Given its massive box office, you likely saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice this weekend. And whether you loved it or hated it, chances are you had some questions about the portion of the movie you managed to stay awake for. As always, our patented Spoiler FAQ has the answers you seek!
What is Batman v Superman?
The newest chapter in director Zack Snyder’s DC Cinematic Murderverse.
But what’s it about?
It’s about fundamentally misunderstanding Superman, Batman, superheroes in general, basic morality, and doubling down on all of Man of Steel’s problems. It’s also about 2.5 punishing hours long.
Sigh. You just went in already hating it, didn’t you?
Well, I certainly admit I wasn’t optimistic having seen the trailer, the previews, the interviews with Snyder, or the entirety of Man of Steel. But I can tell you I think I actually liked it more than I thought I would, which again, based on the evidence, was not at all. There are a few good moments. Wonder Woman is pretty much perfect. Affleck is a shockingly good Batman, although the script doesn’t do him any favors. And the movie isn’t as flat-out dumb as Man of Steel.
But?
But the movie is dull. It is dull and dark and dour, and there is shockingly little superhero action in for a film that has not one but two superheroes in its title. It is not fun. And while it might not be as dumb as Man of Steel, it still has moments of WTF-ery so totally baffling it seems impossible that Snyder, the actors, the editors, the producers, and the studio execs would all have unanimously let them happen without pointing out how insane they are.
What do you mean?
I mean this is the first superhero movie that prominently features a glass jar full of urine.
Holy shit.
Yeah. But there’s something else I find even more baffling, if not exactly unexpected. When I was watching BvS, a mother had brought her 7-year-old kid to see the film. By about 45 minutes—45 minutes of darkness and grimness and an almost total absence of superheroes—the poor kid had enough and started screaming because he was so scared. Zack Snyder has made a movie about the two greatest, most popular superheroes in the entire world that children should not be allowed to see.
But it’s PG-13…
But it’s still been marketed to children; look at the Batman and Superman merchandise flooding any department store. But also Marvel’s movies are all PG-13 and they don’t have this problem, nor do parents expect them to. And that’s why Marvel/Hasbro/Disney sells toys based on Captain America and Avengers and all that other shit to kids, because they want kids to be interested in Marvel characters. WB/DC wants the same, they just failed to make a movie that they can watch without having nightmares or being bored to tears. You can blame the MPAA’s outdated rating system, the superhero movie industry, or modern society, but I guarantee that this poor woman was not the only adult who had to take their kid out of BvS this weekend.
Woof.
By the way, when the kid was taken out screaming? We hadn’t even gotten to the scene where Superman fails to stop a terrorist from blowing up the capitol building and he stands there like a dope in a room full of flames and charred bodies.
Jesus.
Welcome to DC’s Murderverse, my friend. Hope you survive the experience! (You won’t. Batman will murder you.)
How does the movie begin?
With the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents, as is legally mandated in every goddamn movie he appears in. Also there’s a flashback to when young Bruce fell into the Batcave and the bats magically levitate him out.
The hell?
As it turns out, this is a dream Bruce Wayne is having, which he is also somehow narrating. However, it does establish a very solid “What the fuck is happening?!” vibe for the movie right off the bat, no pun intended.
That pun was absolutely intended.
Of course it was. Next we flash-forward to Man of Steel times (18 months ago) where Bruce Wayne has a first-row seat at all the carnage from the Superman “v” Zod fight. So not only do we get to see Superman’s utter disregard for human life again, but we get a close look at the people who actually died as a result of it. We get to witness a Wayne executive pray as Superman and Zod level the skyscraper he’s on with heat vision. And we get to see Scoot McNairy as a guy whose legs are crushed in the indiscriminate violence.
This was the part about Man of Steel that upset everyone the most! Why would Zack Snyder do this?!
Because Zack Snyder thinks we’re all pussies for being upset that “Superman” didn’t “save” “lives.” He’s going to have to tone down the carnage later—kind of—and he’s bitter as hell at the audience for making him do it, so he’s rubbing our faces in the carnage WB can’t take back, so to speak. The flipside is that Superman stops being so murder-y in BvS.
