Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) | Film Review

Huh.

Okay.

To be honest, I’m a little flummoxed. Normally when I review a film I follow a general outline. I’ll start off with some philosophical waxing, segue into the story, talk about how the actors did, dip into production quality, and then end with a final thought and a score. But this… No, I don’t think I can do that with this one. This review requires a different approach.

We live in a Geek Golden Age. This isn’t the sort of world I grew up in, where I had to hide my nerdiness. No, today the secret loves of my youth are now on full display across theater screens the world over. The comic book I would have hidden in magazines and textbooks are carried openly as badges of honor, writ large in film and television, inspiring every lover of things up in the sky and from galaxies far, far away. What a great time to be alive.

Still, things weren’t all bad in decades past. Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner made us all believe a man could fly, and Keaton and Burton did the same for the Caped Crusader. Frankly, when it came to comic books on the silver screen, DC was the only game in town. Marvel attempted to make their cinematic mark with characters such as The Punisher and Hulk, but they never came close to matching DC. Then came Bryan Singer and The X-Men (you could argue Blade was first to really hit, but for the purposes of this review I’m sticking with traditional superheroes). After that, Marvel hit the afterburners and hasn’t looked back since.

Marvel’s success is both a good thing and a bad. On the good side, it raised the quality of comic book movies to unprecedented heights. Acting, directing, writing, special effects, Marvel did just about everything right. And with the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that quality bar has only risen. It’s an impressive feat, and one to be cheered. On the bad side, however, because of Marvel’s dominance, audiences have become used to these films looking and feeling a particular way. Sure, each film has its own tone, but at the base level there is a cinematic continuity that ripples through all of Marvel’s movies. And that’s necessary, because they maintain the feeling of a singular universe. But, if it’s necessary, you ask, then how is it bad?

People on the average don’t like change or things that are different. At best it’s tolerated, at worst it’s hated, and rarely it’s embraced. What DC is doing with their shared cinematic universe is very different from what Marvel is doing. But, since Marvel has been in charge of how superheroes are seen on screen for the better part of a decade, they’ve set the tone that everyone else has to comply with or risk the potential troubles that come with differentiation. DC decided to go the route of creating their own style and tone. Mileage differs on how people have reacted to that.

I love what DC has done with their films. I’m glad they struck out on their own path. Copying what Marvel did would have been easy, but DC isn’t telling the same sort of stories, so that would have been pointless. As I see it, DC has foregone the idea of creating heroes that fit our world, and instead have created a world in which larger ideas can be explored. They want to talk about Gods, both in a literal and figurative sense, and the people caught between them. DC’s movies strive for an operatic feel, a larger than life canvas where beings of immense strength and intellect engage in battles of Good and Evil. This is the stuff of mythology, of ancient powers awakening.

To help this make more sense, let me go ahead and focus on the movie at hand, BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. First let us look at Batman, a character we’ve seen imagined and embodied many times over the decades. Batman has no super powers. He can’t fly, he can’t bend steel with his bare hands, and he can’t shoot beams of energy from his eyes. What he does have, however, is a brilliant mind and millions of dollars, all of which he brings to bear on the criminals of Gotham City. His entire adult life has been spent fighting crime, year after year of punishing war. And what has it gotten him? Gotham’s no closer to being crime free than it was when his parents Martha and Thomas Wayne were gunned down before his adolescent eyes. And you can see every ounce of that pain and weariness in his eyes. Every grimace, every line on his face, evidence of a life spent pushing a bolder up a mountain over and over again. He’s seen terrible things, fought in the muck with villainy of the worst kind, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t. He knows only one way to live, and that’s protecting humanity at the expense of his own.

So how else was Batman supposed to react at the appearance of Superman and the devastation that accompanied his arrival on the global stage? He didn’t see a hero. He saw a potential threat so terrible that he had to find a way to kill Superman before the last son of Krypton could kill all of us. Is that shortsighted? Perhaps, but there’s an old expression I like that goes, ‘To a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. Batman is a hammer. He’s a blunt instrument with a singular focus. And Superman is just another nail he has to pound. A powerful nail, to be sure, probably the most powerful Batman’s ever faced, but a nail nonetheless. And so Batman takes the fight to Superman. It was inevitable, really.

