Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
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 A painfully botched conflict between superhero and superhero? What's the SUPER idea?
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a 2016 superhero film featuring the DC Comics characters Batman and Superman. Directed by Zack Snyder, written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the follow-up to Man of Steel and the second installment in the DC Extended Universe.
The film premiered at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City on March 19, 2016, and was released in the United States on March 25, 2016, in 2D, 3D, premium large formats, and 70 mm prints.
Plot
In a flashback to his childhood, Bruce Wayne runs from his parents' funeral. He falls into a cave, where a circling vortex of bats elevates him back to the surface. In the present, eighteen months after his cataclysmic battle with General Zod in Metropolis, Superman has become a controversial figure. Bruce is now a billionaire who has operated in Gotham City as the masked vigilante Batman for twenty years. Having witnessed the battle in person, he sees Superman as an existential threat to humanity.
Clark Kent, Superman's civilian identity, seeks to condemn Batman's form of justice in Daily Planet articles. Bruce learns that Russian weapon trafficker Anatoli Knyazev has been contacting LexCorp mogul Lex Luthor. Luthor attempts to persuade Senator June Finch to allow him to import kryptonite discovered in the aftermath of Zod's terraforming attempt so that it can be used as a deterrent against future Kryptonian threats. She declines, but Luthor makes alternative plans with Finch's subordinate, who grants him access to Zod's corpse and the Kryptonian scout ship.
Bruce attends a gala at LexCorp to steal encrypted data from the company's mainframe, but antiquities dealer Diana Prince steals it first; she later returns it to Bruce. While decrypting the drive, Bruce dreams of a postapocalyptic world where he leads rebels against an evil Superman. He is awakened by an unidentified person, appearing through a portal, who tells him that Lois Lane is "the key" and urges him to find "the others" before vanishing. The decrypted drive reveals Luthor's files on several metahumans across the globe. One is Diana, who appears in a photo from World War I. Wayne contemplates weaponizing the kryptonite to go to war with Superman.
A widely publicized congressional hearing, led by Finch, is held to question Superman's actions against Zod. A bomb smuggled in by Luthor detonates, killing everyone present except Superman. Superman blames himself for not detecting it in time and self-imposed exile. In response, Batman breaks into LexCorp and steals the kryptonite. He builds a powered exoskeleton, a kryptonite grenade launcher, and a kryptonite-tipped spear. Meanwhile, Luthor enters the Kryptonian ship and accesses its vast database of technology.
Luthor lures Superman out of exile by kidnapping Martha Kent, Clark's adoptive mother, and Lois, who he pushes off the LexCorp building. Superman saves Lois and confronts Luthor, who reveals that the distrust between Batman and Superman was manipulated. Luthor demands that he kill Batman in exchange for Martha's life. Superman tries to explain this to Batman, who instead attacks and eventually subdues him using a kryptonite gas. As Batman prepares to deal the final blow using the spear, Superman pleads with him to "save Martha" – the same name as Batman's mother. Batman hesitates in confusion, as Lois arrives and explains what Superman meant. Coming to his senses, Batman locates and rescues Martha.
Luthor executes his backup plan: unleashing a monster genetically engineered using DNA from both Zod's body and his own. Diana joins Batman and Superman in their fight against the creature. Superman realizes its vulnerability to kryptonite and fatally impales the creature with the kryptonite spear. Superman, already weakened by kryptonite exposure, is fatally wounded by the creature before it dies.
Following Luthor's arrest, Batman confronts him in prison, warning him that he will always be watching. Luthor gloats that Superman's death has made the world vulnerable to powerful alien threats. A memorial is held for Superman in Metropolis, while Bruce and Diana attend a funeral for Clark, who was also declared dead. Martha gives Lois an envelope containing an engagement ring from Clark. Bruce tells Diana that he regrets failing Superman and asks for her help in forming a team of metahumans to protect Earth in Superman's absence. As they leave, the dirt atop Clark's coffin levitates.
Bad Qualities
- The main problem with this movie is that in the position it's in, being the 2nd movie in a cinematic universe, the idea to use the story of Batman and Superman's complex detailed rivalry is awful:
- The story choice would make more sense if came much later in the cinematic universe. For this story to work, fans have to know Batman and Superman quite well to understand their characters, establish a detailed relationship between them, and display their viewpoints and rivalry throughout many films.
- Batman wasn't even introduced before this movie, and Superman was only just introduced in the last one. This makes their relationship extremely underdeveloped and poorly crafted.
