BATMAN
V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
PG-13,
Zack Snyder
2h
33m, feels like: 2h 33m
Batman v.
Superman: Dawn of Justice is
better than The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
and both Thor movies.
BvS:DoJ is no
Chronicle, but it also
wasn't Ang Lee's Hulk.
It's better than the second half of Hancock. It's not X-Men 3 bad, but it is X-Men: First Class bad. It's very much a loud, stupid, pious
sequel to Man of Steel.
It's not tone-deaf, but it does ring hollow.
It's
the sequel to Man of Steel
and for calculated business reasons, it's also a Batman Origin Story.
But this movie isn't just two movies; it's three. This is the
introduction of Wonder Woman, one
of Detective Comics' tentpole action figures,
to Batman and Superman and
Audience. The movie shoehorns
in sequences of people staring at computer screens, watching YouTube
poop of other Meta-Humans in order to set up the
eventual Justice League film.
As
a sequel to Man of Steel,
it calcifies
the problems of the original film (Kevin Costner's
clunky sacrifice, Superman's
destruction of Metropolis in a fistfight) into resonant
imagery. In
one of the film's several opening sequences, we see the end of Man
of Steel from the point of view
of a horrified Bruce Wayne on the ground, watching aliens pummel each
other through skyscrapers with the reckless disregard for human life
the first film was scolded for. This is definitely a reaction to the
reaction. This is marketing spin, but it works. It takes all that
9/11-Sploitation and drops Batman in it, but it humanizes Batman and
demonizes Superman effectively.
Batman
will spend much of BvS watching
and observing from the sidelines as Gods and Monsters duke it out.
This version of Batman is like the two timelines of Burton and Nolan
Batmen became one and got old. Within the movie's frenzied and
cluttered narrative, Batman is given reign to show up in all kinda
crazy outfits, from the Frank Miller Batman, to Armored Batman, to
Desert-Mercenary Batman, but
thankfully not Scary Batman from Batman Begins.
The film manages to make Batman's pedestrian origin story ethereal by
having the bats that scare Bruce when he falls into that abandoned
mineshaft (again, like in Batman Forever)
lift him out of it in a bat-tornado. As a Batman Origin Story, it
doesn't satisfy wholly. It's like Cliff Notes Batman. It's like hey,
you know who Batman is, let's not kid ourselves. Batman's arc is the
crux of the movie, yet as in those big-time monster fights, Batman
mostly sticks
to the sidelines, reacting.
When
Superman reaches his Summit of Solitude in DoJ,
Superman doesn't see Jor-El
florping ding-dongs on Krypton, he sees his human father throwing
rocks into a pile-- a graphic match of the pile of skulls Superman
emerged from in the first film. Superman's subconsciousness is
telling him he is home, despite the world telling him he is a
criminal and an illegal alien. In a montage that reminds us why we are supposed to like him, we get Mexi-Sploitation and
Katrina-Sploitation to reinforce that Superman is in fact, a good
guy. The Zack Snyder Superman
struggles with his father's dream of himself because Superman equals
Jesus Christ in these movies. It's a turn for The Jewish Superhero to
turn Catholic, but it works because everyone pretends America Herself
invented Superman out of her womb, not two Jewish writers in the
1930's.
Bartman v.
Ubermenche: Department of Jordache is
like that, a bastardization of a clone of an image caught in the
wrong light. But I thought it
was fun to see Batman and
Superman fight, then people
talk about how Batman is right or Superman is cool.
It gave me that “I'm a Kid
Again” feeling people attribute to Pacific Rim,
a film I hold in disdain. You'll
see parts of it on TBS in three years and be like, oh, this is okay.
