Saw this yesterday. Have VERY mixed feelings. Much of what I feared about them trying to cram so much into one film and it sadly suffers as a result. On the flipside it does more than a few things right but does just as much wrong. I think some of the more negative reviews have blown things out of proportion, though I do understand many of the criticisms. This was a film that essentially tried to be five movies in one: a Man Of Steel sequel, a new Batman film, a Batman and Superman crossover, a Justice League Origin story and a Death Of Superman adaptation; how was it not going to be bloated?
What was good:
Ben Affleck was excellent as Batman. He was very intimidating and at times actually quite frightening, and he has a very menacing Bat voice (much better than Bale's for sure). No complaints about his Batman portrayal at all. I did take some issue with certain aspects of his Batman but they had nothing to do with his performance. No doubt in my mind he's Batman for this generation.
Henry Cavill still has it as Superman, very likeable and he plays him with the right balance of edge and kindness. And here I actually liked Lois better than in MOS.
Gal Gadot is surprisingly good as Wonder Woman, though I still don't care for her costume.
Jeremy Irons was excellent as Alfred and I'll go so far as to say he's my favorite version of him, yet. Did so much with so little.
Some of the action scenes are pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the Batmobile being in action and Batman's big brawl later on. While the third act is messy, I did take some joy in seeing Doomsday and seeing his battle against Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.
While I was never blown away, I also was never bored and the movie kept my attention throughout. Entertaining to a point.
What I didn't like:
Jesse Eisenberg feels off as Lex, which to be fair is more due to the writing than him. He feels more like a Joker/Riddler hybrid than Lex.
Much as I wanted to see him in live-action, Doomsday should've been saved and used as the sole antagonist for the third solo Superman film in the MOS canon. Here his inclusion felt completely forced in, much like Venom in Spider-Man 3. Didn't much care for his design either, nor having Zod become him.
Even with the plausible reason behind it the film gives, I still have a hard time buying that Batman would ever distrust Superman under any circumstances and view him as a true threat or enemy.
Some scenes feel pointless and like they never amount to much of anything, like the terrorist scene early on. And the editing in some spots, particularly later on, could've been much better. Made the film feel even more disjointed at times.
The cameos by Aquaman, the Flash and Cyborg felt totally useless and Wonder Woman herself felt like she could've been deleted from the film and not much affect it at all.
Agan, trying to squeeze so much into one film. It made the movie feel very rushed and sloppy in parts with how it was trying to do so much.
The nightmare sequence felt dumb to me and realy should've been excised.
The actual battle between Batman and Superman honestly underwhelmed me and it took up very little of the film. Has shades of Freddy Vs. Jason in the sense the two title characters clashed very little throughout. And I still feel it was far too soon to be doing any crossovers with this new Superman and throwing a whole new Batman into the fray who wasn't previously developed.
Do you really buy that Superman is dead for one second at the end? You know he'll be revived for the Justice League two-parter. His death would've had much more emotional impact had this been the third and final film in a solo MOS trilogy which I still feel was the way to go for this incarnation.
All in all a VERY mixed bag of a movie with as many high points as it has lows. This is a shining example of a movie that tries to have it's cake and eat it, too. It's not horrible nor particularly good, just incredibly average and unremarkable, which aren't words that should be used to describe any comic book film after the vast array of good ones to come out over the past decade. Even moreso when you take into account this is the first ever live-action Batman and Superman crossover film. There's so much wasted potential here and it's truly sad because the ingredients were there for this to be epic and it turned out so underwhelming and unremarkable. I loved Man Of Steel and it gave me hope for the rest of the DCCU but now it's hard not to be more than a little worried after this.
My rating would probably be about a 6/10. Average with some very good things about it. It's a frustrating film with all it did right mixed in with all it did wrong and how it should've been.
