Continuing on the DC comic-book franchising is Snyder’s follow-up to Man of Steel. This mammoth blockbuster sees the two most famous DC characters come head-to-head in a cataclysmically-scaled battle that, while overstaying its welcome at the 150-minute mark, proves to be a great source of popcorn entertainment, if nothing else.
Batman vs Superman has its flaws. It’s overlong, overstuffed with character and design and tainted with an overly serious sentiment that begs for a lightening in the tone. But Marvel Universe this is not, there are no cocksure characters who combat with the witticisms at their disposal. These characters are fractured, tormented and orphaned. Snyder’s earlier film, Watchmen, shared a similar breadth of characters – however, Batman vs Superman doesn’t share the same overarching morality. Instead, we get teases at a world torn apart by the events of Man of Steel.
But where the film opens a dialogue to discuss the violent destruction of a city in its previous entry, it also contradicts itself by committing a similar atrocity in Batman vs Superman. Levelling cities seems to be a recurrent motif in these films, and here especially it is at its most confusing and lazy – constant barrages of explosions in lieu of originality ends up being this film’s epitaph.
The character’s work around each other, most interestingly in the case of Bruce Wayne. Gone is the solemn Nolan-incarnate, who seemed to want to hang up his cowl – and instead we have Snyder’s interpretation of the vigilante. Accepting of his purpose and of the nihilistic world around him, Affleck is always fun to watch and helps to alleviate the muddled and convoluted narrative. The true villain of the piece can be argued, and it’s this lack of direction that makes the film drag, despite the efforts put into the visceral action sequences that are interspersed between vaguely moral confrontations.
If you pick at the plot, you’ll find a lot of holes. Lex Luthor’s motivation or standing is never stated – as far as I was aware – and had he been instilled with a similar chaotic sensibility as The Joker in The Dark Knight, perhaps this would have fared better. Jesse Eisenberg plays it brilliantly, but underneath the eccentricity is a seemingly hollow vision of a mad genius. Wonder Woman suffers a similar fate, her presence not completely developed or confident – and because of this, Batman vs Superman commits a similar mistake as Marvel’s Spider-Man 3. Too many characters, too little focus.
Batman vs Superman offers a big-scale, explosion-riddled form of escapist cinema, if nothing else. The most intriguing aspect of the film seems to be the commentary on superhero culpability – a similar battle that’s currently playing out in the Marvel universe. However, this disingenuous sentiment is undermined by its own thirst for low-brow destruction in the final act. All of the key DC characters are here, but for now it seems as though they are still playing catch-up.
2/5
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