Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (Film, 2016)

Okay, so here are my initial thoughts on the over-looked indie sleeper-hit Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. (Ground-breaking stuff, right?)

All kidding aside, this is a big movie for me. I love the Batman comic books, I loved the Christopher Nolan films, I liked Man of Steel (sort of). I wasn't as excited about BvS as I was about the new Star Wars, but I did pre-book IMAX tickets on the opening weekend.

And I do like BvS, but it's very, very far from being a great film. It has a very interesting take on Batman, inspired mainly by the Frank Miller version as seen in his Dark Knight series, and Ben Affleck is good enough (though I was more impressed by Jeremy Irons' Alfred - more please!). I was never convinced by Jesse Eisenberg's casting as Lex Luthor, and it seems that there's a pretty unanimous agreement that he over-egged the pudding. Also, everything great was revealed in the trailers. And I mean everything. As a result, the film felt very much like an extended trailer - the same action pieces but with more dialogue wedged in.

But the main problem with BvS is that it makes the same mistake as Man of Steel: it fundamentally misunderstands its main characters. In MoS, Superman was transformed into a conflicted twenty-something struggling with his destiny. But Superman isn't conflicted - he knows who is and what he's there for. He's an American Boy Scout who just so happens to be an alien with superpowers. And in BvS, he's joined by a Batman who, apparently, is both a terrible detective (he's supposed to be the world's best) and a sadistic murderer. I'm not saying anything new here, but let me be very, very clear: BATMAN DOES NOT KILL. This is an incredibly important part of Bruce Wayne's character. As a child, Bruce was so traumatised by witnessing the fatal shooting of his parents that he swears away from guns and killing for life. Any true version of Batman would give his own life before taking another. Oh, and Tim Burton already got the gun thing wrong, so how the hell has Zak Snyder managed it too, over 25 years later? It's really quite unbelievable.

I'm not going to rant on, because the film really isn't bad, it's just disappointing. It's amazing that we even have a version of this to watch, so I'll see it again in the cinema and I'll buy it as soon as it's released on iTunes, because it's Batman vs Superman! Sadly, I fear this is exactly what Warner Bros were counting on...

Pete