BvS Batman v Superman - Reviews Thread [TAG SPOILERS] - Part 1

[antonydelfini]

Im glad to see that some fans love this. I thought I was crazy loving this. The whole time I was waiting for the moment I'd hate the movie, but that moment never came. It was great, miles better than MOS. 8/10

Superman: The Movie 8/10
Superman II 7.5/10
Superman III 5/10
Superman IV: Quest for Peace 4/10
Batman 1989 7.5/10
Batman Returns 7.5/10
Batman Forever 6.5/10
Batman and Robin 4/10
Batman Begins 8/10
Superman Returns 6/10
The Dark Knight 9/10
Green Lantern 4.5/10
The Dark Knight Rises 6.5/10
Man of Steel 6.5/10
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 8/10

 

[Jim-H]

Superman: The Movie 10/10
Superman II 8/10
Superman III 8/10 (I know it's not very good but Evil Supes was amazing and consider this Reeve's best performance doing good and bad)
Superman IV: Quest for Peace 3/10

Batman 1989 10/10
Batman Returns 8/10
Batman Forever 6/10
Batman and Robin 4/10

Batman Begins 10/10
Superman Returns 6/10
The Dark Knight 10/10
Green Lantern 5/10
The Dark Knight Rises 7/10

Man of Steel 7/10
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 5/10

 

[Greens]

I don't feel like reviewing this movie again (I just wrote a pretty lengthy review somewhere else) so I'll do it in a nutshell:

The movie has some very high highs and very low lows.
Batfleck is great as are most of his scenes.
Lex is badly written.
The movie is poorly edited and lacks a cohesive narrative.
The music is good but way too loud and present.
Doomsday was better than I thought he would be.
Superman was shafted for the most part.
I loved the ending and was genuinely shocked.
Wonder Woman was bad-ass.
The Batmobile scene was underwhelming, mostly due to very poor CGI.
The B v S fight was brutal and good, but had an illogical conclusion.
The Justice League tie-ins were terrible.

Overall, even though I enjoyed aspects of the movie (especially Batman) Snyder dropped the ball. This could have been one of the best comic book movies ever, but he messed up a very simple concept.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

Positives:

Ben Affleck--He absolutely killed it as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. I had plenty of reservations about his casting...but I am happy to say that he impressed me a great deal.

Gal Gadot--her time in the film is limited, but she was a bright spot nonetheless. If anything I was left wanting more.

BvS fight
Amy Adams
Irons as Alfred




Negatives:

Story/Plot--incoherent and a mess.

CGI

Cavill/Superman--just awful. Where is the joy in being Superman?

Eisneberg/Lex--one of the worst onscreen villains.

4/10

 

[rockandrollsoul]

Positives:

Ben Affleck--He absolutely killed it as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. I had plenty of reservations about his casting...but I am happy to say that he impressed me a great deal.

Gal Gadot--her time in the film is limited, but she was a bright spot nonetheless. If anything I was left wanting more.

BvS fight
Amy Adams
Irons as Alfred




Negatives:

Story/Plot--incoherent and a mess.

CGI

Cavill/Superman--just awful. Where is the joy in being Superman?

Eisneberg/Lex--one of the worst onscreen villains.

4/10

As much as I hated this movie, I thought Eisenberg was fantastic, despite his motivations never being clarified. I also don't blame Cavill as he was largely side-lined.

Oh, and I felt the CG was top-notch, but I agree with everything else.

 

[The Joker]

Eisneberg/Lex--one of the worst onscreen villains.

Thank you. I haven't disliked a CBM villain so much since the trinity of awful ones in TASM 2.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

Thank you. I haven't disliked a CBM villain so much since the trinity of awful ones in TASM 2.

Very comparable, yes. Bland motivations and cheesy dialogue included, they are like Saturday morning cartoon villains...though in some cases that might be insult to the cartoon ones.

 

[psylockolussus]

