Batman V Superman- the Snyder cut length review

 

Batman. V. Superman.

 

I haven’t watched this film before. I mean, I’ve watched THE fight scene. The big fight scene. I’ve watched Batman and Superman duke it out for a few minutes, enjoyed the wanton destruction and all that… but I’ve never watched the actual film before.

But recently, due to extended periods of time off and lack of alternatives, I have begun to get more into the DC universe. I re-watched the dark knight trilogy. I watched the first few seasons of the animated Batman series.

There was only one logical place to go from there, so….

Batman v Superman. A novices perspective.

We begin with a voiceover over the abbreviated version of Batman’s origin story. It’s a bit different to the Dark Knight’s version, this shows Batman falling into a bat cave after the death of his parents, and looking… surprisingly OK about it all. I’m not sure if this means that this version of Bruce didn’t overcome his fear of bats, or if that is meant to alter anything about his character in the present day, but…

Right. Well, cut to the events of Man of Steel (another film that I haven’t watched). Big fight scene, Superman flying around fighting a spaceship, Bruce Wayne is running through Metropolis to try and reach an office building full of his employees. He manages to avoid dying by fiery explosion, falling shrapnel or act of Zod (Was that a superman reference? Well, I tried…)

Bruce rounds a corner in time to see the tower block being destroyed by some magic laser stuff. He runs towards the collapsing building, and….

A horse walks in front of him. Inside the dust cloud, there is, somehow, some calm. People are trying to find their way out, to get to safety. He finds an employee trapped under a metal beam. Bruce heroically lifts the beam off the employee’s legs, then runs to save a child from another collapsing beam. The child was looking for her mother, who was inside one of the destroyed buildings.

As he looks up, Bruce sees Superman battling in the skies.

In short, it’s all very traumatising and unpleasant for everyone. Casualties are immense, Bruce has lost people close to him, he has to comfort a child who lost her parent…

So anyway, 18 months later, some divers have found a mysterious green, glowing substance on the ocean floor.

Wow, no time to find out what that is or what its significance is… let’s cut to a Coke ad! No, seriously, drinking a glass bottle of coke in a sandstorm… I’m sure I’ve seen that pop up on TV in the breaks between Last Leg segments. Turns out we’re in Nairomi, Africa, and the coke drinker is the photographer for “Ms Lane”. I presume this is Superman’s love interest?

Anyway, she is blindfolded by the people she is there to photograph, and whisked off… somewhere. To interview a General. Who may also be a terrorist. The camera is destroyed by a henchman, while the General explains that he doesn’t believe the US is neutral.

Turns out that the photographer is CIA, there was something in his camera. Seems strange that they would bring this suspicious device with them, if they thought they might be tracked with it… anyway, the CIA photographer assures the General that Lois knew nothing, then is promptly executed.

Oh wait, has Lois Lane been taken captive? Various CIA people discuss the situation, decide to stand down the drones. Looks like Lois needs someone to save her.

At this point, I have to say that my major concern is that a LOT of characters have just been introduced. There’s CIA people, terrorists, people back in the US (seemingly), drones… this has all got a bit complicated a bit quickly, and I have no idea which of these people I am meant to be paying attention to.

Well, one of the General’s soldiers has decided to simplify things a bit for me. He starts shooting some of the General’s men, apparently there’s a full on coo in process. They start to burn things.

Meanwhile there’s a drone and a load of people on horseback on the way. And now… motorbikes? I am so muddled. Why are one group of people using horses, and the others using motorbikes???

I think the bad guys have left Lois trapped inside a compound that is about to be blown up by a US military drone?

But Superman shows up to save her. Obviously.

I don’t know how he knew that she was in danger. Maybe he just has an app connected to a heart rate monitor, and every time her pulse gets above 120 he goes to help her?

Some people (not sure who at this point) walk inside the compound and find a large number of women, all seemingly very grateful to be rescued. There’s a burned pile of human bodies, and Lois is, seemingly, fine.

OK, well that was unnecessarily confusing. Someone, maybe one of the women who was rescued? Is testifying in front of some kind of court. They describe the initial attack. Or… given how it’s described, maybe it’s an entirely different thing? The woman is describing him bringing terror and awful things, but that isn’t what we were just shown, and I can’t see how his actions coule possibly be construed in that way.

Anyway, the Senator says that Superman is GUILTY. So… there…?

Can’t help but feel that this discussion about when and where superheroes should be used, and who should decide where to deploy them is… oddly familiar.

Cough-Captain America Civil War-cough.

Right, so some more people. Again, I have no idea how important these people are. They’re police officers, sat in a car and watching a sports game instead of responding to their radio.

Given the number of times the word “Gotham” is dropped, I would guess that we’re not in Metropolis anymore.

The police respond to the incident. There are bats flying around, and a batarang buried in the wall.

Guess who???

The police go downstairs, and find… a group of women. Locked in a cage. They say they have been “saved” by Batman.

It seems that he opened the cage door, and they were too afraid to leave. They admit that Batman saved them, but are still… terrified of him.

Good job with that whole “weaponised fear” thing you’ve got going on there Bruce.

Anyway, he’s elsewhere in the building, making someone scream.

The editing here is really irritating, actually. Everything seems blurred, it’s hard to focus on anything. Look, I know you want a big “tied up criminal” reveal, but focusing on a swinging gun instead of the corridor is just.. irritating. Also, I now have a headache.

Looks like Batman has been torturing people. The criminal is tied up, and has been branded with a bat sign.

The police officer notices that Batman is still there, hanging out in the corner. He… tries to shoot him. Several times.

The Bat crawls along the ceiling, and disappears. The police officer carries on shooting… until he nearly hits his companion.

Seriously, Gotham, please stop giving your police officers firearms? Especially when they’ll fire them off whenever they get spooked?

Finally they get around to looking at the “criminal”. He’s been tied up, beaten, and branded with the shape of a bat.

For the record, I don’t think that the “brand” here looks like it was just done. It should look like a severe burn at this point, very red, just starting to swell, maybe leaking blood or fluid.

Anyway.

Oh, we cut again.

So far, this opening (the first 23 minutes!!!) has been a collection of scenes that seem, well….. unrelated. The number of characters introduced has numbed my brain, I don’t know who’s important and who isn’t, and although I think I am meant to be forming an emotional attachment to Bruce, I’ve just been shown him committing acts of extreme violence and torture and getting away with it.

I have no idea what’s going on, and by this far into a film I think… I think I should.

For reference, at the 23 minute mark of Captain America: Civil War, we’ve had the first big action scene, there have been civilian casualties, and the Sokovia accords are just being introduced as a consequence to those casualties. The major dilemma of the film has been established, we’re starting to see the character pick their positions on the fighting line, everything is starting to gear up.

So far in this film, we’ve seen clips from the last big DC film (but from a different perspective), we’ve seen the Batman origin story: extremely condensed edition, we’ve seen Lois get captured and be rescued, we’ve seen someone talking to a Senator about Superman’s uncontrolled power, and we’ve seen Batman get shot at by the police after branding a human trafficker. It still feels like the conflict has yet to be set up, it feels like we don’t know any of the main players very well yet, and, frankly, I am starting to lose interest in what’s going on.