Really?
Yeah, there’s a whole 30-second-long montage of him saving/not killing people, so that’s some major growth for the character. Unfortunately, this change of ethos is not acknowledged on screen in any way, which makes it look Superman has decided not to kill people solely because people complained in Man of Steel, which I can say with absolute certainty is how Zack Snyder made the same decision.
So people hate Superman for the carnage he caused in Man of Steel?
Well, it’s why Batman hates him. But people love him, at least enough for Metropolis to build a giant, art deco statue of him of him striking a pose (which, I swear to god, from a certain angle looks a great deal like he’s flipping off the normal sized humans standing by the statue. It is accidentally perfect). Except sometimes the world doesn’t love him, like when he’s “framed” while rescuing Lois, who’s interviewing a terrorist/warlord in Nairobi.
How is he framed?
I have no clue. Somehow Lois is accompanied both by the CIA and mercenaries (eventually revealed to be hired by Lex Luthor), all disguised as photojournalists. Eventually a giant firefight starts between those two groups and the terrorists until the despot grabs Lois and holds a gun to her head, at which point Superman finally arrives and punches the despot through a wall. Unless people somehow think Superman grabbed an assault rifle, the only thing we know for sure about this confusing mess of a scene is that Superman didn’t kill anybody or cause anyone to be killed (although one could ask why he let them murder each other and only bothered to show up when Lois was in danger).
That’s weird.
This whole scene exists solely so the movie can have the government ask if maybe Superman should be regulated, which exists solely so the government can get involved with Lex Luthor’s attempt to build an anti-Superman weapon, which itself exists solely so the government can say “Hey, stop making that anti-Superman weapon,” which exists solely so Lex can illegally important a big hunk of kryptonite, which exists so Batman can try to steal it in a giant action set piece (where he murders so many people).
What should we know about Batman?
Well, he has zero problem murdering bad guys, that’s for sure. He’s been Batman for 20 years at this point. He apparently had a Robin who was killed by the Joker, and Batman didn’t want to pay the cleaning bill for his uniform. Oh, the bad guys he doesn’t outright murder? He literally brands with a bat symbol.
Like... a burning-hot brand? Like insane religious zealots used to do in the 1700s when they also thought people were witches? Or owners did to slaves?!
Yep! Oh, and also for reasons that the movie never even attempts to explain when these branded criminals enter prison, they are beaten to death by the other inmates. Batman knows this is happening. It’s on the news. He doesn’t care. Batman is physically torturing and scarring criminals and then sending them to be beaten to death.
Is that why the less murder-y Superman hates Batman?
Yeah. Apparently—and I’m making an assumption I’m not 100% certain the movie backs up—the reason Clark/Superman suddenly cares about Batman, despite Batman’s two-decade-long crime-murdering career, is that he’s only recently started branding people, sort of as a result of the carnage of Man of Steel. The existence of Superman is just so terrible that Batman has started killing criminals by proxy.
Dear god.
In Zack Snyder’s DC Cinematic Murderverse, violence begets violence. And violence is super-awesome.
Wait, if Batman wants to kill Superman, what is Lex Luthor doing in the movie?
He’s doing a low-rent Heath Ledger-as-Joker imitation, is what he’s doing. He actually starts as a smart, interesting, if somewhat clichéd web start-up Millennial genius, but ends up as a goofy elfin lunatic by the end of the film. The reason for his mental deterioration isn’t explained even slightly in the movie.
Well, speaking of things that seem to make no sense, what’s the deal with post-apocalyptic-Batman-in-the-trenchcoat scene?
It’s another dream sequence, where Superman has taken over the world and created a bunch S-symbol-bearing stormtroopers, Also there are Parademons. You know, the winged alien/demon things that serve the major DC villain Darkseid. They, uh, serve Superman along with his S-S(hield) Troopers.
Wait, what?
Yeah, in the dream, Superman is… Darkseid? Maybe? There’s a big Omega symbol on the ground; you might have seen it in the trailers.
So Batman is having a prophetic dream that is only half prophetic?
