"Batman v. Superman" vs. Quality

Despite the "v.," this movie is not about a court case.
Though what a court case that would be...

As the world's two most famous superheroes, Batman and Superman have a long history together, both in the comics and outside of them. But these two heroes had frustrated attempts to put them together in film--though there were many attempts*. And one can understand why: probably every kid who knew of the characters growing up imagined them teaming up, fighting, or some combination thereof. And then those kids grew up to become executives in a movie studio that owns the rights to both characters who realize that both Batman and Superman have starred in successful films on their own, so why not throw them together and make even more money? 

That combination of juvenile imagination and crass profiteering has brought us the portentously-titled Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice**. Directed by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen), who may be stuck making comic book movies for the rest of his life, with a screenplay by David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio, Batman v. Superman is both a direct sequel to Man of Steel (which Snyder also directed, and Goyer also wrote) and the launching pad of a DC "Cinematic Universe" to compete with Marvel's. And that's only one of its problems. For Batman v. Superman, aside from some occasional promise, is undone by both the defective imagination of its creators and the crass profit motive that willed it into existence.

It would be hard to describe the plot of Batman v. Superman. But a clear, compelling plot is not really the reason anyone saw the movie anyway (though many did), nor why the movie came into existence. But I would neglect my duty as a film critic whose opinion nobody is really seeking if I didn't at least try. So here goes: After the events of Man of Steel, in which, if you don't know, Superman saved the day at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill, who looks the part but still doesn't quite get how to act it) is still saving the world. But the world isn't so sure it wants to be saved--at least, not in the way Superman does it***. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck****, whose performance refutes the basic concerns that he was wrong for the role) doesn't believe Superman can be trusted. And Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, strangely cast, and bizarrely portraying Luthor as a seemingly drug-addled college student who just read Nietzsche for the first time) wants to make them fight, because...well, somebody had to make it happen.

All sorts of convoluted things happen to get us to the point where Batman and Superman actually fight. Some of them are intriguing. The opening scenes of the film, which restage the final battle of Man of Steel from the ground-level perspective of Bruce Wayne, portray a unique helplessness and impotence in the face of catastrophe (although so did The Avengers, really). Bruce Wayne himself, to whom we are introduced in this sequence, is, once again, an interesting character, and does a fine job with the Wayne/Batman the script asks him to play. Every once in a while, Luthor, despite his bizarre characterization, says something mildly clever ("The shortest distance between two points is a straight path...and the straightest path to Superman is a pretty little road called Lois Lane"). These and other elements hint at the good movie that is buried somewhere deep within Batman v. Superman.

Yet Batman v. Superman is not itself that movie. Far from it. And it is prevented from becoming that in the first place by its creative course. After the opening scenes replaying Man of Steel, the first third of the movie makes very little sense*****. I, as a bona fide nerd (see, e.g., my entire blog), had trouble following what was going on, and trouble waiting it out once I knew what was. 

As for the characters, I've already briefly mentioned my problems with its three principals, but I'll expand on them here. Superman is no longer an upbeat beacon of hope and light, but a dark, mopey (if Cavill could convey moping, that is) quasi-anti-hero. Ben Affleck is fine as the Batman he has to work with, but that Batman is more of a Rorschach than a Caped Crusader, now fine with killing and ruthless in every way. Snyder tries to have it both ways with his portrayal of Batman, lifting some of the moody iconography of the Nolan films (and, of course, showing the deaths of his parents again), but replacing their moral nuance with a sort of oppressing, overwhelming darkness (and, of course, abandoning Nolan's commitment to technical realism in shooting action scenes, but that was inevitable).

And I could never quite take Eisenberg's seemingly drug-addled, first-time Nietszche-reading Luthor, with his pseudo-pretentious argle-bargle about POWER and ABSOLUTES and KNOWLEDGE seriously. Nor could I believe him an antagonist equal to Superman, a feat previous incarnations of the character mostly achieved. Nor could I understand his motivations--he wants to check Superman and Batman because Communists ruled his father, but his father abused him as a child...? Watching him, I found myself longing for Clancy Brown, or Gene Hackman, or even Kevin Spacey. And I found myself wishing that one of the early casting rumors had come true: Bryan Cranston? Tom Hanks? Either would have been much better. But neither could have saved the movie.

For casting alone did not doom Batman v. Superman. Its superfluous flourishes helped make that happen. If you took out every inscrutable dream sequence, every slow-mo action shot, every voice-over montage, and every heavy-handed attempt, in the form of a montage of news clips of people discussing that very issue, to make Batman v. Superman into the would-be-profound meditation on how mankind would treat gods, you would go a long way to improving the movie from the dour, super-serious, self-indulgent mess it is. You would also cut out about an hour of its running time. But problems would remain******.

For even correcting the excesses of its creators' imagination leaves the dictates of the profit motive, determining what Batman v. Superman can and can't do. Now, I am no idealist about Hollywood. I understand that movies are supposed to make money. But Batman v. Superman shoulders its excess load of franchise-creating responsibility poorly, since DC feels itself so far behind Marvel in building its cinematic universe. Thus does Luthor have a mostly unexplained and unexplored interest in "metahumans" that allows the movie to introduce the entire roster of the soon-to-be Justice League. Thus do many of the movie's incomprehensible dream sequences exist solely to introduce elements of future movies. And thus is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) a major character in this movie, for some reason. She gets some good moments, to be sure, but you know she wouldn't be in the movie if not because the studio overlords demanded it.

Batman v. Superman, in short, has repulsed me more from the commercial logic of the comic book movie than any of the comic book movies I've seen (and adds to my related concern that we are trapped in a clogged toilet bowl pop culture, where the same stuff just keeps swirling around and around). Sure, some of the comic book movies I've seen have been worse. But none of them have been so naked in their sacrificing art for the sake of a franchise. If I told all of this to Snyder, he would surely point to all of the superficial, contrived, "edgy" elements of the movie. And he would have some to point to (as problematic as they are; see above).

But I would then judge him, and Batman v. Superman, on how truly "edgy" those moments appear once the necessities of endless story continuation have ironed them all out. And then I would judge us, the paying audiences, for being responsible. For we are, in the end, the ones who pay for these things. Some $160 million worth of ticket-buyers, many of them probably as intrigued about seeing Batman and Superman together on screen as they were as children, saw Batman v. Superman this weekend. Until we audiences demand better, more self-contained, more compelling movies, with higher dramatic stakes, better writing, better characters, then Batman v. Superman will remain not the comic book movie we need, but the one we deserve*******. They should have just stuck with the cartoon.


*If you saw I Am Legend, you witnessed a bit of this history, even if you didn't realize it.
**Or, as the marquees at the theater at which I saw the movie (correctly) called it: Batman.
***In making Batman v. Superman hinge directly upon the negative effects of events of Man of Steel, Snyder and his team probably unintentionally turn Batman v. Superman into a sort of ironic meta-commentary on Man of Steel itself.
****In short, he has no reason to be sad.
*****At one point, for example, the Capitol building explodes, which is a weird thing to watch happen when you see the movie in Washington, D.C and live in Capitol Hill, as I do.
******Such as an antagonist, in Doomsday, who is literally the incarnation of brute force. And that's it.
*******If you want a super-contrarian take on the movie, see here.