Spoiler

I don't really know what to say about this film. First what I didn't like was the color of the scenes, I don't know why Zack Snyder keeps desaturating the colors of his films, a lot of the scenes looked darker than it should have been and it kinda cheapened the good cinematography, its like those movie gifs you will find in the internet that were color edited. Then towards the middle of the film, I lost track of what was happening and they jammed up a lot of things in the movie and story-wise, it was just a mess that I didn't bother to care anymore like there's this thing from the past with Batman, the government/people questioning Superman's actions, then there was this set-up for the Justice League, then there was this thing with Lex Luthor. The structure of the film wasn't very good and it was hard for me to follow what was happening. For me, the coolest thing about the film was the fight scene with Doomsday, like I liked how Supes, Bat and Wonder Woman were working together to beat it but the story was just so blah, I'm kinda speechless about it, like I thought I would hate it but I just feel so indifferent to the film. Then the set-up for the Justice League felt very forced, like it was interesting to see those videos of Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman and Batman finding out the identity of Diana but the film was supposed to be Superman/Batman and they were teasing Justice League so much in the middle of the movie? The dream sequence where Flash was featured felt so tacked in, it was bad! They could have saved most of it at the end of the film. Its just too many things happening at the same time and they didn't let the film to breathe. It was just hard for me to care what was happening, I didn't even care when Superman died. I didn't care about the characters, like Wonder Woman was kinda cool with her action scenes but you could take her out of the film and it wouldn't matter much to the main story of the film which wasn't about teasing the Justice League. The film wasn't also fun, it was too damn serious and the scenes that were supposed to be emotional or suspenseful, just left me indifferent. There were a lot of lines that felt off too especially a lot of lines from Lex Luthor. Warner Brothers, the director and the writers just wasted a lot of potential just like with Man of Steel, like they got a nice cast, they got the budget, like I didn't even mind if the CGI looked so videogamey, like at least the characters looked good and they weren't limited when it came to spectacle, I even liked how Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman got their own theme, its just the story was such a mess, that it really destroyed the film.

5/10

 

[The Joker]

Very comparable, yes. Bland motivations and cheesy dialogue included, they are like Saturday morning cartoon villains...though in some cases that might be insult to the cartoon ones.

Exactly. I could slot Eisenberg's Luthor into a Schumacher Batman movie, and he wouldn't look out of place in it.

 

[bapi]

Exactly. I could slot Eisenberg's Luthor into a Schumacher Batman movie, and he wouldn't look out of place in it.

True.

 

[Kane52630]

My review (spoilers are light)

Spoiler

The best way to describe this movie is overstuffed and exhausting randomness. Snyder and WB obviously wanted to play catch up and have their universe set up as fast as possible, so they packed in several different storylines. They basically wanted to combine The Dark Knight Returns with The Death of Superman and have the set up a Justice League film all in one movie.

I have to say now with two movies in, I don't think Snyder, Goyer, and WB even like or understand Superman. And that goes hand in hand with Cavill's performance with both Clark and Superman. He isn't given much dialogue to have a personality or be charming. He's like an avatar with no driver and you leave with other people (Like Lois or Ma Kent) talk in his behalf. And it sucks because I feel like he's got the look of Superman and Clark down perfectly.

And now this comes to why Snyder really took on Man of Steel... it's to get to Batman. It's obvious that Snyder, Goyer, WB... and everyone else that they really care about Batman. So it doesn't surprise me that they didn't give Superman a real sequel and instead crowbar in Batman as fast as possible. That being said, I thought the best thing about this movie is Ben Affleck's portrayal as Batman. When he was first announced I never thought he'd be awful. Whenever it was just Batman or Bruce on screen, the movie really works. It gave you an older Batman that, for the first time, actually fights like Batman. Now the only problems I have with this version of Batman is I do think Snyder and Goyer completely missed Batman's no kill/guns policy. There was no shying away from the fact that he straight up ran people over with his Batmobile or shoot to kill any goons that was in his way. Now if the script was better maybe you can justify it with an older Batman, but there was nothing given.

I wont deny when I first heard that Gal Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman I had my serious doubts. When she was cast I thought she didn't have the acting chops or the look of Wonder Woman. And I have to say I got one of those right. Despite how little she was involved in the movie, I was thoroughly surprise how she got the mannerisms of Wonder Woman down well. And while I really like her Wonder Woman costume, which I've said since that was revealed, I still don't see her as Wonder Woman. She still looks like a runway model who happen to have a great Wonder Woman costume.

This also goes back to the randomness of the movie, they crowbar in the Justice League members with the laziest explanation. A computer drive from LEXCorp that shows you your new members. The scene with Wonder Woman looking through the files feels too much of an after credits scene to be thrown in at a random point of the film. And speaking of random, the editor who sadly have to put all these scenes together didn't do a great job. While I really enjoyed the first hour of the movie this movie shared the same problems I had with Man of Steel. It just goes from scene to scene with no build up. It just felt jarring to not have real arches to the story.

And now to the extremely bad. I thought whoever thought it would be great idea to have Jesse Eisenberg to play a Lex Luthor that acts like he's The Riddler or Joker needs to be fired. I don't have anything against Jesse, I really like him as an actor, but he was given crap material to work with. It almost felt like they saw what Electro did in TASM2 and use that as basis. And the idea and execution to use Zod's body to create Doomsday is not only laughable but straight up dumb. That final act wasn't a climax... it was one big EDM lightshow that not only undo what they've built storywise with the consequences of the destruction of Metropolis, they double down on it. And on top of that Doomsday didn't even look like Doomsday, it looks like they reused the CG of the cave trolls from The Hobbit.