But hey. Let’s see if this next scene goes anywhere. Lois is emptying out her locker, and unpacking, presumably after her recent “captive and rescued by boyfriend” situation. She looks traumatised by the whole thing, and gets upset after seeing the blood on her shirt.

She pulls something out of the notebook she had with her in Africa, then takes that object into the bath with her. Maybe it’s a tracker?

Anyway, Clark Kent walks into the room where she is bathing, and offers her flowers.

I feel like I need to point out that this is a gratuitous bathing scene.

I dislike gratuitous bathing scenes.

Lois is worried because of the “hearing”. Presumably that scene with the Senator earlier? Clark says that he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, even if everyone assumes that he killed all the people in the compound. He thinks it’s more important that he was able to save Lois.

Clark definitely, definitely doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Lois… does. She wants people to know that Superman didn’t kill all of those people at the compound.

As a journalist, and a witness of what actually happened, she could just… tell everyone that the people were all dead before Superman arrived, and all that Superman did was to stop the missiles the US fired at the base from hitting their target. She was… SHE WAS THERE!

But instead of coming up with a sensible solution, she breaks up with Clark, because she doesn’t think that it’s possible for Clark to “love me and be you”.

I have now watched this several times through, trying to understand what on Earth that means. After several minutes of analysis, I think that what she is saying is that Superman is compromising himself by coming to rescue her all the time.

I think?

Anyway, Clark climbs into the bath with her. Water flies everywhere.

I’m not really sure what happened in that scene, and I feel like it was cut off for more gratuitous nudity, but at least we finally got to hear Superman say some lines. 25 minutes in to a film called Batman V Superman.

Speaking of which… Batman!

Bruce descends into his bat cave, and banters with Alfred. Alfred demonstrates a voice modifier, clearly a response to the “bat growl” of the Dark Knight trilogy.

We get a first proper look at the Batman armour. It’s, um….

I know I keep drawing comparisons to the MCU, but at what point does an armoured costume stop being an armoured costume, and become a suit of armour?

This is looking awfully like Stark tech, is what I’m saying.

Right, so Bruce starts explaining his current case. He’s looking into a Russian, Anatoli. Involved in weapons and human trafficking. Based out of Gotham. Behind him, there is another criminal. Someone who wants to bring a “dirty bomb into Gotham”. Well, that’s… um…. Original.

How they got to this conclusion, I don’t know. It seems like a weird thing to have found out.

Alfred confronts Bruce about his branding of the criminal the night before. Bruce points out that they’re criminals. “Nothing has changed”.

Alfred argues that the presence of other superheroes will turn “good men bad”. It’s unclear whether he’s telling Bruce to take a step back, to think about the consequences of his actions, or if he is warning Bruce that there might be an increase in public resistance to his actions as Batman, and that branding won’t help.

Bruce, for his part, doesn’t explain why he has started branding people, he doesn’t engage in the argument at all. This seems like a missed opportunity to me. So far all that we know of the motivations of the main two characters is that Batman wants to stop a nuclear weapon from entering Gotham, and Superman wants…. Lois.

This would be an opportunity for Bruce to explain why he has allowed his work to become so violent. What is he reacting to, that has pushed him to the extremes of branding? Alfred’s vague statement could be interpreted as “Superman has made you into someone who will brand people”, but if that is the case, I think we really need to see more of a cause and effect here!

Well, let’s go and meet another character. Lex Luther. Owner of Lexcorp. Playing basketball. The senator from earlier shows up, and we learn a bit about his dad. His father grew up in East Germany, and had to salute tyrants to avoid persecution. The implication being that Lex doesn’t like tyrants. And, when he shows the Senator a piece of glowing green kryptonite….

Wow, there we go! I think I remember people saying that they disliked Lex Luthor, but so far he seems to be the only character with clearly established motivations! He has motive to want to bring down Superman (profit for his company, destroying someone who he perceives to have set himself up in a position of power over everyone else with no accountability, stopping more aliens from coming to Earth and causing chaos), he has means (the kryptonite), now all he needs is opportunity. He wants the Senator to give him that opportunity. He needs to bring more Kryptonite into the country. He wants the Senator to allow him to make a weapon, to use against any metahuman. Including Superman, if needs be.

Someone, maybe the Senator’s aid, agrees to give him permission to access Zod’s crashed ship.

This seems… weird. But OK.

Lex goes in, conveniently not wearing any protective equipment (unlike everyone else in the vicinity).

Oh, we cut back. He also wants Zod’s body. And he… gets it.

He uses kryptonite to begin to dissect it.

Oh. Cut back. Again. What would be so wrong with showing the whole conversation here? Lex gives his list of demands, he shoves a sweet into this guy’s mouth, then we see the consequences. It just seems… awkward.

Oh, we cut again. The woman who was at the hearing is on TV, saying that her family was killed by Superman, and Clark is watching. Despite saying earlier that he didn’t care what people thought…. It kind of looks like he cares.

But let’s cut away from that. Onto a man in a wheelchair, laying a gift at a memorial

I don’t know who this guy is. But he climbs a statue of… I presume that’s Superman?

Oh wait, is he that guy that Bruce pulled out from under the wreckage of the collapsed building at the beginning of the film?

Anyway, he spray paints over the statue.

We cut to a newspaper office. Clark is assigned sports for the day, so he gets to go over to Gotham. Lois is on crime.

And the guy who climbed the superman statue is on TV. As he is arrested, he confirms that he is the person who worked for Bruce Wayne. For some reason, he felt the need to loudly declare this as he was being arrested, probably because he wasn’t built up as a memorable character earlier on, and so he needs to make it clear that yes, he is that guy, now.

Clark looks sad because his statue has been defaced.

“End of love affair with the man in the sky?” will be the headline.

Obviously we don’t need to see anymore of how Clark or Lois feel about this. They exchange meaningful glances, but this might… might be an opportunity for them to sneak out and have a chat about how they will fix this? Maybe?

Instead, Clark heads straight off to Gotham, and looks for the woman who spoke at the hearing. He can’t find her, but two of his neighbours involve him in a discussion about Batman. One of them loves him, one hates him.

I suppose this is meant to be building the idea that Clark dislikes Bruce, but, um… in that case, maybe he needs to be exposed to just one side of the argument? Otherwise I can’t see how his dislike of Batman will become believable.

Right, well, next scene. Bruce is at what looks like an illegal boxing match. As himself. Clearly unafraid to attract scandal. He’s found the guy he was looking for, also there to watch the boxing.

Bruce tracks him down after the fight, and they bond over discussing the fight. And by boasting about sexual conquests.

Gross.

The guy leaves, but Bruce has successfully cloned his phone.

And… cut again. This film really, really just cuts, doesn’t it? No establishing shots, no time given to the audience to orient themselves, no time to display the sets.

