The Nerd Reviews: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

By now you've either seen the film or have heard/seen all the reviews for the film but you haven't heard mine...until now...well technically I'm writing it so you would see not hear it. Ok enough of the awkward humor, on with the review.

Ben just crushes it as Batman

Batman v Superman centers around the titular characters and chronicles the events leading up to their first meeting and eventual bout. It starts from Batman's perspectives on things during the finale of Man of Steel, where Superman is battling Zod and causing all sorts of destruction. From there we see how Superman is being treated by the public and he's as polarizing a figure to the public in the film as Man of Steel was to the public in real life; there are those who hate him and fear him and those that see him as the savior of all of mankind.  After setting up the characters the heroes get their scuffle on and then, as all hero films do, they team up to fight the bigger threat and save the day. As far as plot goes its pretty run of the mill but for a film like this I wouldn't expect something extremely mind-blowing. Now that that is out of the way lets get into some of the performances from the cast. Right off the bat (pun intended unless it doesn't make sense) I have to talk about Ben Affleck as Batman because I was one of the few people who said he would crush the role and he totally does. As a Batman fan I've been wanting to see comic Batman in films and I hadn't gotten that in previous installments but thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case here. Ben manages to capture that quiet rage extremely well, along with the fact that this Bruce is a battle weary Batman; this fact is most evident in his fight scenes, you can see that this Batman is highly trained at crippling people but he hits with such power and ferocity its almost as if he is trying to exorcise his demons right into someone's face. Now I know a lot of you are thinking "How can he be comic Batman if he kills when comic Batman doesn't kill?" and I completely understand that sentiment but in like no version of cinematic Batman has he not killed/let someone die. You can start as early as the Burton Batman films or even the recent Nolan trilogy, Batman doesn't really seem to mind the whole "you not living" thing as much as he does in comics. Basically people want you to think that this Batman is Frank Castle, but that is simply just not the case. I could talk forever about Ben but there are other characters in the movie, characters like Wonder Woman(who was just a delight to see and now I wanna see her solo asap), Superman ( who I actually felt bad for being he was just getting the worst of it), Lois Lane ( who they really couldn't find out what they wanted to do with her) and of course Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor was another casting choice that caused a stir but I think this one was justified. He was just too wacky for the universe that he inhabits and yes he had moments where you could see the evil genius side (like when he was with Superman on top of Lex Tower) but I just wasn't a fan of how the character was handled. The action scenes in this film were pretty heavy on Batman but they were executed really well and its Batman so I can't really complain, although Wonder Woman did get showcase her skills in the finale...Superman not so much.

A picture of the 3 to break up the text

Normally at this part I would tell you to see it or not but I'm actually gonna take this time to address somethings. When I first heard this was coming out I was imagining myself writing about how its bulllshit how Batman would ever beat Superman because I was thinking that would be on everyone's minds, instead I just hear a lot of people bashing the hell out of this film way more than is necessary. You look online and almost all the reviews are resoundingly negative and I can't help but feel that is simply because it is not a Marvel film. What I mean by that is simple; Marvel films are the rainbows and DC films is the rain. In Marvel films there is pretty much no tension because at the end of each film we all know the heroes are gonna survive. Sure their might be a death but its not of anyone that is significant and with the Infinity Gauntlet in play who is to say that death is even permanent? DC is going their own way and sticking to their guns and I think that is the best possible choice for them, I dont want Marvel films being made by DC, I want DC films by DC. Not every film needs to be this colorful, light hearted affair...I like that I can go to Marvel for that and go to DC for something a bit darker. All the reviews I've seen take the minor flaws the film has and try to make it seems as if its an incoherent mess of a film, hell its almost as if they watched a CinemaSins video (good stuff by the way) or an Honest Trailer (also good) and used that as the basis of their critique. I am not saying that Batman v Superman is a perfect film because we all know it is, but I am going to say that BvS is an enjoyable superhero film. I get to see Batman take out a group of 2 dozen armed thugs, Wonder Woman cut up Doomsday, Superman and Batman scrap, even had a few other moments in the film that made me super excited.  I really feel like the critics just wanted this movie the fail and  took things that were small and made them into dealbreakers.

I give Batman v Superman a 7/10. It is a solid hero flick that will surprise you here and there but its nothing groundbreaking, you get to see your heroes fight people, things explode, heroes save the day....you get it. There are a few things that hold it back like in the beginning how it jumps around and uses a title card for the beginning of an act but then never does that again, and the whole "possible future" thing going on but I will save all that for my spoiler review of the film.