Maybe? But hey, you know how Batman is always having prophetic dreams about the future in the comics.
That’s never ever been a thing.
Oh right. My bad. Well, we do get to see this Extra-Murder-y Superman literally rip people apart with his heat vision, which is clearly something Zack Snyder has been desperate to put on film, but was forced by horrified WB execs to relegate to a dream sequence.
What the fuck is even happening
And when Batman wakes up, he meets the Flash!
Whoa, really? That’s cool, right?
Well, the Flash doesn’t so much “visit” as “appear in a huge ball of lightning while wearing weird-ass armor and needing a shave, and also he starts screaming about Lois Lane being the key and not to trust somebody but refusing to specify which person to trust.” Batman is looking at him confusedly, which is pretty reasonable, at which point Flash realizes he screwed up the time travel and came too soon, which we know because he says this out loud, still without ever telling Batman who he shouldn’t trust.
That’s moronic.
Aaaaaand that’s when Batman wakes up. Again.
No.
Yes.
NO.
The Flash’s time travel visit was a dream. Or it wasn’t. Maybe? Who the hell knows. Either way, it doesn’t seem to be helpful at all, since neither Bruce nor the audience has any idea of what the Flash is saying or what he’s trying to achieve or what he’s trying to prevent.
WHAT THE FUCK.
With not one but two seemingly impossible dreams telling him that Superman needs to be murdered, Batman decided to steal a giant block of Kryptonite that Lex Luthor has secretly imported from Zod’s Indian ocean ship, which, as I mentioned above, is an excuse for a Batmobile action scene…
…in which Batman murders a lot of people.
…in which Batman murders a lot of people. Look, I’m sure you have your doubts, but Batman uses the guns on his car to make an absurd number of cars carrying goons explode with the goons still in them. He runs them off the road causing them not just to wreck, but crumple in a way you can be 100% certain no passenger survived. He actually uses a harpoon thing to drag an abandoned car half a mile—an absurdly long time—just so he can eventually use it to crush a car full of goons who absolutely die. He goes through a great deal of effort not just to kill these guys, but to kill them in a cool way.
Holy shit.
At one point, and I swear this is true, Batman jumps his Batmobile into the back of the truck trailer, and the movie makes it abundantly clear that Batman has driven a car through one of Luthor’s goon’s goddamn face.
(groans)
The scene cuts away when the Batmobile’s bumper is about a quarter of an inch away from his head, but since it’s traveling approximately 80 mph hour, I feel pretty safe in assuming the guy’s skull explodes like an overripe pumpkin. Maybe we’ll get to see it happen in the R-rated director’s cut!
I don’t even know what to say.
Eventually, Superman arrives and stands in the middle of the road until Batman tries to run him over with the Batmobile, at which the Batmobile bounces hilariously off him.
Has Superman come to stop the rampant destruction in Gotham City?
Oh, god no. He’s come to have a dick-measuring contest with Batman.
They don’t fight each other?
Nope, they don’t “v” at all. It’s just two drunk frat boys at the bar posturing at each other, followed by yet another half-hour of non-superhero action, including the aforementioned scene of Superman getting owned at the capitol.
Yeah, what’s that about?
There’s a Senate hearing on Superman: Is He a Good Thing? It’s led by Senator Holly Hunter and attended by Superman-hating Scoot McNairy, who lost his legs in the final battle of Man of Steel. Senator Hunter slowly notices a mason jar full of human urine on her desk, a call back to an earlier conversation she had with Lex (short version: it’s based on a folksy saying about pretending a jar of piss is “Granny’s Peach Tea”). And then Scoot McNairy’s wheelchair blows up, killing every single person in the room, literally over a hundred people, except for Superman.
Say, can you describe Superman’s expression as he stands there in the capitol among the flames and the charred bodies, perhaps in a single music cue?
I can!
Sigh.
Things somehow get stupider, because this also doesn’t actually affect anything. We don’t see people hating Superman any more than they did previously. Also, everyone seems to know the bomb was in Scoot McNairy’s chair, but no one seems to care at all that his chair was provided by Lex Luthor. Really, only Superman blames Superman.