Right, Clark is in a meeting with his boss. He’s trying to get him to allow him to do an investigative piece about Batman. Clark explains that people are afraid of him, that he terrorises a large area of Gotham.

Clark… knows a lot about Batman, doesn’t he? Especially as the last (incredibly short) scene, with two people having a casual discussion about the Bat is all that we know Clark knows about him. If that makes sense.

As far as we know, Clark hadn’t heard about Batman until that day, and he jumps to a conclusion very quickly.

The newspaper boss refuses to cover the crime wave, because it’s nothing new. Clark tries to make a point that, without more public awareness, nothing will be done about it. But his boss isn’t having it. He wants Clark to cover the football.

Lois bursts into the meeting with a bullet. It’s from the fight in the desert, the one Superman took all the blame for. Lois thinks that the bullet is a US army prototype, and that she can prove that the US was funding the terrorists.

Obviously her actual goal is to prove Superman is innocent. Luckily for her, on this occasion, there is actually some way of proving that. Potentially.

 Journalistic ethics are not strong at this paper.

Anyway, she gets to spend a couple of days in DC. I mean, Washington DC, not the comic universe.

Finally, FINALLY Clark and Lois have a conversation. Sort of. He complains that she didn’t tell him that she was digging into this, she… well, they’re cut off by the boss arriving before they can actually discuss this further. So… that was faintly unsatisfying.

But at least Clark gets out of covering the football! Someone has requested that he cover a charity gala. And because all newspapers just do whatever a rich person tells them to…

(But seriously, why do they just go along with this??? Requesting a specific reporter seems… unusual. At best.)

Ooh, back to Lex Luther. He’s hanging out with the Senator. He’s discussing his grief over his father, the way in which he has preserved his father’s room, exactly as it was.

The Senator breaks into his impromptu therapy session to tell him that she’s blocking the import license for the kryptonite. She thinks that Lex wants to create a weapon to assassinate Superman. She’s… right. I mean, we don’t know how she came to that conclusion though. Everything we’ve been told about her suggests that she would be very much FOR this idea, surely?

Apparently… nope.

Anyway, Lex carries on… talking. He explains that devils come from the sky, not from below.

And then…. Cut. Again, anticlimactic. I kind of expected him to kill the Senator at that, or to at least threaten her with something. I don’t know, I thought Lex was meant to be some kind of genius? Maybe the kind that would have little, useful blackmail titbits lying around?

But instead, we go to a slow motion Bruce Wayne laying flowers on his parent’s graves. I can’t help but feel that the slow motion and editing here kind of… subtract from the moment. It turns this into a melodramatic performance, rather than a heartfelt…

Oh, hello. Something is oozing out of one of the vaults. Seriously, you need to maintain good conditions in a mausoleum. Good drainage, good air passage…

Oh, this is a dream, isn’t it? Or a hallucination? I can tell because Bruce immediately sticks his fingers into this liquid. Which just… isn’t a natural response. At all. I know it happens all the time in films, but…. Yuck.

Oh, and then Martha Wayne bursts out of her eternal resting place in a swarm of bats. She has transformed into something between a giant bat and a vampire. Not sure which.

Bruce wakes up, takes some pills, drinks some alcohol, and walks over to his window. I’m glad that so much power and responsibility is in the hands of someone so clearly dealing well with his trauma.

Alfred even makes a comment about Bruce emptying the wine cellar. This is… concerning. Is Bruce Wayne an alcoholic?

Anyway, rather than addressing this, let’s move on to “The White Portuguese”. I don’t know where that name came from. Anyway, Bruce thinks it’s Lex Luthor, because of some phone thing.

Alfred thinks that Bruce should go to talk to Lex as himself rather than as the Bat. Because, apparently, Bruce is more effective without the suit on.

Alfred points out that Bruce has been invited to a charity gig at Luthor’s manor.

No… you don’t think…..

Anyway, Bruce goes and tours his museum of bat suits, including one spray painted by the Joker. Then he takes a shower. Yay for more gratuitous nudity. That’s exactly what this film needed.

Anyway, we see him get into a fancy car, and drive over to Lex’s house.

Where Clark is! Of course!

Clark… doesn’t even recognise Bruce. This really says a lot about Clark, and how aware of things he actually is. He’s a journalist, but he doesn’t know the face of the man who owns half of Gotham? The man who employed the man who spray painted his statue?

Lex Luthor is giving a speech.

And we, for some reason, cut to a random woman in the crowd. Instead of watching Lex, she’s watching Bruce. Um… fascinating.

Bruce decides that the speech, the time where everyone else is stood still, is the best time to move out of the room and go to explore the house. Alfred gives him directions through an earpiece…

And Clark hears them. Of course.

He realises Bruce is… more than he seems.

The woman has noticed as well. Alfred directs Bruce to a room seemingly full of computer parts, and Brue plants a bug of some kind. It seemingly needs time to work.

Someone, presumably a Lex employee, catches Bruce. He realises that he can’t wait down by the computers. He needs to go and mingle.

I… don’t know what kind of computer device this is. But it requires Bruce to leave, then come back to collect it.

Lex is still giving his speech. He explains how awful it is to have knowledge without power. Then he stops himself, as if realising that he’s gone too far. OK, another piece of motivation slotting into place.

Seriously, Lex is still the best developed character, as far as I’m concerned.

Once he finishes, Clark tracks down Bruce. Bruce tries to break away, as Clark challenges him on the issue of Batman. He tells Bruce that good people are living in fear because of Batman. Bruce tells Clark that it’s hypocritical to challenge Batman, when the Daily Planet supports Superman so much.

Lex, naturally, notices the pair of them chatting. He comes and offers to collab with Bruce, we cut away before we see if Bruce is keen or not.

Alfred tells Bruce that the 7 minutes are up, he heads downstairs to pick up his gadget. This time, Clark follows him. Sort of. He actually stops to watch TV on the way.

The person who does manage to track him down to the computer room is the woman. The woman who was staring at him earlier. But she heads back upstairs, refusing to talk to him.

Meanwhile, Clark has seen something on TV that prompts him to action. A small girl trapped in a building that is burning down. He heads off.

Hey look! A superhero doing superhero stuff! Who would believe it?

Clark rescues the girl, obviously. He walks through a crowd, delivering her to the safety of… I presume they’re her family?

Everyone loves him, he’s the hero, it’s all great… you know the drill.

Then he goes to do some more superhero stuff, pulling a capsized ship, saving people from a failed space launch. He rescues people from flooded rooftops, he

Meanwhile, the news discusses whether Superman is good or bad. Then they realise that there’s nothing they can do about it anyway.

Clark calls home. I don’t know why he bothers calling when he could just… go and visit. In an instant.

They oddly discuss nothing of any importance.

Lois is getting the bullet analysed. It, apparently, is definitely a US bullet supplied to terrorists.

Clark is finally doing some reading about the other superhero in the neighbouring city. He reads about the bat brand, and how it makes criminals a target for other prisoners. Apparently, Gotham prisons are so rough that inmates are regularly slaughtering each other. This is… Batman’s fault? Supposedly?