- The movie is also too focused on other plots and ideas, such as introducing many major characters, having Superman die, setting up the DCEU, etc., that it makes the overall arching story poorly executed even more.
- The whole point of the rivalry between Batman and Superman, and what made their fight so iconic in the comics, is their opposing ideals and views of the world; Batman is dark and cynical, while Superman is light and hopeful. However, in this movie, both Batman and Superman are dark gloomy vigilantes with questionable morality, which destroys the point of their rivalry and makes it feel forced.
- In fairness, yes, Superman is experiencing his emotional struggle after the events of the previous film and tries to think about whether or not Superman is needed, much like post-crisis Superman. The problem, though, is that in that version, Superman still retains his charm and positivity while dealing with his emotional struggle. Here, he is presented as similarly dark and cynical like Batman, thus making them feel too similar to each other in this film.
- Misleading title: There is barely any focus on the rivalry between Batman and Superman, despite the title of the movie being "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". Throughout the almost three-hour length of the movie, Batman and Superman have very little interaction with each other before they fight.
- On top of that, it is never explained as to why they hate each other aside from the fact that the other one is a vigilante.
- The rivalry between the two is so forced and poorly executed that Superman's adoptive mother randomly has to be kidnapped to motivate Superman to fight Batman; meanwhile, Batman only wants to fight Superman because he is paranoid.
- Some of the reasons why Batman and Superman want to fight are completely ridiculous and only exist so the movie can keep shoving in more exposition for their big fight. For example, Batman wants to defeat Superman, because Superman killed people. Meanwhile, Superman wants to defeat Batman, because Batman killed people. They are both quite literally hypocritical murderers who don't learn their lesson on not killing people!
- The titular fight itself felt like an afterthought, as it starts of nowhere and then is completely forgotten about less than five minutes after it occurs.
- Sequel baiting: There are multiple plot threads that were left completely unresolved without any sort of payoff intentionally; instead, those threads were supposed to be filled in future sequels. Several characters and plot threads are also added for no reason other than to set up future installments in the DC Extended Universe.
- Due to Justice League being heavily edited, and the planned sequels being canceled after said film's failure at the box office, those plot threads will now never be resolved.
- At one point the movie pauses to have Wonder Woman watch teaser videos for Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman.
- The movie is outright boring, due to having an overly grim, sour mood that tries too hard to be dark and serious, and has very few lighter and humorist moments; even the other bad DC movies produced before this like Batman and Robin, Catwoman, Green Lantern, Supergirl, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had fun moments.
- While a darker tone for a superhero movie is not inherently bad, the tone of this film is too dark and completely devoid of any humor and it takes itself way too seriously, something that even The Dark Knight trilogy, which was known for popularizing superhero films with a darker tone, didn't do and had some lighthearted moments to balance out the dark themes and characters that also had more personality beyond dull angst.
- The atmosphere in this movie tries to be incredibly grounded, that everything is just extremely dull.
- Even Batman Returns, which is far darker than this film (ironically), didn't take itself seriously like this film, and its dark tone and depressing atmosphere were executed well and much better than this.
- Heck, even the 2022 film The Batman, which also has a dark tone, didn't take itself seriously since the dark tone worked for the narrative and is well-executed.
- While a darker tone for a superhero movie is not inherently bad, the tone of this film is too dark and completely devoid of any humor and it takes itself way too seriously, something that even The Dark Knight trilogy, which was known for popularizing superhero films with a darker tone, didn't do and had some lighthearted moments to balance out the dark themes and characters that also had more personality beyond dull angst.
- Just like Man of Steel, the movie constantly goes on and on about "deep important topics" but never does anything with those themes then throws them all away for mindless over-the-top action, leaving all those supposed themes with no payoff.
- The movie tries to cram in too many comic stories (The Dark Knight Returns, Knightmare, Superman: Red Son, Flashpoint, The Death of Superman, and Injustice) for the sake of pandering references without caring if those stories have any relevance to the actual plot of the movie while also completely missing the context of those stories that the film is referencing.
- The Nostalgia Critic pointed out in his collaborative review of the film with Angry Joe that he felt it was trying to be Batman vs. Superman, The Death of Superman, Marvel movies, The Dark Knight trilogy, Justice League, and Wonder Woman all rolled into one when the first would be more than enough, also stating that Batman vs. Superman was never a retelling of The Dark Knight Returns or a prequel to Suicide Squad.