Um, isn’t that a legitimate complaint? He’s Superman. He has super speed, hearing, and smell, probably. He has x-ray vision; shouldn’t he have been able to see the bomb? Or used his freeze breath to stop it? Would it have killed Zack Snyder to have let Superman save the day here?
I think he thinks showing an actual scene of Superman saving someone, not just as a tiny part of a montage, might actually somehow murder him.
That’s pretty much what I thought.
If it makes you feel any better, it’s time for the epic third act!
Cool! Finally!
The third act makes no sense.
GODDAMMIT.
So Lex Luthor’s plan is make Batman and Superman fight, because suddenly Lex hates Batman, too. He concocts a plan which requires Batman stealing that huge hunk of kryptonite from him—the kryptonite his hired goons literally died to successfully keep out of Batman’s hands, apparently for no reason at all—but also requires him to coincidentally enact his plan the same night Batman decides to take on Superman. Lex has literally no way of knowing this.
That’s dumb.
In a more entertaining movie it would have been so easy to not think about it, but when there’s so little going on its impossible not to focus on the giant plotholes.
What’s Lex’s plan?
Part one is kidnapping Lois Lane and Ma Kent, then throwing Lois Lane off Lexcorp’s roof. When Superman catches her and flies up to confront Lex, he shows him Polaroids of Ma Kent being tied up and possibly tortured, just in case you were worried you weren’t going to see a woman abused in this movie about the two greatest superheroes in the world (there’s a real The Killing Joke vibe here, and I absolutely don’t mean this as a compliment). Lex tells Superman he has to go fight Batman; if he isn’t dead or back with Batman’s head in an hour, Lex is going to have one of his minions set Ma Kent on fire. With a flamethrower.
Sure.
So Superman flies over to Batman, who is of course waiting in his armored suit, with traps and a spear whose tip is made out of the kryptonite he stole. Batman has very kindly kept the spear about 100 yards away in order to make sure the fight lasts a long time, and Superman does his part by refusing to explain anything about his circumstances that might accidentally cause Batman to stop the fight.
How does Superman not just kill Batman?
Well, like in The Dark Knight Returns, which directly inspired this scene, Superman is actively trying not to kill Batman for a bit, but, this being the DC Murderverse, he quickly gets angry enough to ignore that annoying sense of morality. Unfortunately by that time Batman has shot him in the face with Kryptonite gas, which weakens him. (To be fair, it appears that Superman looks like he’s about to explain his situation to Batman when he first gets hit with the K-gas, but then he’s choking and can’t speak. Still, he has plenty of opportunities before and after that to say ”Hey, broseph, Lex stole my mom.”)
Is the fight cool?
Well, it would be cooler if it didn’t require both heroes to be incredibly stupid in order to make it happen and then keep it happening, but hey, it’s still Batman fighting Superman in live-action. It’s certainly worth watching, especially if you can avoid the rest of the movie.
That’s nice? I guess?
There are even some really good moments, like when Superman tries to punch Batman after sucking up a cloud of kryptonite gas, and Armored Batman blocks it merely by raising his arm, and the look of shock on Superman’s face is pretty great. That was in a lot of the preview footage, but there’s an equally great scene that wasn’t: Batman is punching Superman in the face repeatedly, but the gas is wearing off, and there’s this fantastic sound of Superman’s face slowly getting more and more invulnerable, while Superman goes from looking punch-drunk to very, very angry.
Nice!
Of course, this means that Superman has to fly into a second Kryptonite gas bomb like a chump so that Batman can eventually get his spear and get ready to drive it into Superman’s chest. At this point Superman finally decides “Hey, maybe I should let Batman know my mom is being held hostage” and croaks “Save Martha.” Which completely freaks Batman out.
Oh. Oh. Because—
Because that’s the name of his mom. Yes, the day is saved because Batman and Superman’s mom have the same first name. At least it causes Batman to not murder Superman long enough for Lois Lane to arrive and actually explain what the hell is going on. Suddenly, despite absolutely nothing about their actual issues with each other having been resolved, they become Super Friends.
That’s dumb.