Anyway, Lex Luthor bails the guy who defaced the Superman statue, and bribes him with an electric wheelchair. And so he goes to talk to the senator. He attributes his injuries directly to Superman.

Again, rather than letting us see how the Senator uses this moment to evolve her views… we cut.

Then almost immediately cut again. To the guy that Batman branded in the beginning of the film being stabbed to death. Because of his brand, supposedly.

Right, so let’s make this clear. Branding people as a punishment is cruel and unnecessary. So far, we haven’t been presented with any reason why Bruce does this at all. But that man dies in this film, not because of Bruce, but because for some reason, the prison population have decided to turn on people with this brand. Again, we get no explanation as to why they choose to do that.

And, of course, the prisons just… let it happen.  

In short, the whole thing seems ridiculously contrived to give Batman a “villainous” thing. And it makes no sense.

Lois pops in to visit a politician, another senator, about the whole “weapons given to terrorists” issue. Apparently she has some relationship to this Senator, but he still comes back and pins the whole thing on her, accusing her of coming up with a conspiracy theory to make Superman look good.

Cut. New scene. Clark hasn’t managed to do any of the writing that he was meant to do, and has instead been pursuing Batman. He is warned, AGAIN, to drop the story, and focus on sports and fundraisers. He, again, pleads to be allowed to do the article. Again, he is turned down.

Right, we are in another... place? A fundraiser? A bar? I’m not really sure… but The Woman is there. Oh, maybe it’s a museum? She’s talking to the curator, who is gushing over “The sword of Alexander”, a blade that cut the Gordian knot. The Woman stares at it, and Bruce Wayne creeps up behind her. He reveals that it’s a fake, she reveals that she already knew.

Bruce follows her. Oh, apparently she stole his computer gadget. I missed that earlier. And he wants it back. The Woman is also interested in Lex. Apparently he has a photograph that she needs. But she didn’t manage to find it. Couldn’t crack Lex’s encryption.

The woman reveals that she has already returned Bruce’s gadget. She left it in his car, in fact. And suggests that she is willing to share.

Bruce begins a decryption protocol on it.

Then we cut to…. Oh, is this another dream? A very different Batman, looking at a ruined city, wearing a trenchcoat. Other people, arrive, an army? Wait, no… I think this is reality. I think Bruce is really wandering around with a machine gun…. How…. Odd.

And apparently all these people work for him. And they have stolen the kryptonite.

So… have we skipped ahead a bit? Presumably Bruce learned about the kryptonite from the files. He then assembled this (really big) team of people to find it, and to steal it from Lexcorp.

He examines the kryptonite… and everyone suddenly tries to kill him.

Looks like there was a secret army hidden inside his army, and they go and kill the army of people Wayne hired. Batman fights back, and… I;m gong to say that this is NOT how I imagine a batman fight scene to be. A lot of dead people, to start off with. Ad… giant flying bat things?

Oh, this is a dream?

Some of the people get hold of Bruce. He breaks one of their necks, and a flying back knocks him out.

OK. Now seriously confused. Flying bat people, massive fight, kryptonite… and Bruce “wakes up” in chains? Everything about this suggests that it is NOT a dream sequence, but…. Giant flying bats!!!

Anyway, Superman shows. The men who captured Bruce kneel. The other captured soldiers whimper, and Superman kills them with his laser vision.

OK, so this is a dream?

Clark tears off the Batman mask.

“She was my world. And you took her from me” he says. Clark sticks his hand inside Bruce’s chest, he screams and….

He… wakes up? And sees someone (presumably the Flash) standing in a vortex of swirling lightning. “Save Lois, she’s the key” he says. He also tells Bruce to fear “Him”.

And then Bruce wakes up… again….

And we see that the decryption has only just completed.

So, when Bruce fell asleep, he didn’t know about the kryptonite. He, presumably, didn’t know anything about Lois. He had never seen or heard of the Flash. And yet he had a massively complex dream sequence including all of those things.

Apparently Batman DOES have superpowers! He has the ability to see into the future!!

We’re one hour and ten minutes into this THREE HOUR LONG version of the film. I am exhausted. None of this makes sense, the editing style is frustrating, and I still feel like I know next to nothing about Superman, I don’t understand Superman’s relationship with Lois, Bruce is darker than he was in the Dark Knight trilogy, and Lex is still the best developed character of all of them so far!

 

OK. Well, I have taken a break. I am returning refreshed. Sort of.

Batman has just cracked open the Lex Luther files. Clark has just been given a newspaper cutting showing the guy that Batman branded, and his post-mortem photos. Someone is giving Clark a clear message- Batman is not a good guy.

Bruce has just discovered a ship called “White Portuguese” in Lex Luther’s inventory. Interestingly, it’s actually really easy to find out the names of ships. There’s literally an app for that. I suppose that, when looking for something that could be used to smuggle a nuclear bomb into the city, Bruce (the world’s greatest detective), didn’t think about a ship being a possibility?

Or even… or even google “White Portuguese”?

Apparently that’s beyond him.

Oh wait, apparently the “White Portuguese” isn’t carrying a nuclear weapon. It’s carrying the kryptonite.

And Bruce… decided to lie to Alfred about this? I mean, I presume he didn’t want Alfred to know that he was looking for a way to kill Superman, but…

Wait, how did he know that Kryptonite would kill Superman? That discovery was made by Lexcorp, and Bruce has literally only just decoded info from Lexcorp, yet he’s been looking for the “White Portuguese” for ages!

OK, well, colour me confused.

Anyway, Alfred is a little angry at Bruce lying to him about his plans to murder Superman. Bruce explains that he needs to kill Superman because “if there’s even a 1% chance that he’s our enemy we have to destroy him”… Um… touch hypocritical there Bruce. You’re the guy running around, torturing people in the name of “Justice”.

Alfred firmly believes that Superman is a good guy… Bruce disagrees.

At least Bruce has now laid out his motivations for wanting to kill Superman. I mean, as the audience we can see through his “he’s too dangerous to live” rhetoric to the “I am deeply traumatised by Superman’s actions” underneath. The thing is, he… um… so he has nightmares about Superman. He plans to kill Superman. But… these are the only ways in which he appears “traumatised”. I think that we have to assume that he does have some trauma associated with Superman for the plot to make sense, but if he does, if the whole plot hinges on that fact, I think it should be made really, really clear! Show him struggling to read news about Superman. See him reacting to the events at Superman’s statue. Show him, I don’t know, actively trying to work out who Superman is???

Anyway, we cut to Clark. He’s looking into the prisoner who was branded and killed. A police officer points him in the direction of the prisoner’s family. His partner and young child. She tells Clark the same story, it’s the Bat’s fault that her partner is dead, he won’t listen to reason, he needs to be taken down.

Then, for some reason, we get a FEW SECONDS of footage of Clark’s boss being angry that he’s not in the office. Then we move on.

….

Great.

The White Portuguese. The ship that contains the Kryptonite. Time for some Batman awesomeness?