Then we have Superman, a God in all but the metaphysical sense of the word. He was raised on Earth by humans, but he isn’t from here, nor is he human. He tried to fit in, but when you are a stranger in a strange land, it only makes sense that he would inevitably try to find a way to the home of his birth. Through that journey he became Superman, and in the eighteen months since then he worked tirelessly to be the hero he felt the world needed him to be, the hero the woman he loves knows he can be. But being so new to the superhero trade, he’s made mistakes, sometimes unintentionally creating more problems than he solved. When people say that Superman is boring because he can do anything, I always point out that no, he can’t do anything. That’s the point of his character. For all his power and strength, he’s still just one man. His powers are Godlike, but he isn’t all seeing, all knowing, able to be everywhere at once. And his heart is his most dangerous weakness, his love of the people closest to him, because while his skin is bulletproof, theirs isn’t. And when a man is faced with the possible death of someone he cares deeply about he is at his most vulnerable. He can run from Kryptonite, but he can’t run from fear. In that respect he is just as human as the rest of us.

And now we come to Wonder Woman, a literal Goddess. As the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, she is an ageless, powerful warrior. She fought for centuries to bring peace to humanity, but even Gods can become disillusioned, and after fighting for so long Wonder Woman, also known as Princess Diana, withdrew from the world and ended her fight. But, with the arrival of Superman and the reveal of Lex Luthor’s twisted plan, she understood her time of withdrawal was over. The world needed her again.

They say a hero is only as great as their villain. Well, in Lex Luthor you have a villain like no other. For all his brilliance and wealth, he has no soul, and to fill that void he strives to bring pain and chaos to the world. In Superman he sees someone who is everything he isn’t – brave, heroic, selfless, powerful. And like all men of evil intent, he finds purpose in bringing down what he considers false idols. In their ruination he sees his reason for being. And oh what evils he unleashes. Never have we seen a Lex Luthor like this on the big screen.

And thus we have our players, heroes on one side, villains on the other, some blurring the lines. This is heady stuff, folks. This is Joseph Cambell level storytelling, pitting man against God, daring heroes to reach for the Heavens. These are the kinds of stories we used to tell around campfires when we saw the lightning flash but didn’t know where it came from, saw the earth twist and quake without understanding how such things could happen. These are the stories I yearn for.

Now, as I wind this overly long review down, I’ll try to return you to a bit of normality and speak quickly about the people who brought these characters to life. Henry Cavill is every inch the Superman. It’s in the way he bears himself, the way his chin is always lifted and his eyes steady. When bad things go down and the rage comes, he’s also terrifying, and I love it. Ben Affleck deserves to have his butt kissed by every internet troll who said casting him was a terrible choice. His Batman is the best I’ve ever seen, and Affleck seethes with a fury you can feel. Damn. And Gal Gadot is great as Wonder Woman. She gets much more screen time than I would have guessed, but all of it is needed, and it works. Watching her BE Wonder Woman made me grin from ear to ear. Lastly, Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor was a true treat. After years spent watching Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey play him, I wasn’t prepared for the evil that his Luthor displays. It’s palpable. He occasionally strays into camp, but it’s not often enough to ruin the overall performance. He’s crazy, he knows it, and he uses it. Wonderful.

To Zack Snyder I owe a special debt of gratitude. Zack, you have been fed a lot of crap over the years because your style isn’t as widely loved as someone like Nolan, but you never seemed to let it get to you, and BATMAN V SUPERMAN is a testament to your vision as a director. There are moments and frames of this movie that I wish I could frame and hang on my wall. You never lost sight of the epic nature of the story you were telling, weren’t satisfied to make just another action film. You imbued these characters with a nobility that radiates from the screen, and the scope… I don’t even know how to express it, so I’ll just say thank you, Mr. Snyder. Once again you’ve lifted comic books into the realm of true art. Well done.

Oh, and a quick shout-out to Hans Zimmer. Once again, the music has been knocked out of the park. Many themes and elements from his MAN OF STEEL score are here again, but now it’s mixed with new pieces that broaden the sonic palette to carry all our heroes through their battles. I’ve been listening to the score for BATMAN V SUPERMAN while writing this, and I couldn’t have asked for better.

With that I’m going to close this review. I’m sure I’ll be called a fanboy and my review will be summarily dismissed by some, but they aren’t who I’m writing this for. I want this review to go out to the people who feel as I do, who appreciate operatic storytelling and larger than life motifs. If that applies to you, then get yourself into a theater at once and drink this movie in. You will be oh so glad you did. I know I plan on going back soon to relive the power and the wonder that is BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE.

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice releases to theaters nationwide on March 24, 2016
Starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Irons
Written by Chris Terri and David S. Goyer
Directed by Zack Snyder