Honestly, by this point I was just so goddamn grateful to see Batman and Superman finally working together that I actually liked it. It helped that Batman offered to rescue Ma Kent, which he does by taking out maybe two dozen armed goons in what I believe might be the best Batman fight ever seen in live-action…
…
…minus all the murder.
You really have to qualify this movie with “minus all the murder” a lot, don’t you?
I do. And it kind of sucks, because otherwise this scene is really cool. He beats the crap out of like a dozen guys, many of them armed. He’s not pulling his punches, and some of the hits are brutal, but brutal in a way where you don’t immediately think “Oh, that man is certainly dead.” But then Batman grabs one of the thugs with a gun and uses it to shoot half a dozen other goons, and you’re back in the DC Murderverse. Of course, it ends with the chief goon holding the flamethower on Ma Kent, and Batman shoots the flamethrower’s gas tank, ensuring the guy burns alive in total agony. (Batman shields Ma Kent with his cape.)
Jesus.
If you’ve read maybe more than three Batman comics in your life, you know that Batman could have handled this situation without committing murder in at least a dozen ways. But nope! A criminal has been burned to death, and this particular portion of the day is saved.
So what does Superman do?
Well, he heads back to Lex, who is now in Zod’s old ship, which is inexplicably still hanging out in downtown Metropolis. Lex releases Doomsday, a monster he created to… uh… I don’t know. “Kill Superman” is the obvious answer, but it seems like he thought Batman had at least a solid chance at taking Superman out. Even more inexplicably, Lex started the Doomsday release countdown before Supes even has a chance to die or bring over Batman’s head, so Lex was clearly planning on releasing Doomsday no matter what.
What was he going to do if Superman lost?
Uh, inadvertently kill everyone on the planet, I guess. Because after Superman punches Doomsday into orbit, and America shoots a nuke at them while they’re in space, and after Superman basically suplexes Doomsday into that nuclear warhead—the monster falls all the way to Earth, gets up, grows some spikes to look Doomsday-ier, and starts all over again.
Well, that’s Doomsday for you.
Indeed. While Superman is reenacting his post-nuke shriveled raisin scene from The Dark Knight Returns in space, Batman arrives to fight Doomsday as if he can do anything to help. Literally all he can do after Doomsday knocks the Batwing out of the sky is say “Oh shit.” And this is when Wonder Woman arrives to save his ass.
I actually completely forgot about Wonder Woman. What’s she been doing all this time?
Two things: 1) flirting with Bruce Wayne while disguised as Diana Prince and 2) creating a tenuous framework for the DC Cinematic Universe in general and the Justice League in specific.
Dare I ask?
This consists literally of Bruce Wayne giving her a copy of one of Luthor’s hard drives containing info on Meta-Humans which contains videos of: a pre-Flash Barry Allen stopping a convenience store robbery with his super-speed; Aquaman staring at a deep-sea video camera for an awkwardly long time before swimming off; and Dr. Stone working on the very small remaining portion of his son Victor’s torso by placing a mysterious artifact next to him, which attaches to Victor’s flesh and creates Cyborg. (For comics fans, the artifact is the Mother Box; everyone else, don’t worry about it.) It’s cool to see the larger DC movie-verse get established, but really Wonder Woman is basically just watching YouTube videos.
Oh.
That said, when she joins the battle against Doomsday she instantly becomes the shining light of the movie. Maybe it’s because she’s not weighed down with all the other dumb baggage of the title heroes, or maybe she just got lucky, but Wonder Woman is completely badass without ever venturing into that “heartless warrior” mode that the comics sometimes portray her as, and which would fit far too perfectly in Snyder’s world. It’s kind of a miracle.
It makes me suspicious when you say nice things about the movie.
Sorry, because the scene where Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman team up to fight Doomsday is like a window into a completely different movie—a fun, cool, entertaining movie where DC’s superheroes work together, complement each other’s talents, and make you root for them for the first time ever. The three of them have a bizarrely great chemistry together, even when they’re just fighting a big CG monster, that it’s almost cruel that the movie waited this long to get them together. Hell, Ben Affleck is so good as Batman and Gal Gadot is such a fantastic Wonder Woman that they even make Henry Cavill’s dour, joyless Superman look good! But of course, the moronic plot gets in the way again.