Well, he’s stood on top of a crane and brooding. We get a long shot, swooping in while dramatic music plays… and… he uses a sniper rifle to watch as a crate is loaded into a van. Somewhat anticlimactic. Anyway, he uses the gun to plant a tracker or something onto the van, then gets into his batmobile. This batmobile is… awesome. It knocks a car aside then Batman uses a harpoon to tow the ruined vehicle as he chases the lorry containing the kryptonite. He launches the car at the gun-wielding accomplices. I’m, um… sure there are no casualties there. None at all.

Oh look, one of the cars has a MASSIVE MACHINE GUN mounted on the back. Is that normal in America?

 Oh, and someone has a literal rocket launcher. Sure.

Honestly I’m struggling to follow this, but Batman destroys basically everything, drives through a ship, knocks the roof off the lorry, and continues the chase. Finally, there are few enough vehicles that I can actually make sense of what’s going on…

Or so I thought.

He fired a thing, there was loads of flame, and…

Superman appears. He stands there, dramatically, and the batmobile bounces off him. Superman rips the top off, and Batman stands up to face him.

Superman tells him to end his career as the Bat. Batman tells Superman that he will plead.

Then they… both leave, and Batman goes home. In all the chaos, he failed to collect the kryptonite, but at least the tracker is still in place.

Lex stares admiringly at the kryptonite.

Oh, back to Lois. She hands the bullet over to the Senator she spoke to earlier, challenging him to throw it away if he really believes Superman is a murderer. He pockets it.

Cut to another Senator, the female who was dealing with Lex. She’s at a press conference, talking about the nature of good and evil. Oh, the TV tells me that her name is Senator Finch. I’m… not sure if I should have found that out earlier or not.

Finch is basically saying that Superman needs to declare his interests, needs to admit what his goals are and become more of a team player.

And… Clark goes home to visit his Mum. She gives him some kind words of guidance… that I can’t really hear over the backing music. I don’t know if it’s just my speakers, but… sounds like an audio design issue to me.

Oh goodness, we’re still less than half way through. It feels like there are way too many characters and storylines in play here already.

Back to the woman who believes she is a victim of Superman, from the compound in the desert. She, I think, sees some people stood outside her home. She goes to visit Senator Finch, and admits that she lied.

Back to Lois. She is talking to the other Senator, who admits that the bullet was made by Lexcorp, that the scandal was caused by Lex’s goons, and that Superman was set up.

Los also realises what… should have been obvious to her for a while. She was the bait in a trap. Which means that people know that she’s Superman’s girlfriend. Which means that someone knows who Superman is.

Bruce’s employee, Mr Keith, is going into a senate hearing to discuss Batman. Bruce watches on TV.

Lois calls her boss, telling him that she has an anonymous source that can confirm her story. As she is talking, she conveniently walks past the woman who just admitted to Senator Finch that she had lied.

Senator Finch is talking to… someone. Honestly, way too many side characters here. Not sure if we’ve met him before, don’t know his name… but she is telling him that the woman admitted to her that her parents are alive, and that Luthor gave her a script to follow.

As she’s discussing this, Lex turns up. He is planning to tell the committee that Finch refused to allow him to create a Superman killing weapon.

Meanwhile, Bruce is looking into his ex-employee. They’ve been sending him pay checks every month, but they are always returned, with messages about Bruce being blind attached.

Superman arrives for the senate hearing, clearly there to try and play nicely.

The stage is set for this senate hearing to be massive. Everyone is there, Superman, Luthor, the Senators, Batman is watching…

Oh, and the woman who was going to tell the truth is pushed in front of a train.

Lois arrives in time to watch Superman arrive. Obviously she doesn’t have an opportunity to tell him that there is proof of his innocence out there. Because, um… between his super-hearing and the existence of mobile phones, it was just impossible.

Bruce is handed the latest paycheck to be returned, but he doesn’t look at it because he’s watching as Superman walks into a crowded room.

Look, I know everyone has joked about the whole “Superman + glasses= totally unidentifiable” thing. I’m just going to say that… Superman is literally putting his face onto every TV screen in the world here. So even if 99.99% of the people in the world wouldn’t spot the similarities between the two, someone. SOMEONE. Would.

Senator Finch is chairing. She tells Superman that the committee needs him to act out in the open. She wants to work together with him. She glances at her drink. She stutters. Tears fill her eyes.

“Granny’s Peach Tea” is written on the label. She notices that Lex is gone.

And the building explodes.

Superman stands alone, unharmed in the middle of the fireball.

“You let your family die” is the last message from his employee.

So… why did Lex go to the trouble of assassinating a woman to stop her from speaking at a hearing, when he was going to blow up that hearing?

And how, exactly, did Lex succeed in destroying the building anyway? I mean… I presume there was some security? And if there was a massive bomb somewhere in the room, why did Superman not notice? He has x-ray vision, or something, right?

Lois pulls the “press” card that instantly allows her to be admitted anywhere. Clark is busy lifting people out of the damaged building, saving as many lives as he can. After he has evacuated the last person, he flies away, not even stopping to talk to Lois.

Alfred has been chopping wood, but comes back inside to look for Bruce. He finds the pile of messages, and the television left on.

So… I’m guessing that this will make Batman more likely to want to kill Superman… but surely he doesn’t think Superman caused the explosion? I mean, firstly there were loads of cameras on him, streaming live evidence of him not acting, secondly, why would he blow up a building as the senator is offering a way for them to work together in peace? The whole thing should make Bruce suspicious of a third party being involved.

Anyway, we cut to Lex. He’s hanging out outside his main building, where… something has happened. Something involving superman, broken glass, and a lot of bullets.

And a batarang, where the kryptonite had been.

Now, Lex looks less than happy to see the kryptonite gone. But bear in mind that he wants Batman and Superman to duke it out, so… why isn’t he happy at this?

Lois has got home, and calls Clark, only to find that he (as Superman) is stood on her balcony. I mean… subtle. He is beating himself up because he didn’t see the bomb, and he’s worried that he “chose” not to see it. This… makes no sense.

He’s also worried that “Superman” isn’t real. Superman points out that on his world, he wouldn’t be special, and that maybe Superman is nothing special. Then he flies away.

We cut back to Lex. He’s wearing Zod’s fingerprints, and uses them to enter the downed spaceship. I’m not entirely sure how he still has access to that, especially so soon after such a tragedy. He discovers a gadget that still seems to work. In fact, the whole ship wakes up for him. He is given access to a vast amount of knowledge by the ship computer.

Meanwhile, Bruce is working out, and thinking about ways of using the kryptonite. He very quickly weaponises it, making gas cylinders and a spear.

In between throwing metal around, he finds a collection of files in Lex’s data dump. Four metahumans are mentioned. He realises that he recognises one of them, Wonder Woman. There are pictures of her from recently, in Paris, and…. From 1918. Wonder Woman music starts playing.

This is… epic.  Obviously he doesn’t bother opening the other files. That would be boring.

Lex has brought Zod’s body back to the ship, and is floating it in some magic yellow liquid. A “genesis chamber”. The ship recognises Zod, and then Lex cuts himself, and presents his own DNA.

