BATMAN V SUPERMAN: The Dawn of Justice

Batman V Superman: The Dawn of Justice could very well have been aptly named the Dusk of Justice as Zack Snyder brings us yet another dreary but artful superhero slam fest.  

Somehow the powers that be in the DC Superhero universe decided that the rest of the Superheroes would go down the same dark highway that Christopher Nolan put Batman on.  The problem is that Superman was never supposed to go down that road.  He's the eternal boy scout, the farm boy infused with the Kent's selfless morals and a joy that Zack Snyder knows nothing of.  In this latest installment Martha Kent tells Clark he can choose to be the earth's hero or choose not to.  This is not how the Kents raised Clark.  They taught him to be selfless and use his power to help all men regardless of their adoration or disdain of him.

Zack is a good director.  He keeps things moving even when there is a slow build up to the action scenes.  He is an amazing visual artist.  He seems to have some semblance of a faith and there is a respect for God in some of what he does.

These DC Movies just don't have the same tone as the Marvel movies where Spidey and Captain America are able to have a psuedo-realism that manages to maintain what I can only describe as a sense of superhero joy and a lightheartedness.  Zack himself said that his movies are: "transcendent of (Marvel) movies in a way, because they're Batman and Superman.  They're not just like, the flavour of the week Ant Man."  So apparently Zack is getting what he wants.  Almost an anti-Marvel tone to the DC movies.  This can be seen in the body count that Batman alone leaves in his wake.


Disturbing.

But I think a line from this new Batman V Superman movie by Perry White, played by Laurence Fishburne, sums it up.  "It's not 1938."  Superman, in these last two movies is still a good man, he still has Jonathan Kent's morals in his heart, but he is the Superman of 2016, not the Superman of 1938. 

We tend to wish for former days when things were simpler.  But I think I am beginning to understand Zack Snyder.  Zack Snyder and his screenwriters Chris Terrio and David Goyer seem to be a product of the Graphic Novel Era such as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, where I am a product of good old fashioned comics.  Comics were light hearted in a world where it wasn't New York it was Metropolis and it wasn't Chicago it was Central City and the bad guys were Gorilla Grodd, and Lex Luthor in purple and green tights firing their death ray from a giant robot. Where Graphic Novels wanted to put these heroes in a world where drug dealers and human traffickers were the bad guys.  

So I get it.  Zack Snyder wants Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman to be the complicated champions of good in a dark world.  There's nothing wrong with that.  This movie does address the question of what would happen if there were really Superheroes clashing with Super Villains in real cities.  Face it.  You would be stupid to live in a major city where there were real Superheroes.  Talk about a risky place to live.    

But while I long for the old "feel" of Superman (I'd like to see a Superman film that feels like Captain America: The Winter Soldier  set in 1938) I do realize that Superman made his debut when the world needed him.  Hitler had just taken over Austria and the world was still recovering from the Great Depression.  Things were so bad that Superman's poor creators Jerry and Joe had to draw him on butcher paper.  But in the middle of all that Superman was a symbol of hope and that's why the world fell in love with him.  

In this new movie Lois reminds Clark that his "S" shield means hope.  In his despair Superman tells Lois that he doesn't think anyone can remain good in this world.  However, when it comes down to it, Superman shows us that there is still hope and he shows us what a true hero is and what a true hero does.  

The movie is long but moves along at an unboring pace.  Zack could have cut one of Batman's dream sequences down a bit, although I think the scene is a foretelling of a future event.   

The haters can say what they want but I think Ben Affleck did a good job of playing Bruce Wayne and Batman.  Henry still makes a good Superman.  Amy Adam's Lois is tough and human and a good reporter.  Gal Gadot, an Israeli model turned actor, is a good Wonder Woman and I look forward to her movie next year.  Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor is a creepy, disturbing and  deranged "mad scientist" and he does a great job.  Funny how life imitates art.  In 1988 Lex Luthor, a deranged. red-haired billionaire was running for president in the comics.  But I digress.
I do wish they would clean up Perry White's mouth a bit. Laurence Fishburne plays a grumpy, jaded, but still good hearted editor of the Daily Planet. 

Hans Zimmer's music is good but just like last time, a little bombastic.  Superman and Batman's themes are good but giving Wonder Woman a screaming electric guitar theme just didn't fit the sound of the rest of the film and was out of place.

All in all I was surprised by how much I liked the film.  I went in with the expectation that it was gonna stink and it sure didn't.

Good job, Zack. 

'Nuff Said.