It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!
It’s a pathetic attempt to recreate Marvel’s success with the Avengers!
DC Comic’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” has been the biggest flop of April. It had high expectations, generating hype from DC fanatics and average movie-goers alike.
From a financial standpoint, the movie has done well, earning $784.3 million as of April 12. From a user standpoint, however, the movie has flopped. It earned a rotten 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 44 percent on Metacritic, despite having a budget of $250 million.
The synopsis is relatively simple. Batman (Ben Affleck) harbors doubts about Superman’s (Henry Cavill) intentions on Earth, and Superman feels similarly about Batman. While the two fight over their differences, a twisted Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenburg) creates a monstrosity from General Zod’s corpse tasked with killing Superman. On paper, the work sounds promising, but on the silver screen it is jagged, monotonous and depressing. The iconic Metropolis and Gotham skylines were filmed in Detroit and Chicago and were a slight reprieve from the failure of the film.
The mood and aura of the movie is melancholy in the first ten minutes, which evolves to wretched about 45 minutes through, and finishes with a disturbed and miserable countenance. The primary storyline is interrupted several times without warning by Batman’s dreams of a future world where humanity is enslaved and the all the land has morphed into a barren desert. Unfortunately, the real-time story wouldn’t have been any better without the dream interruptions. Poorly paced, chock-full of last minute cameos and too many plotlines to handle is too much for any capable director to handle, much less Zack Snyder.
For fans, this movie has been a colossal let-down. For critics, this let-down was not a surprise, coming from Snyder, who directed Man of Steel in a similarly depressing fashion. His style is best compared to “Transformers” director Michael Bay; a sensory overload of explosions, dubstep music and an overall bitter taste in the mouth.
The acting in the movie is not sub-par, just not outstanding. Golden Globe and Academy Award winning actors like Jeremy Irons and Ben Affleck did they best they could, but not even a “Good Will Hunting” performance from Affleck would save this film.
The question is not what made “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” a poor movie (it is obvious), it is how the various film editors and producers that saw the final product did not have any objections to it. All two hours and 33 minutes of it could have been an impressive addition to DC’s own cinematic universe if the plot had been reduced to just Batman and Superman battling over their differing views and ultimately reconciling to set the stage for “The Justice League.” Instead, Easter eggs of Cyborg, the Flash, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman distract viewers from what is actually happening in the movie.
For those still interested in forming their own opinion, the movie is showing at The Grand 18, Carmike Wynnsong, and Carmike 10 in Winston Salem.