Tearfully, he tells the corpse “you flew too close to the sun”. Um… what? What does this mean?

The computer tells Lex that making a creature with combined DNA is forbidden. Lex points out that the council that made that rules has been destroyed.

Anyway, it seems that the world as large believes that Superman was responsible for the bombing. So… let’s cut to some snowy mountains. Someone is going hiking. Or, apparently, he’s “come to die”. Clark.  

Lois is watching the news. Looks like Keith, the former Wayne employee, was the actual bomber, but people are still blaming Superman. To be honest, his total disappearance after the bombing… probably didn’t help.

Lois has discovered a room… presumably inside the bomber’s house, but I don’t remember seeing her be given access? It’s full of superman newspaper cuttings. She deduces that he didn’t know that he would die, despite his clear obsession, because he’s just been shopping. Then she calls her scientist friend, who tells her that the bullet from the desert was made of the same metal as the wheelchair Lex gave the guy. Looks like Lex is behind everything, and they now have some… very, very poor evidence, but some evidence that he was behind it all.

I predict that neither of them will do anything useful with this information. Or with the knowledge that the bomb was modified to decrease the damage it could do. Or… well, it was lined with lead. Which also means that Clark couldn’t see the bomb.

Clark has basically reached the top of the mountain. Another guy is there, adding to the pile of rocks at the top of the mountain. This guy is wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a thin jacket. Making Clint look quite wimpy, wrapped in his thermals.

Oh… is he a hallucination? He’s talking about Clark’s family. How he diverted a stream to stop a flood, but then ended up destroying another field and killing animals. He then, casually, drops that he’s Clark’s adopted Dad. He tells Clark that he misses him. Then the camera cuts and he’s gone. So….

Hallucination?

Alfred finds Bruce beside a ruined fireplace. He tells Bruce not to fight Superman. Bruce is having a morbid moment, feeling survivors guilt for living longer than his Dad ever did.

Looks like both these guys have Daddy issues…

Bruce decides to go and hunt for Superman.

Martha decides to turn off the TV that is accusing her son of the bombing. She walks out of the café, and… is kidnapped.

Then we cut to Batman, stood in an abandoned building. In a normal film, I would expect this quick cut from the kidnapping to Bruce to suggest that Bruce was involved in the kidnapping. I…. assume that this isn’t the case?

Yay! I may finally be getting the hang of this whole editing style!

Bruce is wearing his big, fancy bat suit, and setting up his trap. He lights the bat signal. Now he just has to wait (in the rain) for Superman to notice and drop by.

Lex is watching. He calls someone and says “the Knight is here”.  

Oh look, guys wearing black walking up behind Lois. I smell a kidnapping!

And… yep! There it is! She is escorted to Lexcorp. Wait for it, Superman will be showing up ANY MINUTE. Lex greets her. He admits that he knows that she has worked out about the Lexcorp metal that keeps showing up, then… he pushes her off the roof. Superman catches her.

Seriously, how does he know that she is in danger???
But he does, and we get a really quite sweet, quiet moment where he flies her off to safety.

“you came back” Lois says to him after they land. I mean… he went off on a walk. He didn’t vow to leave, or anything like that.

They have a kiss. Out in a public street. I mean… if you keep doing that stuff, EVERYONE is going to work out that Lois Lane is the way to Superman’s heart! Have you ever considered, like, not kissing in public? Trying to keep your identities actually…. Secret?

Anyway, Superman pops back up to see what Lex is up to. He tells Lex that he’s going to take him in alive. Lex reveals that he knows who Superman is. Then he spouts some pseudo-philosophy. He says that is Clark is all-powerful, he isn’t all good. I mean…. Superman never claimed to be all powerful. Soooo….

Anyway, Lex reveals that he has been building Batman’s hatred of Bruce for a while. He is responsible for the notes, he is responsible for the bomb. Lex tells Superman to go and fight Bruce to the death. Lex threatens Martha, Clark’s mother. He says he will burn her to death. Clark kneels. He seems broken.

Odd. He can go anywhere he wants fast enough to catch Lois before she hits the ground, but he can’t find his Mum in an instant in the same way?

That seems logically inconsistent.

Anyway, Clark can’t think his way out of this. Lex tells him that he has to kill Bruce in order for Martha to live.

Then he hops into a helicopter and flies away.

Now, Lex doesn’t know where Martha is. But he knows who knows. If Clark is really this cross, I’m pretty sure that he could get that piece of information out of him.

He doesn’t though. Obviously.

Right, so we cut to a scene where a bad guy puts a ticking clock in front of Martha. The countdown to her death.

Then we cut again, to news people watching as electricity arcs off from the fallen spaceship. I suppose Lex has returned to finish his business there.

Why, it’s almost like letting a private citizen have access to a ship loaded with goodness-know what is a… bad….. idea……

Anyway, could we just get on with the big fight already? That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?

Nope. We cut to Wonder Woman, also watching the spaceship. We cut to Lois, declaring to her taxi driver that she is a journalist… for some reason. Clark pops down to visit her. He’s not going to use this time to try and save his mother, obviously. He needs to tell Lois that he will try to convince the Bat to help him, or he will kill Bruce. This is completely vital, and not something that could be communicated to the audience without this scene, using, I don’t know, acting. Character moments. Editing choices.

Anyway, Wonder Woman gets an email from Bruce, containing the phot of her in 1918. Bruce asks who she is, then sends her the other metahuman files.

Bruce is clearly just hanging out by his batsignal texting at this point. Which is a surprisingly entertaining image.

Anyway, Wander Woman watches video clips of the other metahumans. Aquaman, Flash. I’m… actually not sure what the last video is of. Or why we got so much more time devoted to that one than the others.

Lois goes to her editor, and demands a chopper to Gotham. For some reason, her editor gives her one.

Bruce is staring dramatically at the sky when Clark arrives. Clark admits that he was wrong… to do something. Clark tries to tell Bruce that Lex is behind everything. I mean, he doesn’t just say “Lex is behind everything”, or “Dude, seriously, you’ve been lied to. Do you want to have a chat?”.

And there is plenty of time and opportunity for him to say both of those things. But no… Clark just starts beating Bruce up.

Admittedly, this is what we’re here for. To be honest though, the fight is… remarkably underwhelming. Because the motivations for both characters here are so jumbled. Clark wants to convince Bruce to help him, but will kill Bruce if he has to. He clearly has decided that Bruce is a bad guy… but Lex also just admitted to him that he had tricked Bruce into thinking that Clark was a bad guy. If I were Clark, at this point I would be rethinking everything I thought I knew about Batman.

Bruce has been harbouring anger towards Superman for two years. He’s traumatised by the destruction of his building and the deaths of the people within it. Lex claimed that he pushed Batman over the edge with the explosion at the committee hearing, but honestly, I think we know Batman was planning to kill Clark long before that.

