If Batman vs Superman had properly investigated its dual protagonists, then they would have never come to blows.
Exactly, which is why the film goes out of its way to show that Superman does everything in his power to avoid coming to blows with Batman, and Batman only is convinced blows are necessary through a combination of external manipulation and PTSD clouding his judgment.
The movie ignores who it asserts these characters are and what they represent so that it can present the spectacle of their grudge match.
The film asserts that Batman is a hero who has been retraumatized by the Black Zero event and the sum total of two decades of failures and losses. We're shown that grief, tragedy, loss, and failure has turned a good man cruel. Given this context, Batman's actions are far from contrived. Superman, on the other hand, is presented as naive yet still committed to his mission as Superman. He saves people, he investigates abuses of power, and he complies with government investigations. Superman is asserted to be someone whose greatest weakness is his emotional attachments, and this is exactly what Lex exploits. Even so, Superman never seriously executes a plan to use violence to solve his problems. He finds hope in those he loves, and he only fights Batman in self defense.
They are not empathetic, they are cyphers. Nothing is earned. Everything is built upon either gross sentimentality or manipulation and frigidity. They are puppets thrown at each other for an expensive special effects sequence. In The Dark Knight Returns, the final fight is staged between a Fascist Batman and a Superman who swears allegiance to the Regan Administration; they are at clear ideological odds, and so their fight develops naturally over the course of the narrative.
Batman and Superman are presented as empathetic, in my view. I empathize with Bruce's trauma: the fear, anxiety, and depression that has caused him to lose control of his judgment and even sanity. He's spent twenty years watching everything he's tried to achieve come to nothing. He's lost friends. He was powerless to save his people at Wayne Enterprises in Metropolis when Zod attacked. Do I agree with him? No, but there's nothing about Bruce's feelings or actions that I do not feel for or understand.
Superman is far from a cypher. He's an alien -- an other -- who is still working out his own identity, but he's also struggling with the mutability of public opinion. He wants to do good and tries to do good, but it never seems to come without a price. And no matter how many times he saves people, he still is not trusted. In those circumstances, he clings to those who love him and truly know him. He investigates Batman because he sees in him someone who is giving heroes like himself a bad name. He cares about powerful men abusing their power. More than anything, I can empathize with Superman's discouragement. The despair that can seep in when the good you do is unappreciated, or worse, misinterpreted. I empathize with his frustration with having power while also having to apply that power with restraint and humility lest people fear or hate you. I empathize with how challenging it can be to stay true to yourself when the things that mean most to you in this world are at risk.
In Batman vs Superman, the conflict develops unnaturally. Their battle is a manipulation by the raconteurs.
A point that I love and find utterly compelling. I love the idea that even with their ideological differences, Batman and Superman do not have it in themselves to actually fight. I love the suggestion that conflict between two heroes who should by all rights be allies and friends must be manipulated by men of privilege and power in order to reach the point of violent conflict. Because that is a concept that is so real to me. There are so many disparate groups in this world with common interests who would be best served by working together to achieve progressive goals, but there are powerful entities who use their power to stoke fear and hate in order to maintain the status quo. For example, politicians often use fear to win elections, start wars, or justify a crackdown on civil liberties.
Lex Luthor, another character with motivations that are poorly related and often unclear and outright unbelievable, coerces Superman to challenge The Batman.
Poorly related? He was raised by an abusive father who taught him to fear tyrants. Lex is a brilliant, powerful, and wealthy man who uses his intelligence, power, and wealth to maintain control. The existence of Superman threatens Lex's sense of control and security. He's someone whose power and goodness challenge Lex because Lex cannot equal him. Lex projects onto Superman both his hatred for his father and his hatred for a god who failed to save him. Typically, Lex Luthor despises Superman and seeks to destroy him because he believes himself to be humanity's true Superman. He believes humanity is threatened by superior beings from other worlds. He's a true Ubermensch. DCEU Lex is hardly cut from a different cloth.