- The highly controversial destruction of Metropolis in Man of Steel, which the movie promised would address, is rarely mentioned again after the opening scene and no one besides Batman seems to care that it even happened. The only way it is "addressed" is with hand-waving comments that the parts of the city the heroes are accidentally destroying have been evacuated.
- False advertising: The trailers made it seem as if Superman would be put on trial over the destruction of Metropolis, but in the movie itself the reason Superman is put on trial is because... they think he killed a terrorist using bullets.
- Character butchering: Multiple iconic DC characters are portrayed very poorly to the point that they don't even resemble the characters they're supposed to be based after. Examples include:
- Superman is painted as some kind of grizzled messiah without any of the traits that people admire him for. Rather than the iconic symbol of justice that gives people hope, Superman is an eternally depressed grump who seldom smiles: even when he's saving people or having blatant Jesus symbolism foisted on him, he still looks depressed all the time. Additionally, Super Man is also treated poorly in this film:
- Superman only has forty-three lines of dialogue in the entire movie. Many of those lines of dialogue are very short phrases in a dull monotone voice.
- In the Ultimate Edition, his first line is 25 minutes in, which is quite late for a titular character.
- Superman is also killed as early as the second movie in the DCEU franchise, which was only done to give him more blatant Jesus symbolism and sequel-baiting. His death was also made completely pointless by the fact that the sequel Justice League was already confirmed to feature Superman before BvS was released.
- Superman only has forty-three lines of dialogue in the entire movie. Many of those lines of dialogue are very short phrases in a dull monotone voice.
- Batman, on the other hand, is portrayed as an angry, paranoid psychopath who openly kills criminals without any hesitation and spends most of the movie planning to kill Superman.
- Batman has indeed killed people in multiple incarnations before, but whenever he does he is given a reasonable explanation as to why he did so. However this version of Batman doesn't have a good reason to kill, he just kills for the sake of being edgier than The Dark Knight version.
- Batman never gives a proper reason to want to kill Superman other than paranoia and his irrational hatred towards Superman. The fight is immediately forgotten after the infamous "Save Martha" scene, no less than 10 minutes after it happens he calls Superman "a friend" without any mention of him attempting to murder Superman in the previous scene.
- Snyder attempted to justify Batman's killing in interviews by claiming that Batman "only indirectly causes deaths by accident", however, there are several times where Batman directly murders goons without any restraint or second thought.
- Lex Luthor is a spoiled daddy's boy who inherited Lexcorp rather than being a genius billionaire, constantly flip-flops between motivations, and very obviously went through a lot of rewrites.
- Jesse Eisenberg's hammy overacting and obnoxious overuse of nervous ticks made the character worse.
- The scene with the Jolly Rancher candy was a particularly infamous moment for this incarnation of Luthor.
- His plan is also confusing, nonsensical, and often self-contradicting. His motivation also constantly changes between hating Kryptonians, hating god, daddy issues, and knowing that invaders are coming in the future.
- He acts more like the Riddler combined with Joker and Jim Carrey on cocaine than Lex Luthor.
- Jimmy Olsen was made into a CIA agent who dies less than 10 minutes after the movie begins and never interacted with Superman.
- Zack Snyder stated that the reason Jimmy Olsen was added to the movie only to be killed immediately was because "we don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?".
- The popular Mercy Graves is unceremoniously killed off after only a few minutes of screen time.
- Lois Lane serves no purpose to the story other than finding out Lex Luthor is evil, something that every character in the movie immediately figured out, then she throws away the Kryptonite spear only to go get it back immediately afterward.
- Robin was already killed before he was even introduced, the only sort of mention he ever gets is a brief scene where his costume which was vandalized by the Joker off-screen which in itself is easy to miss.
- Wonder Woman serves no purpose other than sequel-baiting other Justice League members and joining the final fight against Doomsday.
- Doomsday inexplicably is made out of Zod's corpse mixed with Lex Luthor's DNA (Somehow) and is nothing but a mindless monster for Superman to punch, and is also basically Nuclear Man from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. His inclusion also completely wasted the "Death of Superman" story arc as it had nothing to do with the rest of the movie's plot and was done too early in the franchise. He is, quite literally, only added in the last part of the film out of absolutely nowhere so that he can punch Superman for a few minutes, and then die.