The thing is, that this is SO out of character for Bruce. This is not the Batman that I know. This Batman is prepared to kill out of a feeling of vengeance. He is prepared to torture people. He is prepared to maim people. He is unwilling to stop and listen, to hear the truth, even when there’s loads of evidence that Clark has been framed.

 

Batman is meant to be the greatest detective in the world. He is meant to be traumatised, but kind hearted. He is meant to be a good person.

This version of Batman is none of those things.

And because of that, this fight is… it’s a battle of brains vs brawn. Honestly, Batman is fighting more like the Incredible Hulk than like Batman, and Superman doesn’t seem to have learned anything about fighting people as strong as him. But there’s lots of big hits, and many things get destroyed so… I suppose that’s alright then.

I mean, honestly, I enjoy watching this fight. It’s just nothing like as good as it could have been.

Although seeing Superman regain his power after each dose of kryptonite is… hilarious. To counter that though, this is meant to be a “balanced” fight. If one character has the energy to monologue, and the other doesn’t, it isn’t a balanced fight.

And then… then we get to it.

“Save…. Martha…..”

The moment that… literally…. The only reason that Bruce doesn’t kill Clark is that their mothers share the same first name. This is SO, SOSOSOSOSOSO stupid. And if Clark had just tried to talk to Bruce before beating him up…

Lois runs into the fight scene. She tells Bruce that Martha is Clark’s mother, Bruce decides… not to kill him. On the strength of that.

I mean, I assume that he is meant to realise that he’s been played in that moment, and that’s why he stops. But they definitely don’t make that clear.

Anyway, Bruce goes to save Martha, Clark goes to see what’s happening at the fallen ship.

And it’s ridiculously easy for Bruce to find Martha, of course.

Lois is left behind, and picks up the kryptonite spear.

Bruce flies in to save Martha…. Presumably getting changed in the bat plane on the way over. Batman is given loads of goons to fight his way through, and…

Are we finally going to get some good Batman action? Finally?

And that’s a yes! Yay! I mean, he stills wracks up quite a kill count by my reckoning, but it’s still nice to see some good quality hand-to-hand combat here. Also, I am impressed by how much of his armour happens to be bullet-proof. I mean, I’m not sure how it is bullet proof, but I suppose we can let him have his magic metal here.

By the end of the brawl, he’s taken a knife in his shoulder, and several heavy hits. He is also responsible for multiple deaths, some of them straight-out murders. But he gets to Martha, and gets caught up in a standoff. His solution? Blow up the tank of a flame thrower, and rely on his cape to protect both of them.

Right. Back to Lois. She finds a body of water, and drops the kryptonite into it. Not a very deep body of water, but… you know… points for trying.

Superman returns to Lex, and tells him that he has lost. Superman allows Lex to monologue while a mysterious countdown takes place. Superman should have learned by now, that countdowns normally need to be stopped before something terrible happens.  

In this case, the terrible thing is a “kryptonian deformity” made with a combination of Lex and Zod. Doomsday, as he calls it. It’s, um… remember that scene in Lord of the Rings where the birthing of orcs is shown? Um… imagine that, but the end product is a cave troll.

This is the look they went for.

Superman immediately starts duking it out with Doomsday. I mean, he’s already trashed this city once, doing it again won’t make much of a difference.

Doomsday, though, is doing a pretty awesome job of just beating up Superman. Quite impressive, really. He also decides to do a King Kong montage while he’s hanging around the city, climbing up to the top of a tower, surrounded by aircraft.

Batman heads over to help out. Wonder Woman does to, after seeing what’s happening on the news.

Interesting that they make SUCH a big deal of “there’s barely anyone downtown!” in this film. Just in case you were worried about civilian casualties.

Doomsday Hulk smashes some of the aircraft circling around him, but then shots start hitting home. Rather than being damaged, he releases the energy in a wave, and destroys most of the lexcorp building.

Superman wakes up, and carries Doomsday up into the sky. The military decide to nuke them. Because apparently they’re high enough in the sky that a nuclear missile exploding above the city would have “only one casualty”. Being Superman.

I… don’t think that’s how nuclear weapons work. But hey, I suppose that’s something that the Avengers did that hasn’t happened in this universe yet so, hit it, Mr President!

And if nuclear material is scattered all over Smallville…. I’m sure it’ll be fine!

Oh yes, that happened in the Dark Knight trilogy as well, didn’t it? And (kind of) in X-men. Is this a trope now?

Doomsday and Superman are still fighting, still flying further and further from Earth. The nuke hits them. A nuclear explosion fills the sky over the city, and something falls out of the heart of the explosion. Someone in the briefing room makes sure to note that the area where it fell is uninhabited.

Yep. Great. Oh, and the thing that fell… is alive. And mutating, with all that extra energy. It’s now…. Quite big. Quite very big. And it sends a beam of light into the sky, narrowly missing Superman, who is still floating around up there.

Yay, beam of light into the sky, that’s another trope ticked off the list!

Barman flies around Doomsday, narrowly avoids its laser vision. He retreats, and decides to look for the kryptonite spear. And… lure the beast to come with him. Towards Gotham. Seems sensible.

Meanwhile, Clark is still floating in space, but it looks like he’s alive, so… that’s good.

Batman is… not doing so well. He’s downed, he’s trapped in his ship and Doomsday is preparing to unleash his laser vision on him when….

The person with the best theme music in this film arrives. Diana. Wonder Woman. Her bracelets are, apparently, able to block the blast.

That’s jolly decent of them. Why is she so late to the fight?

Well, like Bruce on the way to pick up Martha, she stopped to get changed into her battle outfit on the way. High heeled boots and all.

And now, finally, Superman returns. The whole team is gathered.

Lois decides that throwing away the kryptonite was possibly not a good idea… She goes to look for it.

Oh, remember a minute ago when I criticised Batman for bringing the monster to Gotham? Well, apparently the bit of the city they’re in is, you guessed it, abandoned! No people! Yay for no civilian casualties! Yay for repeatedly hitting the audience over the head with the LACK of civilian casualties!

Hooray for subtlety.

Clark has realised that Bruce needs the spear. Rather than one of them going to get it, they just stand close together in “trailer footage” formation and go straight for Doomsday.

Doomsday releases a pulse of energy strong enough to collapse a building on top of Lois. She is trapped underwater with the kryptonite.

And wonder woman throws herself at Doomsday. This is cool. She is cool. Between her and Superman, they’re managing to keep it down…. Sort of. Bruce is… standing nearby.

Cut to a shot of Lois drowning. Presumably in a minute, Clark’s super Lois sense will kick in and he’ll go to save her. But first he needs to make another trailer shot, his laser vision vs doomsday’s laser vision.

But once he’s done that, of course, he pops over to save her. That’s three Lois saving scenes so far this film. Good going. Clark caresses her cheek, then dives in after the kryptonite.

Without Superman to distract him, Doomsday is going after Bruce. Bruce is swinging like Spiderman, just keeping clear.

Superman has got the kryptonite, but being so close to it basically knocks him out. Lois has to pull him out of the water.