Well, I suppose the plot also suddenly turning good was too much to ask.
The three quickly figure out that since Doomsday is made of Zod’s body, it needs to be killed by a Kryptonian weapon. The obvious answer is of course the spear that Batman casually left behind in his fight with Superman.
Totally. So Batman goes to get the spear.
Nope! He decides he should lead Doomsday back downtown to the spear. (At least the movie takes a second to say that downtown Metropolis is devoid of people, because as we all know every single person leaves the downtown area of every major metropolitan city at about 9pm. Don’t know why I even brought it up.)
That seems… dumb.
Also dumb: Lois Lane, having been left behind with the spear, has decided to throw the spear into a bizarrely deep shaft of water in some abandoned building. And then, when she sees Doomsday rampaging about, she somehow instantly knows she needs the spear again, so she goes into the water only to have the roof collapse, trapping her underwater. It’s like the damsel-in-distress cliché plus busy work, as if this movie wasn’t long enough.
(makes groaning noise)
It’s all an excuse so Clark can hear her pounding on her rocks trapping her, fly off to save her, have a tender moment with her to say goodbye, and then grab the Kryptonite spear himself so he can shove it into Doomsday’s chest
Doesn’t the kryptonite that weaken Superman considerably?
Very much so.
Why doesn’t Superman give the Kryptonite spear to Batman?
Great fuckin’ question.
Or why doesn’t he give it to Wonder Woman? She’s super-strong and she isn’t affected by Krypronite.
Even better fuckin’ question. The answer is that Zack Snyder wants Superman to sacrifice himself to kill Doomsday, even if it isn’t even slightly necessary, and even if it makes Superman look like an idiot, which he absolutely does when Doomsday also stabs him in the chest and he dies.
Why? We all know he’s coming back. Justice League Part One films in like two weeks.
You know how in the Justice League cartoon, whenever the JL would fight somebody, Superman would immediately get knocked out by a laser for a while to let everyone else have a chance to fight bad guys before he woke up and took care of business?
Yes.
That’s exactly the same thing, just Zack Snyder-style.
(makes longer groaning noise)
Clark Kent gets a funeral in Smallville, while Superman gets a giant military funeral in DC, despite the fact that he failed to keep the Capitol building from blowing up and the government decided to nuke him. There are, in both funerals, a shocking amount of bagpipe music.
Sure.
Lex Luthor gets put into Hair Prison, which for some reason requires all inmates have their head shaved before being incarcerated. Also he’s crazy, and has turned into basically a Renfield for Darkseid, making a lot of generic threats about something bad coming.
Why not?
And Batman and Wonder Woman decide to go assemble the folks they saw in Lex’s YouTube playlist, because Batman has a feeling that some kind of supergroup will be needed. Because of two dreams he had that make no goddamn sense by any metric. Wheee!
“Whee.”
Oh and then a little bit of dirt levitates of Clark’s coffin THE END.
BONUS ROUND
You said a rather surprising amount of nice things about the movie, especially there at the end. Would you say you kind of like it?
Oh god no. There were a few cool moments, but they were outnumbered by moments of idiocy and insanity. More importantly, both the cool and dumb moments together only account for 10% of the film; the rest is just crushingly dull. Many, many things happen in this film, and most of them are just wasting time so Snyder can end up with a 2.5-hour run time, because he feels that’s more important to an “epic” film than a script that doesn’t require the characters to be idiots.
Well, if you’re so smart, how would you trim this down?
Off the top of my head: Cut Batman’s origin story; work his mom’s name somewhere else in the plot. (A single Alfred anecdote about Martha would suffice.) Don’t show the people actually dying in the buildings Superman wrecked in Man of Steel. Drop Bruce’s Nazi Superman and Flash dreams, as they are baffling even to comics nerds. Cut the Pa Kent scene; move Clark’s heart-to-heart with Ma Kent after the senate bombing. Don’t give Lois a stupid spear adventure, just have Superman go pick it up. I could get this movie down to a trim 1:45 if Warner Bros. wants a “watchable edition.”