You see, he's kidnapped a woman whom Superman loves (my God, how trite). With all the powers we've been shown this Superman possesses, he still chooses to face the belligerent Batman rather than exercise his considerable abilities and save his mother himself.
It is trite to kidnap someone a hero loves to generate conflict, but given what we know about Superman in this universe, it is the only play that makes sense. It is also a creative decision that links Batman and Superman together -- creates empathy -- in a way that allows the film to explore how love, empathy, and connection can resolve conflict. Superman chooses to face Batman because he wanted to believe that there was something in Batman that was still good. He was not proven wrong. Superman was told that if he was caught in the act of saving his mother, then she was as good as dead. He was also told that he had considerable time constraints. Superman examined the situation in front of him and chose faith in his fellow man as his strategy. That's the kind of Superman I want to see. I want to see a Superman who is capable of believing that someone as belligerent as Batman could see reason and be a hero. I want to see a Superman who believes in second chances.
And Batman, for all his intelligence, can't see he is wrong about Superman's intentions even though every layman in the audience can.
First of all, Batman is not privileged with the same omniscient point of view of the audience. Second, it's ludicrous to suggest that intelligence has anything to do with stripping a man of his paranoia and mental illness. Alfred called Bruce's descent a fever that turns good men cruel. One cannot cure a fever with intelligence. Bruce is blinded by his own trauma, depression, and sense of powerless. He has lost control. But that's why it is powerful to see the means by which he begins to convalesce and regain control. He is confronted with an image of himself becoming his own nightmare, and it opens the door for Bruce to reconnect with his true self. He can see himself and see his world more clearly because his greatest trauma was recreated.
Why do the filmmakers do this? Because they need these characters to take these weak actions if they are going to make good on the promise in their title.
They do this to explore the imperfections of heroes. How heroes can fall, and how they can rise. They do this to show us that heroes are not above PTSD, they are not above having love as a weakness, they are not above despair, they are not above doubt. The title promised only that the conflict between Batman and Superman would be the cause of a dawn of justice. The conflict, therefore, must explore the barriers that stand between heroes coming together to serve a greater good. The film, rightly, explores and exploits the most significant flaws in these iconic characters. For Bruce, his greatest flaw is his cynicism, control, and inability to break free of the trauma of his parents' death. For Clark, his greatest strength, which is his love for humanity, is also his greatest weakness. His need for acceptance and connection as a source of his optimism and hope is challenged.
Then when enough punches have been thrown, and the filmmakers need the fight to end, they stop it on a dime and give the audience the inevitable team-up.
It's not a dime. It's Bruce seeing himself clearly. It's Bruce seeing how far he has fallen. It's Bruce being confronted with the humanity of a man he refused to see as anything other than an abstraction onto which to project his own sense of powerlessness.
Then they have the gall to kill Superman, this univestigated, undercooked cypher, and expect the audience to be affected.
Uninvestigated? The film investigates Superman's sense of belonging and his sense of purpose. He begins by believing that people can see the good in him and will ultimately vindicate him only to see that hope slowly fade as his every attempt to do good and inspire hope in people only seems to breed more fear and more conflict. We see Superman as his alter ego, Clark Kent, pursuing social justice because he recognizes and is intrigued by another hero who is abusing his power. It's heroes like Batman that condition people to believe that someone like Superman cannot be an impeachable source of good. We see that what gives Superman the strength to overcome his hopelessness is to hold onto to the hope that the woman he loves has for him. I am affected just by the idea of a wrongly persecuted man who chooses to sacrifice his life for a world that has chosen to see the worst in him.
Then, a few minutes later, when they bring him back to life before the end credits, they expect a cheer. Frigidity and manipulation of the highest order. Truly an ill-wrought story and an unsatisfying, dishonest movie.
They didn't bring him back to life. There was a hint of a promise, but that promise has not yet been fulfilled.