Meanwhile, Diana is living her best life, clearly enjoying every minute of it. Clark and Loid have a special “I love you” moment. Loid realises that Clark plans to wield the kryptonite.

I mean, I’m pretty sure Diana could…………… I mean she’s literally got a lasso wrapped around the thing. Bruce fires one last round of kryptonite gas at Doomsday, then Superman delivers the death blow with the spear. Doomsday stabs him in the chest with… a finger? Weird way to go, but still…

Doomsday falls with a “dead” Clark in his hand. I mean, we all thought he was dead a minute ago, when he was nuked in space, so honestly I don’t know wny anyong expected him to actually stay dead.

Diana stares at the two of them, probably thinking “I could have done that. And not been killed doing it.”

Bruce lowers Clark to the ground. Lois cries.

It’s all very touching and sweet. I mean, obviously EVERYONE knows that he’s coming back for Justice League, but his death means that the end of the film must be pretty close, so….

 Oh. Still 20 minutes left.

That’s… terrific.

Soldiers are breaking into the spaceship. They find a… thing, no idea what it is, but it evaporates as soon as they look at it. Then they find Lex. He’s just been hanging out there, seemingly.

He’s arrested, his head is shaved.

Next cut. Newspapers being printed. Headline “Superman Dead Night of Terror Morning of Loss”. Surprisingly lacking in any grammar at all. There’s also a picture of Clark in the paper, but it’s not clear if that’s a separate obituary or not.

I mean, either way… seriously, if anyone, literally ANYONE actually wanted to find out who Superman was, it would literally take 10 minutes in this universe.

But sure. That’s the story they’re going with. We cut back to the countryside. To Martha’s bouse. She’s hosting the funeral. Clark’s newspaper buddies are there. Lois is there. Everyone is mourning Clark.

Lois is lying in bed, staring up at a mobile of the planets. Oh, and it looks like Clark was going to propose to Lois before he died. That’s ridiculously sweet. If they had ever actually shared any screentime together.

Now we get the burial. Sorry, burials. One big, state funeral with an empty coffin. One small, family affair with a full coffin.

Do we really need two funerals for a guy that we know will be in the next film? Seems a bit… gratuitous. Especially as I still feel NO emotional attachment to this guy. I don’t think we saw enough of him to actually form a bond.

Turns out Bruce and Diana came to the quiet funeral. Not really sure I feel anything for either of them yet, either. Diana is intriguing, at least, but Bruce just seems like a sad, angry Batman who has completely lost his way. Frankly, I think he should be stopped. I think Superman was right. That being said, Superman was also refusing to engage with the public in any way. It took years for him to even try to have an open and honest dialogue about what the world wanted him to do.

Diana and Bruce have a deep discussion. Bruce (who has spent this film angrily torturing, branding and killing people) insists that humanity is, in general, still good.

Anyway, Bruce sets up the Justice League. Diana asks why the others will have to fight. “Just to feel it” Bruce replies.

That… sounds deep, but makes no sense.

Like most of the dialogue in this film.

Anyway, Batman goes to visit Lex in prison. He tells Lex that, no matter what he does, he will watch him. Lex taunts Batman, saying that he isn’t civilised. Batman promises Lex a lovely lifetime spent in Arkham asylum, a place where, he freely admits, he will not get any proper psychiatric treatment.

Seriously, what a LOVELY guy Bruce is, right?

He doesn’t brand Lex, but he does leave a lovely bat shaped burn mark on the wall. Then he vanishes, leaving Lex to scream on his own.

And… oh. We’re back at the funeral. The small, real funeral. So presumably that last scene was shown out of chronological order. Good to know. Anyway, Lois drops a handful of dirt onto Clark’s coffin. Then she turns and walks away.

And the dirt starts rising off the coffin.

That, thank goodness, is the end.

So. Is this a bad film?

Yes…and no, but mostly yes. The first half is confusing. It takes way too long for any kind of story to get going. It’s the kind of film where I would probably understand what was going on MUCH better if I went back to watch it again, but… I don’t want to watch it again.

I think that the remarkable thing about this film is that I feel so little attachment to any of the characters. I don’t understand any of the characters.

Now, this could be because I haven’t watched Man of Steel, or because I haven’t read the comics. But if a cinematic universe is working, ANY film in it can be watched independently, and still be fun. I can actually say from first hand experience that this holds true of The Avengers Assmble, for example. It was the first MCU film I had watched, I knew nothing about ANY of the characters at all, and yet I still understood what was going on, I still enjoyed myself and I didn’t feel bored at any point. In one short film, I felt an attachment to the characters. I was on the edge of my seat for the climactic final fight. In this film… not so much.

Another thing that irritated me throughout this film was the editing style. Lots of short, basically unrelated scenes simply irritated me. It felt like I had to work hard to keep in touch with everything that was happening. It also confused the emotional impact of some scenes. I’m sure some people would love it, but… not for me.

And finally, the big issue with this film… is the universe in which is exists. Or rather, the lack of it. It feels like this film is just trying to do TOO much. Introduce Batman. Introduce Wonder Woman. Introduce the idea of other metahumans. Establish the way that the world has responded to Batman and Superman. Set up the next two films, Wonder Woman and Justive League. By trying to accomplish all of these things, it ended up skimping on… well, all of them, basically.

The end result? I come away thinking that this version of Batman is a sadistic Jerk. I come away not really feeling like I understand the relationship between Lois and Clark, they seem to spend almost all this film away from each other. I don’t understand Superman, or Superman’s abilities, or Superman’s motivations. I don’t understand the rules of this world.

Then there’s Lex Luthor. Now, as should be clear to you all, I don’t know much about Lex Luthor, so I can only judge him from what I see in this film. And what I see is… contradictory.

In the first half, I think his motivation is fairly well established. I understand where he’s coming from. Then it’s revealed that, actually, he has been knowingly setting both Batman and Superman up to look bad, and he starts to come off as manic, rather than evil. So now I don’t know. If he was always manic, if he had a grudge against Superman just because he hates Superman, then I doubt he would be capable of hiding that from the world, and setting up such a complex trap. If he is not, in fact manic, then I just… don’t understand his motivation.

So a miss, from me.  A near miss, but still, a miss.

The other thing that he misses, by the way, is a cool henchman. Every good supervillain needs a cool henchman. The Joker has Harley Quinn, Ultron had the Maximoff twins, Thanos has his children. Lex’s henchmen are ridiculously, terribly boring. I can’t even think of anything else to say about them.

How about Lois, then? Well, she spends the film either being rescued, or running around doing things that are ultimately unimportant to the plot. This is… disappointing.

Diana. Wonder Woman. Again, she runs around trying to recover that hundred year old phot of herself. She could probably just say that it was a fake, or a relative or something, but… no.

I feel like I’ve written enough, at this point. I was hoping that this film would make me excited about the Justice League, and would prompt me to re-watch Wonder Woman. I don’t feel any inspiration to do so at the present.

In fact, the only thing I do feel inspired to do is go an watch Captain America: Civil War again. At least the final, climactic fight in that hero vs hero action film was… well, between the two heroes?

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