Wait, Kevin Costner is in this? I thought Pa Kent was dead.
Yeah, but he appears while Clark is hiking to have a largely meaningless conversation. More interestingly, when Clark talks to Ma Kent earlier in the film, she basically tells him “Humans can go fuck themselves, fuck’ em Clark, you don’t owe them shit” in the proud Kent tradition of telling Superman he should definitely be letting people die.
But aren’t you happy that the movie went out of the way to point out that all the places the heroes fought Doomsday were unoccupied?
Look, I will fully admit this one may be me being a hater, but it actually It seemed sarcastic to me. It’s like a petulant child agreeing to do the bare minimum to get out of a chore. Mom: “Did you brush your teeth?” Kid brushes one tooth for half a second: “Yessss!” And the kid/Zack Snyder congratulates himself for pulling one over on us.
I think you are just being a hater. In fact I think you and all the other critics should drink this jar of “Granny’s Peach Tea” because it’s secretly urine and I dislike your opinion.
You understand that because you like the movie and are handing critics “Granny’ Peach Tea” you are saying the movie is the jar of piss, right? Because critics are the ones warning you not to drink the piss, even if it’s labeled Batman v Superman.
But Batman v Superman made $166 million in its opening weekend! That’s an insane amount of money!
Who ever said it wasn’t going to make money? It’s a film in which Batman and Superman appear together, for the first time ever. Who doesn’t want to see that? Even though I was pretty sure the film would be bad, there was no way I wasn’t going to go see it. But its financial success has literally nothing to do with its quality. Otherwise Michael Bay would be broke.
Hey, Zack Snyder is no Michael Bay.
You’re right. Zack Snyder is much worse. Michael Bay thinks explosions are awesome and stories are dumb. Zack Snyder actually hates you.
What do you mean?
This is a movie made out of disdain. Disdain for the nerds. Disdain for the audiences. Disdain for the kids whose parents might accidentally take them to see a movie starring their favorite superheroes. Disdain for the source material. He thinks he knows better than all of us what Batman and Superman should be, even if fans, critics, and mass audiences tell him otherwise. This has led him to say some incredibly insane things.
Like what?
Well, he thinks because Batman may have indirectly killed a few bad guys in Chris Nolan’s Batman movies, he should be allowed to show Batman murdering all the people he wants. The fact that this is fundamentally contrary to the core character that has dominated pop culture for nearly 80 years doesn’t matter to him at all. Batman committed negligent homicide once? Well, now Snyder can have him gun down criminals 24/7.
What about Superman?
Snyder has said since Superman murdered less people in Man of Steel than the First Order in The Force Awakens, people shouldn’t complain. The fact that Snyder apparently feels that as long as Superman keeps his kill count below that of Evil Space Nazis who have a weapon that can destroy entire star systems he is still a hero is genuinely disturbing.
Can you tell me something else super-disturbing about Zack Snyder that perfectly represents everything that is wrong with him and his film?
I sure can. Did you know Jimmy Olsen is in Batman v Superman?
No way! I didn’t see him!
Yes you did. He’s the photographer who accompanying Lois on her trip to Nairobi. The one who gets his face blown off by terrorists almost immediately.
Jimmy Olsen… died? Without even being acknowledged as Jimmy Olsen?
Yep! Zack Snyder had a beloved, fan favorite character murdered violently on-screen, brutally, because that’s what Zack Snyder likes. And do you know how he explained this decision?
How?
This is what he told EW:
“We just did it as this little aside because we had been tracking where we thought the movies were gonna go, and we don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?”
This is an Easter egg for Zack Snyder. He killed one of Superman’s key supporting characters for “fun.” He thinks murdering the characters that comics nerds want to see on-screen is “fun.” And this is the man in charge of putting the entire universe of DC’s superheroes on screen.
Hey, what does the “v” in Batman v Superman stand for, anyways?
It stands for “THIS IS A SUPERHERO MOVIE THAT PROMINENTLY FEATURES A GODDAMNED JAR OF HUMAN URINE.”