- Superman is painted as some kind of grizzled messiah without any of the traits that people admire him for. Rather than the iconic symbol of justice that gives people hope, Superman is an eternally depressed grump who seldom smiles: even when he's saving people or having blatant Jesus symbolism foisted on him, he still looks depressed all the time. Additionally, Super Man is also treated poorly in this film:
- Most of the supporting characters are uninteresting, flat, dull, unimportant, or very unlikeable. Examples include Anatoli Knyazev, Jack O'Dwyer, Kahina Ziri, Barrows, and Wallace Keefe.
- Mediocre acting (save for Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, and Gal Gadot). Most characters speak in a dull monotone tone trying to sound deep, but only come off as boring. In particular, Jesse Eisenberg was miscast as Lex Luthor.
- Laughable dialogue, particularly when Batman randomly and constantly shouts "Why did you say that name?!" after Superman mentions Martha before Lois had him stop.
- It repeats the origin story of Bruce Wayne falling into a pit full of bats and his parents being murdered yet again, which is also completely irrelevant to the plot of the film. Not only that, but it's also unimaginative, generic, and empty.
- Despite the budget of almost 300 million dollars, the visual effects of the film, while amazing, several of them feel very unpolished and several of them look like graphics from PS4 or Xbox video games.
- Multiple plot holes, including but not limited to:
- Somehow, Superman gets blamed for the deaths of terrorists when those terrorists were very obviously killed with bullets?
- The Ultimate Edition did resolve this problem by showing the scene where the corpses of those terrorists were immolated.
- "If Superman took down military satellites trying to track him, why the hell didn't he take Zod's ship, a weapon from Krypton, away from them?" - Nostalgia Critic
- Clark Kent investigating Batman's vigilante activities is barely mentioned after first establishing it.
- Lex has no reason to create Doomsday, as he hates Kryptonians and he had already planned to have Batman kill him.
- Lex's "motivation" to create Doomsday is that he thinks Superman is an evil Kryptonian killing machine, but Doomsday is an evil Kryptonian killing machine; thus, Lex is inconsistently portrayed. And what would Lex have done with Doomsday if Batman had managed to kill Superman?
- Lex's motivation to hate Superman is vague at best and it is never explained as to why he also hates Batman.
- Lex also wants Batman and Superman to fight each other, and there is legitimately no genuine reason as to why he wanted them to fight each other.
- Lex's subplot of trying to corrupt a Senator is pointless because he just kills her in an explosion with zero payoff.
- Superman being blamed for that explosion is meaningless because no one believes he did it, and why would Superman even need a bomb? The bombing was also forgotten immediately after it occurred.
- At one point Bruce Wayne falls asleep and has a dream where Darkseid has conquered the Earth alongside an evil Superman, followed by a dream where the Flash time travels to warn Bruce about incoming threats. How does a random dream solve a real-life problem?
- Also, neither of these two dreams are brought up ever again in the DC Extended Universe making them random and nonsensical. You can easily remove this scene and the film would be the same.
- Superman can sense that Lois Lane is in danger from a continent away and rescue her within three seconds, but is somehow unable to sense Martha was kidnapped nor have any idea as to where she is being held.
- It's never explained how Jon Kent's "spirit" somehow talked to Superman when he was in the Arctic, though it could have been Superman imagining Jon being there.
- Injecting Lex Luthor's DNA into Zod's corpse can somehow...transform the aforementioned corpse into Doomsday.
- It is established that Doomsday cannot be killed by Kryptonite, as shown when the Kryptonian gun leaves no effect on him, even though when he is suddenly spiked by the Kryptonite spear, it somewhat kills him.
- Somehow, Superman gets blamed for the deaths of terrorists when those terrorists were very obviously killed with bullets?
- The editing is very poor, with the movie constantly having to jump from plot thread to plot thread without any flow.
- While the action scenes are impressive to look at, they tend to drag too long in extremely tight situations, like how Batman doesn't save Martha Kent (who you know...is about to be burned alive by a guy with a flamethrower) until he defeats all of the minions.
- The climax drags on after Lex randomly creates Doomsday as it goes on for 16 minutes and 39 seconds, while DC and Marvel films tend to have fairy-long climaxes, even if they don't go that long.
- The funeral of Superman drags on over ten minutes, and in the middle of it the movie pauses so Batman and Wonder Woman can sequel-bait Justice League yet again.
- The scene also completely goes against the entire premise of the movie as supposedly the world was very polarized on Superman with many wanting him dead, yet when he is dead everyone on Earth is suddenly mourning him.
- His death was pointless since he's revived again in the next movie, Justice League.
