, but I think Snyder probably still bears a lot of the blame for that. The dude knew he needed to deliver a two and a half hour PG-13 movie from the jump and it’s on him if he couldn’t make a movie that would fit into that box, and the theatrical cut most certainly did not. But watching the movie again I think I pinpointed the problem here: Zach Snyder is not well suited to making a Batman movie. A lot of the superman stuff here still basically works, or would work with a couple more re-writes, but Snyder’s take on Batman (outside of the fighting) is terrible. I think Snyder and Superman were a good fit (again, I know I’m in the minority here) because the inherent corniness or that character kind of forced Snyder to lighten up a bit (granted, not as much as many wanted him to) and the two created a good balance, and Snyder’s general maximalism worked well with a character with godlike powers who views the world in rather inhuman ways. But he’s very unsuited for Batman, a character that leads him to indulge in a lot of his worst edgelord tendencies, and the darker cinematography this invites looks noticeably worse than anything in Man of Steel. So yeah, still don’t like this movie, but I will admit that the “Ultimate Edition” makes it merely “bad” rather than “terrible” but on some level I wonder if even that is overly generous.
** out of Five

I mean, he's probably duty bound to do a video essay either as an apology to or as an "I told you so" to the entitled fans.  Might even get him another three hour response video!

No, it's on HBO Max

I proudly own the Ultimate Cut, however, and will be watching for my third time overall very soon in preparation for the Snyder Cut.  Re-watched Man of Steel last weekend, too.