In many respects, Batman v Superman is less of a film and more of an unsinkable concept.
This film is high-concept film production in a pure form. The title itself is a high-concept pitting two of the biggest names in superhero-dom into a battle of wits, enough to inspire a frenzied debate on the merits of such a super-heavyweight bout, and sell millions of dollars in advance tickets before opening night.
Sure, the numbers aren't as big as the advance buzz for Star Wars, but such a concept is, in all-likelihood, not sinkable by negative reviews - and there's been more than a few of those - or by rival productions (both superhero & otherwise). It may well be the case this is a film that will need to make at least $625-700million to so much as break even, but the goodwill and interest means its likely to reach that.
As far as a film-plotting exercise, this has to do a lot of work. What this film is basically doing is taking the end to 2013's Man of Steel and putting it towards the creation of a two-part Justice League franchise, and in quicker time than Marvel's background work before its Avengers movies, which saw five movies put out before combining them to take down Tom Hiddleston's Loki.
There's an interesting split in opinion for this one, with some people saying the film is a colossal misfire, and others heralding it as a superb comic book movie. But in real truth, its probably neither.
The basic story of the movie is that it serves backstory to a confrontation between the two heroes, beginning with the building up of the Bat's corner. This is of course done in a more rapid-fire manner than 2005's Batman Begins, featuring the latest killing of Bruce Wayne's parents and his stumbling across the Bat Cave.
After that, which is shot in a super slow-motion style, the main film begins in the shadow of the city-dismantling Man of Steel climax, with Wayne (Ben Affleck) running around trying to save his employees.
This is a rather impressive opening scene, replete with ominous imagery of the collapse of cities similar to disasters, and the reaction to the collateral damage superheroes bring. It also sets in motion Wayne's side in his conflict with Clark Kent's world-saving alter-ego.
Eyebrows were raised when Affleck was given the cape and the cave, but he is a firm presence in the role. His role is a more murkier role than the one occupied by Christian Bale - nevermind the George Clooney one of infamy - and he's perhaps not helped by a bulky & unflattering Batsuit, but he brings a confidence to the role. In a timeframe when Bale has recently said he felt that he didn't get the character right, Affleck looks at home in the role as a bedraggled near end-of-career Bat who has gone somewhat rogue. He's also supported by a high-quality Alfred in Jeremy Irons, who brings sardonic wit in his scenes - even if he appears and disappears throughout as the plot requires.
The film mainly works to build up the Batman, with the scenes taken up by Superman (Henry Cavill) more of a concurrent, but not as resonant, pair. He does a reasonable enough job but isn't given a great deal to do, or a high-quality narrative arc, beyond habitually saving the misfortunate Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who is oddly misused in an almost habitual "damsel in distress" sequence.
Misuse of high calibre acting talent is a recurring criticism, with Laurence Fishburne given a few scenes to slag off Kent's journalism, while Holly Hunter's tough-nut Senator is a good presence but feels like it needs more depth. Indeed, for a 150-minute blockbuster, it often feels like its juggling a lot with its mechanics, and as a result, while the majority of the actors bring high quality roles for their salaries, where and when they appear is another issue.
This is as much a problem for the third wheel of the pre-emptive Justice League, which is scheduled to be launched to the screen in November next year. Gal Gadot shows potential as Wonder Woman, both in spoken voice as Diana Prince, and as the Amazonian warrior queen herself, but we're going to have to wait for her own film to see more. Even so, her role is still more than 3 over "meta-humans", who get MPEG files as their backstory ahead of the next wave of movies.
The obvious exception in performances as far as critics and a lot of fans have seen is that of the baddie. For a lot of people, Jesse Eisenberg was seen as an odd choice to play the businessman Lex Luthor, and certainly disappointed the number of people who felt the role was Bryan Cranston's.
Eisenberg is not terrible - certainly not as much as others have made out. His motivation is also explained, albeit not clearly, as an attempt to prove Man can destroy God, in one of the many quasi-religious symbols this film insists upon - a scene given a real heavy-handed touch when Superman rescues a child from a burning building in Mexico after seeing it on TV at Luthor's party.
Nevertheless, Luthor was re-cast for this from bald capitalist evil to snarky upstart - sort of like Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg channelled through the spectrum of Heath Ledger's Joker, and in truth, more of it doesn't work than does.
It may well be possible somewhere in the maelstrom of ideas thrown at the feature by credited screenwriters Chris Terrio & David S. Goyer is something that will give everything the depth and clarity such a film needs. But ultimately, what hinders Batman v Superman is the plotting, which often runs into never-fully explained story tropes, or messy interludes.
In essence, the film is two movies of roughly 75 minutes - one convoluted story, the other a massive elongated fight sequence, although at least unlike Transformers, its fairly clear who's fighting who. But it also feels like more was needed to give the story the strength to match its pretensions. There is plenty of reference and allusion to lofty thematic conceits such as fear, immigration, manipulation of political discourse, rich man's superiority, and dozens of religious metaphors.
However, rather than building these into a whole, it dabbles before moving on to something different. Its not helped by an episodic "let's see what everyone else is doing" approach, and there are further moments when the dialogue takes on almost unintentionally hilarious quality. There's also the sense the production could also have shed the absurd Wayne dream sequences - one of which seems to take on qualities reminiscent of Mad Max, Inception and World War 2 movies - or at the very least one of its many CGI building demolitions.
On a technical level, the biggest star is cinematographer Larry Fong, who brings a great visual palette to the production. The film certainly has an outstanding aesthetic element, even when going for CGI heavy explosions, and fully realises the colours in all of its moods. His work is certainly more nuanced than that of composers Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, who have seemingly been told to take their usual bombast and turn it to a volume louder than it will go. Such eardrum-bursting is particularly noteworthy on Wonder Woman's theme - all processed guitar and a battering of tribal drums.
It all adds up to an unusual piece of work. The unsinkable concept means it was very unlikely to lose money or fail to attract interest. But with a reported $250million budget to throw at the screen, the writing staff behind the acclaimed Christian Bale Batman movies - all 3 of which were better, it has to be said, even the similarly convoluted CGI heavy mess that was Dark Knight Rises - an excellent Batman, and more high-calibre acting talent, and a director famed for his visual panache backed by the well-admired Christopher Nolan on production duties, it just feels... ok.
No spoilers will be discussed here of an ending that was perhaps the most affecting and interesting part of this exercise. But while it was a film with merit and decent moments, and for all the bombast, it could well have been more than what it transpired to be.
3/5