With all that being said, It's not the worst film i've seen in my life, but this reeks of lazy planning on everyone who was in charge with the making of this film. It's a half of a film and the half they cared about was Batman.

5/10

 

[The Endless]

Snyder should have adapted Mark Waid's Irredeemable if he wanted to tell a story about a cynical, self doubting God amongst men.

I'm open to different interpretations of characters. But the ESSENCE must remain. The ESSENCE of Superman is not in either of Snyder's films. It really is as simple as that.

It's like his Superman is a borderline sociopath who completely resents his responsibilities. Superman is still a man sure. But the great thing about him is he is strong enough and optimistic enough to embrace his role, to be proud of it. Not totally burdened and depressed about it.

He's not Dr Manhatten. He's not The Plutonian. He's not The Sentry...

HE'S ****ING SUPERMAN!

To me it's very clear that Snyder's A: doesn't understand Superman B: doesnt like Superman C: both.

It's like Snyder is one of those ********s who has always viewed Superman as this corny and lame do gooder.

 

[Angel0fDeath]

[YT]A2qCXGsrXBU[/YT]

 

[antoineflemming]

Snyder should have adapted Mark Waid's Irredeemable if he wanted to tell a story about a cynical, self doubting God amongst men.

I'm open to different interpretations of characters. But the ESSENCE must remain. The ESSENCE of Superman is not in either of Snyder's films. It really is as simple as that.

It's like his Superman is a borderline sociopath who completely resents his responsibilities. Superman is still a man sure. But the great thing about him is he is strong enough and optimistic enough to embrace his role, to be proud of it. Not totally burdened and depressed about it.

He's not Dr Manhatten. He's not The Plutonian. He's not The Sentry...

HE'S ****ING SUPERMAN!

To me it's very clear that Snyder's A: doesn't understand Superman B: doesnt like Superman C: both.

It's like Snyder is one of those ********s who has always viewed Superman as this corny and lame do gooder.

Sorry, we must have watched different movies, because Superman never came across as being cynical in this movie.

 

[Matt]

https://mobile.***********/Seinfeld2000/status/713385013887143936/video/1

 

[BH/HHH]

My re-review

In my initial review I gave the film an 8/10, I wasn't wholly keen on the score (although I did love the repeat themes from Man of Steel and the Batman theme) and after looking forward to Jesse Eisenberg as Lex he didn't quite hit the mark for me. But the big thing for me was just how weird it felt, was it the 3D? Was it the Dolby sound with the score feeling overbearing? Was it just disbelief that my two favourite superheroes had met on screen in live action for the first time? Maybe all of those reasons or maybe none. Still as I've said on this forum before, despite that I couldn't stop smiling.

So today I had my second viewing, it was in big standard 2D with normal sound and I came out of the film feeling buzzed. The weird feeling had gone, I loved the score (maybe more so because it was so loud) and I loved Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. What changed? I think I knew what to expect, I had processed that first viewing and I was able to see it flow properly, catching things I'd missed before.

All in all BvS is an 8.5-9/10 for me. I think a third viewing will cement that score for me.

 

[X Knight]

got back from my screening.

I don't really get all the hate, because to my surprise, I really enjoyed it! I loved it!!

8/10 for me.

 

[Silvermoon]

Got back from seeing it a while ago.

I enjoyed it but not as much as I enjoyed Man of Steel and it definitely had some problems. One of the biggest problems for me, was Lex. Both the choice in Jessie Eisenberg to play him as well as the overall writing of the character.

The beginning of the film felt very disjointed, wasn't a huge fan of all of the 'dream sequences'. Snyder went way overboard (IMO) with the use of slow motion. The music was also too heavy handed in places.

Finally, for a film that was a sequel to Man of Steel, where in that film I actually enjoyed the emotional arc of Clark Kent, in this movie he was awfully flat. Snyder managed to make Henry Cavill boring. Something I was not expecting in this film.

I did like Ben Affleck as Batman - I would watch a solo Batman film with him, I liked a lot of the side characters as well (loved Irons as Alfred, for example). Liked the intro of Wonder Woman and I also liked the brief cameos of the other Justice League characters (I remain optimistic towards Aquaman, something i never thought I'd say before the casting of Momoa), and I liked what elements of humor there was in it - I kind of wish there had been a little bit more.

