Batman vs Superman: DC Buried

In the wake of Batman vs Superman, I had to write this. Even though my heart broke into a million pieces. Before the movie, I did henna on both my arms: Batman symbol on the right, Superman on the left.

When the movie ended, I wore my cardigan and made sure nobody, including me, could see my arms. I was so ashamed.

I had loved Batman my whole life. And don’t even get me started on Superman, the Flash, and Aquaman.

This movie did justice to some extend. I actually enjoyed Affleck’s performance. It was one of the good things in this movie.

However, everything else fell flat.

Let me start with the plot line.

We went back all the way to the Man of Steel incident, when Zod and Kal El our Superman (Henry Cavill) destroyed everything when they fought each other. To be honest, I did think the world would be better without those guys.

I’d side with Wayne any day.

So a Wayne Enterprise collapsed during the battle and killed many people, including Jack, however important he was to Bruce (Ben Affleck).

Upset with the death of many, Wayne labeled Superman as a threat. He then started researching on what could kill this god like man.

Then we were introduced to Superman and LoLa, or Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Lois was in the middle of a desert, covering a story and traveling with sketchy partners. As it turned out, it was a trap for Superman – to frame him in a massacre spot as a killer.

So with Superman constantly under attacks from the press, Lois and Clark struggled. The media fought Superman as the bad guy, and it would be normal. I mean, Superman had the power to kill whoever and destroy anything on his path. Humans were lucky that he was raised by humans and loved humans. Imagine if he hated the world.

Wayne, meanwhile, found a lead on where to find Kryptonite, and it belonged to Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg).

Long story short, Wayne was invited by Lex to a party where he met Clark Kent the journalist and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) who stole his copy of Lex’s data.

And later on Wayne found out that Prince was Wonder Woman.

So we met the main villain Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman. And did I care? Not a bit.

Lex Luthor turned out to be a psycho who’d do anything to kill Superman, including resurrecting Zod in a monster form.

Now as it came down to this, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman had to team up to kill the monster. Of course, with the help of Lois Lane.

That was enough spoiler for you.

Now, I stopped caring midway through the movie. I didn’t wear a watch or pocket watch with me, so I couldn’t check the time. Honestly I wanted it to end as soon as possible.

Characterization and development were almost dead in this movie. I’ll start with the character I was most invested in. We were led to believe that we’d get insight of the Bat of Gotham – that we would understand Bruce Wayne and what drove him. But did we really? The first scene was the death of Bruce’s parents. And it was beautifully done, as was the boy’s strange discovery of his fascination for the bats.

However, you can’t go any deeper than that. That was all of Bruce Wayne that you got to see in this movie. Did we get to understand how Batman become a mass murderer? That he started killing the bad guys? No.

But, I have a new favorite Batman now. Good job, Affleck.

Then we got the opponent, Clark Kent. Clark’s main drive was told to be Lois since the beginning of the movie, but the story took both Lois and his mother Martha to ruin him.

Lois was the damsel in distress. Even in her most courageous acts, she was still the damsel in distress. Now. She did stop Batman from killing the love of her life, but why would she take the Kryptonite spear and throw it into a pool of flood in an abandoned building? What did she think it’d do, self destruct?

And how could Lois, once spotting the monster Lex had created, immediately think it had to be Kryptonian that she ran back to get the freaking spear she had dumped into the water five minutes earlier?

How could Lex not be attacked by anything on the Kryptonian ship? It was not supposed to be that friendly. And what was the background of Lex Luthor? What was Lex’s drive? “Power…knowledge… Having knowledge but not power” crap he threw out in a poorly delivered speech?

And the movie was like full mode ads on Justice League. Wonder Woman’s presence felt forced. The files on the other heroes seemed forced. A lot of things were thrown into this movie in order to secure the future of Justice League. Which, I can’t care less now.

The story made little sense.

I didn’t care that we got the super hot, awesome Wonder Woman fighting with Superman and Batman.

I didn’t care when Superman bid Lois goodbye and killed the monster, sacrificing himself.

I didn’t care when Batman had emotional breakdown hearing his mother’s name mentioned.

Nada.

And I was surprised.

You see, a good movie would have you invested in its characters. A good movie would have you excited, leaning forward the screen, eager to see what would happen next.

I was leaning back, crossing my arms, glaring at the screen.

The only time I squealed with excitement was when I saw Jason Momoa on screen. Few seconds of gold there: Aquaman.

But that was short lived.

The shots during the battle scene were all over the place. The best choreography had to go to Batman. It was very well done. I have to say that the battles were beautiful. It was like visiting a gallery.

But the main battle fell short. It reminded me of X-Men: the Last Stand when Wolverine had to kill Phoenix.

If this movie was going on on my laptop, I know that I could screen shot some moments and they looked like insanely gorgeous artworks.

But would they look real and believable? No.

The CGI wasn’t horrible. But it was like looking into children’s story book; beautiful, but you know it’s not real.

I can go on with this, and I probably should not.

This movie has some moments in which it makes sense. But I wouldn’t say those moments redeem whatever damnation this whole thing is.

You can say it’s due to the fact that the movie goes fast; it’s quick and a lot of things happen.

It is a factor. But take into consideration the fact that fast paced does not mean it flows well.

Because it certainly does not.

Many people will question many what and why and how, and only those who stand by DC movies and comics will get the little things in this movie.

I sat next to a family in the theater, and the child asked the mother every two minutes, “What’s going on? Who’s that?”

Even the characters didn’t have a clue on what was gong on.

It was poorly edited and written. Story was all over the place. And a good cinematic experience would deliver you a story, not a game of “guess what”.

I give Batman vs Superman a 6. And I consider it generous.

I do not want to watch it again. Unless I’m home, it’s raining horribly outside, and the other movie options are romantic.

And no, I wasn’t a hater. I loved Batman and Superman. I even did these sketches because I was so excited.