Warning: If you haven’t yet seen Batman v Superman, this review contains spoilers.
It’s no surprise superhero movies are popping up like daisies: The genre is a huge hit with all audiences, and a huge money maker for names like DC and Marvel. But here is the question: is the quality of the movie sacrificed by the rush to get out the next big title?
Batman v Superman was released on March 25, and has made $424 million in the box office since. Clearly people are going to see it, but the reviews are mixed. With only a 29 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to a 56 percent for Man of Steel, it begs the question: What went wrong?
The movie had an amazing casting line up, with big names such as Ben Affleck and Amy Adams, and incredible name recognition. The problem is the story line was incredibly rushed.
There were holes in the plot that were never explained: the robin suit in the Batcave, Batman’s black ooze dream and, the biggest offender: Batman’s futuristic nightmare in a post-apocalyptic like desert. There was never an explanation to any of these scenes even though they took up a large portion of time that could have been used to strengthen the plot.
Another issue was the way the Batman role was written. Ben Affleck was already in the spotlight for being thrown in as a new Batman, and the character was written as a much different Batman than fans were used to. The previous Batman trilogy, where Christian Bale was cast as Batman, built up certain standards for the hero: He doesn’t kill anyone, he thinks before he acts, he has Gotham’s best interest in mind.
The way this new Batman was written threw all of these qualities out the window. The Batman in Batman v Superman was ruthless, rash and borderline psychopathic. He killed henchmen at the drop of a hat, and was prepared to kill Superman if he had to. This is not the Batman fans know and love. This Batman seemed to walk the line of hero and villain.
However, not all of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character was lost. Ben Affleck pulled off the egotistical billionaire Bruce Wayne better than Christian Bale could. This just shows that if his character is written correctly, he can pull it off. Which means the Batman character was just poorly written.
Even though the Batman character lacked cohesion, Lex Luthor, played by Jesse Eisenberg, was a very three dimensional character with depth. Eisenberg played up the psychopathic villain in this role: He made the audience shudder and squirm like the bad guy should. Lex Luthor was diabolical, casted and written well.
The biggest issue was the feeling of a rushed plot. The audience was thrown into Batman’s character background, with the only connection to Superman being the Bruce Wayne tower being destroyed during the final fight in Superman’s movie, Man of Steel. It is clear Batman blames Superman for the death of his employees, but why would this push Batman to want to murder Superman?
Not only that, but Lois Lane (Amy Adams) was written as a total damsel in distress. Amy Adams is a brilliant actress and played the best she could within the character’s confinements, but Lois’ character was used to further confuse the audience. The scene where she is held captive in Africa and Superman comes to the rescue comes up several times in the movie without an explanation of why she was really there, why this bullet keeps coming up and how Lex Luthor was involved.
Overall, the movie felt rushed. There were scenes which appeared to be major plot points, that were never tied back in correctly and the characters were either a hit or a miss. It’s clear DC could have spent more time on making this film more cohesive, however, there is hype around Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, which is DC’s biggest competitor coming out with an eerily similar plot style. Was Batman v Superman rushed to beat Marvel to the theaters? It sure feels like it.