All in all, I'd probably give this a 6-7/10 (haven't quite decided which yet). Count me among those that think that maybe Snyder needs to step away from the DCEU

 

[BlackFox]

Feel a little late to the party but finally got to see it. I think this films biggest crime is that its just ok, not terrible, not amazing, just sort of ok. It has some moments of greatness even at times but there's just not enough of them to hang together as an overall great film, a case of being less than the some of its parts you could say. Maybe thats the biggest issue though the weight of expectation was that it would be the most epic and set a new standard of comic book movies and had to live up to not only a certain other studios already established cinematic universe but also coming after probably the best CBM trilogy ever it just was too much of a mountain to climb. In the end it just feels a bit of a let down maybe but in the internet world its all or nothing and so it ends up being one extreme or another when in reality its an ok film that has several flaws that hold it back from being something really special like it hints at, at times. A quick summary of the likes and dislikes should cover my initial thoughts that spring to mind from the first viewing:

Likes

Spoiler

-Affleck was pretty decent as Batman/Bruce, probably the standout character and performance.
-WW action sequences were pretty epic and she had some great moments, her acting however...
-Batman rescue sequence of Ma Kent was stupendous and very well done and put together, this seemed like an angry Bat's and it showed in his fighting style.
-Most of the supporting cast were all great, Adams, Fishburne, Irons all brought something to the table.
-Some great imagery and comic book page like shots.
-The hero shot of all three of the holy Trinity was a pretty awesome moment.
-Final fight worked nicely in showing the three heroes have to work together to bring DD down.
-Supermans death was really well done and actually hit home even though the film hadnt really earn't it.

Dislikes

Spoiler

-Some horrible and quite obvious green screen
-Gal Gadot - not 100% convinced by the acting yet
-Lex - performance was zany for zany's sake at times and his motivations were muddy/non-coherent
-Superman - I'm not an expert on Supes but a for symbol of hope, he seemed pretty hope-less.
-Some scenes were just odd/awkward/poorly defined. The "Inception" style dream within a dream being the worst offender and Superman appearing in the middle of the road the other.
-Very weak shoehorning of other characters to "build the Universe".
-Doomsday - meh

So all in all Zack Snyder continues to do what Zack Snyder does, make a very pretty looking film with moments of brilliance that is unfortunately got little substance to back it up with. No doubt the fallout from this will run and run and opinion will go from one to extreme to another as with these films. Its a shame its not quite as good as the ambition that was shown and at least they tried to do something different to set themselves apart from both Nolan's DC world and that other CBM world that shall remain nameless but it hasnt "quite" come off yet.

6.9/10


(NB: One slight caveat, but if the extended R-rated film features 30 minutes of Amy Adams in a bath tub with full on nudity then my score straight way goes to 10/10)

 

[Heamic32]

It was an okay movie. Wasn't one of my favorites. I get bored easily, and I was already exhausted so the first part was kinda boring to me. I would watch it again, though. I'd give it a 6/10. I need a good night's sleep, then I need to watch it again

 

[souperman]

not sure if posted but good review;

http://deadline.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman-review-ben-affleck-harry-cavill-gal-gadot-1201725504/

 

[Vaibow]

Honestly, right now, i feel they could easily introduce superman in a TV series and it would actually be applauded - what people want to see, is Superman being superman, based on all the reviews.

Let's have an updated version of Lois & Clark. Please don't tell me it would cost too much - it wouldn't. With brains, this could be an excellent series.

Split the series in 3. Intro to clark as he moves to metropolis, life in metropolis and then fully fledged superman.

One rescue an episode would be perfect, vancouver would be a great metropolis and the sub plot is lex wanting domination, whatever the cost.

Focus is purely on Clark and Lois and their lives - lex would be pulling strings from behind.

My cast -
Clark Kent/Superman - Armie Hammer
Lois Lane - Nina Dobrev
Lex Luthor - Billy Zane

Think about it.

 

[TripleJ]

Honestly, right now, i feel they could easily introduce superman in a TV series and it would actually be applauded - what people want to see, is Superman being superman, based on all the reviews.

Let's have an updated version of Lois & Clark. Please don't tell me it would cost too much - it wouldn't. With brains, this could be an excellent series.

Split the series in 3. Intro to clark as he moves to metropolis, life in metropolis and then fully fledged superman.

One rescue an episode would be perfect, vancouver would be a great metropolis and the sub plot is lex wanting domination, whatever the cost.

Focus is purely on Clark and Lois and their lives - lex would be pulling strings from behind.

My cast -
Clark Kent/Superman - Armie Hammer
Lois Lane - Nina Dobrev
Lex Luthor - Billy Zane

Think about it.

That's just sad...people don't want to see Clark becoming Superman.

Well, they do have Supergirl

Sure, it's not an experienced Superman (you still have her making mistakes and all). But, it's lighter in tone - so it might be more appealing to some fans.

 

[X Knight]

I do feel like the Supergirl show is very much in the same vein as Lois and Clark.

 

[NoLaNitE007]

A fair positive review from USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...an-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-movie/82089610/