MOVIE REVIEW: Batman V Superman - Dawn of Justice (2016)
It’s been a month or so since the release of Dawn of Justice, and the negative hits keep coming. I am glad I didn’t write a review to it at the outset because I am sure I would have said everything everyone else has said: narcissistic Superman selectively using his powers, Batman quoting Dick Cheney and murdering people, the wide announcement of the downtown area being empty to counter the mass destruction complaints of Man of Steel, that’s not Lex Luthor, shoehorning in the Justice League cameos, dream-sequence narrative a la Inception, Zack Snyder talking about it, constant SPOILER ALERTs, Wonder Woman being a brief delight in contrast to the stretched-out antics of Lois Lane, and “MARTHA”. So much has been said, that I don’t know WHAT to say. This IS a review, however, so I have to write something.
The hype was so strong, as well as the hate: you didn’t know whether to praise it for its attempt at the subject matter, or to burn down every theater showing it (which meant all of them). I went to see it since I said I would review it. When I did see it, I saw many problems that I could hand-wave away except one: the death of Superman and Doomsday. Before they die, Wonder Woman has Doomsday wrangled with her Lasso of Truth and Batman’s wisely hidden from the superheroes eye-lasers and punching because he would die in one hit. Lois has just been pulled from the waters in a wrecked building where she nearly drowned trying to retrieve the kryptonite spear Batman made to kill Superman. Supes saves her (despite his proximity to the kryptonite spear) and is just as bad off as she is coming out of the water. They see the battle happening, and Lois tells Supes not to go as he’s getting prepared to leave while wielding the kryptonite spear. He tells her he loves her and begins to fly towards Doomsday with the kryptonite spear in charging position, in order to ram it into the monster’s chest. Supes strikes home, and is caught by Doomsday in his death throes. Doomsday stabs Supes through the heart and they both die. Those not in the know about comic characters are sad or shocked and wonder if Superman’s coming back. Those in the know are aware death is not Superman’s weakness.
Superman’s weakness is kryptonite. It drains him of all his powers and makes him weaker than a human. It’s been established since 1943, and more than a few heroes and villains know about its properties. This also goes for the readers and general public: saying something is someone’s “kryptonite” is a 20th Century slang term for that person’s weakness. This is a set rule about Superman that has been in place for 73 years across all media concerning the “Big Blue Boy Scout” that has been seemingly ignored or altered significantly by Zack Snyder. In Man of Steel, Supes has no weaknesses on Earth because there’s no kryptonite. The Kryptonians come and they take Superman onto their ship, which still holds atmosphere from their home planet…which weakens him. Once off their ship, he is back, baby. Zod come out and makes planetfall in an environmental suit, and some time later has his suit damaged so he can’t breathe properly or do anything right. It’s like Earth is his weakness…because he no longer had kryptonite in his proximity. But then he is able to bounce back and have super-powers like Superman (not the same level of control, but there you go). Now he’s weak to kryptonite, just like Supes. In Dawn of Justice, the creature Doomsday is a hybrid of Zod’s corpse and Lex Luthor’s human DNA. This means that it may have had a Kryptonian power set, but not the full durability of a Kryptonian. This means Superman’s flying to him while holding a kryptonite spear and ramming it into his chest with force would work, except Superman can’t use his powers in close proximity to kryptonite. So what happened here? Does this mean kryptonite does work, but in Zack Snyder films it only works when inhaled (as in Man of Steel and with Batman’s gas bombs)? If so, what was the point of the kryptonite spear? Was it to be used in combination with the kryponite gas? If both proximity and inhalation apply, then Supes definitely couldn’t fly — but he might have been able to lift the spear under extreme duress. He could have lifted the spear, passed it off to Batman who could have run over and picked it up, possibly getting close enough to stab Doomsday with the kryptonite spear while the monster was restrained by Wonder Woman. I could not see past this glaring and if I wasn’t already turned off by Superman dying *AGAIN* in a movie, this did it.
So much was bad about this movie, but there was good also: Gal Gadot’s portrayal of Wonder Woman in combat was nice, and all the sneak peeks to the WW movie are great. And her theme music was always wonderful. Batman’s workout regimen was pretty beast, as was his fight scene; I know a lot of people said they upped his power level, but I don’t care. Also, Ben Affleck did surprisingly well as Bruce Wayne. Henry Cavill loves the role, so I can’t take it away from him. Superman’s resurrection by the sun’s energy after a nuke was a nice callback to part of the original source material, The Dark Knight Returns. On a meta-contextual level, the fact that DC is going to make a Justice League movie in my projected lifetime is awesome. To be more specific, I am looking forward to the Wonder Woman movie a lot (I see you, Chris Pine), and maybe the Batfleck movie. I just hope nothing crazy happens with the pre-existing lore of these movies, like it all being jettisoned to give Hollywood more say in how the property is represented (i.e., white-washing, fat-shaming, stereotyping, etc.).
Fingers crossed.
— previously published 4/22/2016 on Facebook Notes —
