Tasha Marie’s review published on Letterboxd:
This movie made me happy. :)
'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' is a continuation of director Zack Snyder's last film 'Man of Steel', where after Superman (Henry Cavill) saves the world but leaves huge destruction and casualties as a result, the government and others question if he should even really be there.
The film is also about the new-to-us-but-old-in-this-DC-universe Batman (Ben Affleck), who after seeing battle of Metropolis himself vows to take Superman down and make him pay for all of the innocent people he killed, as well as preventing any future chance of Superman turning bad and deciding to wipe out the world.
It's ALSO about the bigger picture; the 'Dawn of Justice' part introduces us to future members of the Justice League to prepare the characters as well as us viewers for the upcoming films in the DC Films lineup.
And that's not even counting all of the subplots lol.
Okay, so the movie crams in a LOT, and as a result the film comes across to the majority of people as messy and over-stuffed, similar to the not so well received 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' which was bashed for focusing so much on setting up future movies that it forgot to be a good movie in and of itself. I can see where those critics are coming from but I've gotta tell you... It really didn't bother me much. I enjoyed the fudge out of this movie.
Obviously, the film visually looked beautiful and the action set pieces were exciting, which is what most come to expect from Snyder at least, at this point. Some of the writing is a bit questionable and I'm not sure how I feel about the real reason why Batman and Superman end up fighting, but for me personally the good well outweighs the bad. The first ten minutes of 'BvS' makes it feel like it starts with a bang before calming down to build up to the climax, which I loved. From then it slows down but it wasn't enough to bore me. And for me, the end fight and conclusion, while rushed and questionable (perhaps WB/DC blew their load too early?), was at least enjoyable to watch. In a nutshell, I had fun! And the film wasn't without its emotional moments... I can't BELIEVE all of the negative reviews saying that it was boring and was no fun; I had a blast.
The standout performance by far was Ben Affleck as an older and grumpier Batman. He was fricken fantastic. And a BADASS. It's like him and Snyder were able to bring the Batman from the Arkham games to the big screen (those games are mostly awesome, by the way). I thought that Gal Gadot was good as Wonder Woman, and it was nice to finally see the character in live action. Jeremy Irons (Scar from 'the Lion King') was GREAT as Bruce Wayne's badass butler and batcave assistant Alfred; I definitely wouldn't want to pick a fight with him. Jesse Eisenberg ('The Social Network') as Lex Luthor... I don't really know how I feel about it, to be honest. It was... Alright? Like, I liked that they kinda basically made him a crazy person. But, the way he did it was a liiittle bit cartoon-ish. Amy Adams was fine as Lois Lane but ultimately I was bored and annoyed by her; I get that her character is an important part of "finding out the truth" (one of the subplots), but she always needed rescuing and adding mushy staring moments, which only jarred me.
'BvS' kept me intrigued and enticed throughout, and I was thoroughly entertained. A big thumbs up from me, and I am genuinely baffled by how incredibly divisive it is. I acknowledge its flaws but I can't wait to see it again. I do kinda think that maybe Zack Snyder should probably let someone else do Justice League, though... And if this film is leading up to the storyline that I think they're leading up to, I'm very interested to see how it all goes down.
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