This movie is the superhero equivalent of watching a WWE match. It's dumb, theatrical, fake, sensationalist and schlocky, but it presents itself as hard, cool and meaningful. So, it's really no surprise that critics trashed this, and certain portions of the audience embraced it.
Pros: - The action sequences that don’t involve a lot of CGI are great. - Ben Affleck’s performance as Batman & Jeremy Irons as Alfred. I’ll also say that I like Cavill as Superman more than most. - Some visual flair at a few points - Score, especially the Wonder Woman theme.
Cons: - Incoherent. It has too many threads, many scenes don’t connect to each other or don’t progress the ‘story’. We know it’s possible to do a narrative that resolves around a bunch of subplots, but in that case you need a strong throughline. Just look at Infinity War and how Thanos & the infinity stones tie the entire movie together. This film just has no structure to it, and whatever structure that might’ve been in there at some point is removed through the inclusion of things like Wonder Woman, Doomsday, unnecessary dream sequences, etc. - Some really nonsensical story choices. I’m not just talking about the Martha scene and how that becomes unintentionally hilarious because of its execution, or the spear scene with Lois, or the death of Superman which has no dramatic weight. Let’s also not forget how the (hypocritical) motivations they’d built up for the two heroes became irrelevant when they decided to just have the villain kidnap Superman’s mom and thereby force him to fight Batman. - Mischaracterized & underdeveloped main characters. Especially Batman and Lex Luthor aren’t faithful to the spirit of what those characters should be. - The final action sequence is a visual assault on the eyes, and I don’t mean that in a positive way. - Jesse Eisenberg’s acting is awful, and his performance doesn’t fit with the tone of the film. Gal Gadot’s also pretty bad, but she isn’t in the film that much, so I have less of a problem with that. - Visually ugly. Yes, I know that’s unpopular to say, and I acknowledge that there are some visual highlights, which look great in a clipshow or trailer. However, when you take out a scene, especially one that takes place during daytime, it’s not exactly a good looking film. - I respect the tone that this film was going for. I’m perfectly fine with taking a more realistic approach to these characters. We’ve seen it work in The Dark Knight trilogy and the Daredevil show. The difference is that they still knew how to keep the pace up, despite having a more serious dramatic tone. This film is painfully slow. - Some of the dialogue is really overwritten, trying too hard to be lofty and deep.
Review by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2020-05-20T21:00:21Z— updated 2022-12-25T11:42:29Z
This movie is the superhero equivalent of watching a WWE match.
It's dumb, theatrical, fake, sensationalist and schlocky, but it presents itself as hard, cool and meaningful.
So, it's really no surprise that critics trashed this, and certain portions of the audience embraced it.
Pros:
- The action sequences that don’t involve a lot of CGI are great.
- Ben Affleck’s performance as Batman & Jeremy Irons as Alfred. I’ll also say that I like Cavill as Superman more than most.
- Some visual flair at a few points
- Score, especially the Wonder Woman theme.
Cons:
- Incoherent. It has too many threads, many scenes don’t connect to each other or don’t progress the ‘story’. We know it’s possible to do a narrative that resolves around a bunch of subplots, but in that case you need a strong throughline. Just look at Infinity War and how Thanos & the infinity stones tie the entire movie together. This film just has no structure to it, and whatever structure that might’ve been in there at some point is removed through the inclusion of things like Wonder Woman, Doomsday, unnecessary dream sequences, etc.
- Some really nonsensical story choices. I’m not just talking about the Martha scene and how that becomes unintentionally hilarious because of its execution, or the spear scene with Lois, or the death of Superman which has no dramatic weight. Let’s also not forget how the (hypocritical) motivations they’d built up for the two heroes became irrelevant when they decided to just have the villain kidnap Superman’s mom and thereby force him to fight Batman.
- Mischaracterized & underdeveloped main characters. Especially Batman and Lex Luthor aren’t faithful to the spirit of what those characters should be.
- The final action sequence is a visual assault on the eyes, and I don’t mean that in a positive way.
- Jesse Eisenberg’s acting is awful, and his performance doesn’t fit with the tone of the film. Gal Gadot’s also pretty bad, but she isn’t in the film that much, so I have less of a problem with that.
- Visually ugly. Yes, I know that’s unpopular to say, and I acknowledge that there are some visual highlights, which look great in a clipshow or trailer. However, when you take out a scene, especially one that takes place during daytime, it’s not exactly a good looking film.
- I respect the tone that this film was going for. I’m perfectly fine with taking a more realistic approach to these characters. We’ve seen it work in The Dark Knight trilogy and the Daredevil show. The difference is that they still knew how to keep the pace up, despite having a more serious dramatic tone. This film is painfully slow.
- Some of the dialogue is really overwritten, trying too hard to be lofty and deep.
3.5/10