The Dark Knight and the Man of Steel battle in what should've been one of the most exhilarating superhero mash-ups ever on screen. Instead, it's a movie directed by Zack Snyder.
Bringing his usual dour, overbearing seriousness to the subject matter, Snyder manages to completely suffocate any inkling of interesting questions "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" raises about the responsibilities of power.
The film opens with Bruce Wayne's (Ben Affleck) origin story. The one we've all seen a thousand times. His parents are murdered, he falls down a well, bats, etc.
Then it jumps ahead about 25-30 years to the events of Synder's previous superhero effort "Man of Steel." Superman (Henry Cavill) is busy destroying all of Metropolis as he tries to kill the evil General Zod (Michael Shannon). In the process, he levels Wayne Enterprises, and needless to say, the company's CEO is mad about it.From then on, Wayne swears vengeance against Superman and believes power like his should not go unchecked. That's one plot. There's many, many, many more:
1. Lois Lane has a subplot that involves her reporting in the Middle East.
2. A former employee of Wayne Enterprises (Scoot McNairy) who was injured in the crash gets into a legal battle with the Man of Steel himself.
3. Wayne has a second agenda of finding a mysterious Gotham criminal.
4. Wonder Woman and Doomsday get unnecessarily thrown into the mix, and to top it all off, there's Lex Luthor.
Luthor is almost as terrible of a character as he is portrayed by none other than Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg does nothing here but channel his old performance as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but a little twitchier. It's one of the most irritating screen performances in recent memory made all the more frustrating by the fact that the motivations for Luthor's sinister actions are nonexistent.
Luthor wants to stop Superman. Why? Because he's powerful. That's about all we get.
It's difficult, honestly, to sum up all the issues in "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice." It's a long, dull, dark, rainy slog that's overstuffed with enough characters to fill three other movies. Because of all this overstuffing, the script written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer becomes defined by unearned emotional moments, nonsensical motivations and a plot that doesn't follow through.
The performances are unbearable, as Affleck sleep-walks through it and Cavill is significantly worse here than he was in "Man of Steel" and so does the action. There isn't a single impressive action sequence in this entire two-and-a-half-hour "epic." Instead, the film relies on murky, rainy, exteriors for our heroes to battle. As usual, this often leads to unclear sequences.
All of his worst tendencies are on display here, with none of the pleasant production design that made "Man of Steel" at least watchable.
Spoiler alert: the audience loses with this one.
Reach Staff Reporter Joseph Salvato here.
Annenberg Media