- Even though the visual effects are typically good, there are various moments in which they look incredibly marked and fake looking -- to the point where they look like an Xbox One video game rather than something you'd see from an actual movie. That, as well as an overuse of said CGI, is similar to the previous film, Man of Steel.
Good Qualities
- A great and epic soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, with the song "Is She Still With You?" sticking out in particular.
- Even though the movie tries to cram in too many comic book storylines from DC, the movie is overall still faithful to the comics, especially when Batman tells a gangster who is threatening to kill Martha by saying "I believe you." which is a line taken straight from Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" comic book and the way the scene is pulled off is cool.
- The opening scene of the destruction of the Metropolis shown from Bruce Wayne's point of view is excellent.
- The action is awesome. For example:
- Despite the #17 statement, the scene where Batman fights the criminals that kidnapped Martha was amazing, with many pointing out that this is the best Batman scene in any Batman movie, saying that it is brilliantly choreographed.
- The fight with Doomsday was also great.
- Despite being rather poorly executed due to this movie's poor writing, the actual fight between Batman and Superman is pretty cool and one of the only genuinely entertaining scenes in the movie.
- Great performances from Ben Affleck as Batman, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.
- Although some aspects of Henry Cavill's performance as Superman in certain scenes could have been a lot better (i.e., him speaking in a dull, monotone voice from time to time, or having only 43 lines of dialogue), he still gives overall decent performance as Superman. He also pulls off most of his scenes that show the audience Superman's inner turmoil well, and his scenes with Lois Lane are nicely done.
- It introduced Wonder Woman, who is the best new addition to the cast. In addition, she was such a popular character, that she eventually got Wonder Woman her solo movie a year after this movie came out and the 2020 sequel.
- Spectacular visuals, despite the overly dark scene settings.
- The Ultimate Edition of this film is an improvement over the theatrical cut.
- Fantastic cinematography that is even better than in Man of Steel. In this movie, if you pause on any scene/still shot, resembles a panel of a comic book/graphic novel.
- Even though it does drag on too long, the climax is pretty epic.
- Despite the poor execution, the "Martha Exchange" was a truly powerful idea and a great reason for Superman and Batman to fight each other.
- There is a somewhat chuckle-worthy moment where Batman, after being shot down by Doomsday and about to be blasted, says: Oh shit......
- Despite taking itself way too seriously as mentioned above, it's at least far from being campy and too silly like Batman and Robin (which is even worse than this film).
Reception
The announcement of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was met with strong hype and excitement from fans as it would be the first time that Batman and Superman would be in the same movie and this would be the official start of DC's cinematic universe to compete with Marvel. Likewise, the film had promised to address the controversial prequel Man of Steel. Concerns were quickly raised however when the first trailer was released as it suggested the movie would have an even grimmer tone than Man of Steel, the second trailer met with massive backlash because it spoiled Doomsday's inclusion and raised concerns that Superman would be killed as early as the second movie in the franchise. Those concerns were proven correct, which led to even more backlash as fans felt the Death of Superman storyline was shoved into a movie that had nothing to do with that story and was done far too early.
Following a strong debut that set new box office records, the film experienced a historic drop (even worse than Batman and Robin's) in its second weekend and never recovered.
Critical Response
Despite turning a profit, it was deemed a box office disappointment and received mostly mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and fans for its overly-dark tone, slow pace, bad characterization of iconic DC characters, convoluted and over-bloated plot filled with sequel-baiting, the lack of focus on Batman fighting Superman, and the controversial decision to kill Superman as early as the second DCEU movie, though some praised its musical score, visual style and acting performances particularly Affleck and Gadot. On aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film resulted in a 29% score. The website's critical consensus reads: "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice smothers a potentially powerful story – and some of America's most iconic superheroes – in a grim whirlwind of effects-driven action.". The consensus was that the movie "is more interested in setting up sequels than being a movie". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average to critics' reviews, gave the film an average score of 44 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
However, audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. It earned a "B–" from men, a "B" from women, a "B" from those under 25, and a "B–" from those over 25. According to PostTrak, 73% of audiences graded the film "very good" or "excellent", with 60% giving it a "definite recommend". BBC News reported that "the film had been widely praised by fans after its first screening in New York".
The "Ultimate Edition" cut was considered an improvement over the theatrical cut as the additional 30 minutes filled out some plot holes. At the same time, however, audiences were outraged when they learned that the "Ultimate Edition" was supposed to be the theatrical edition in the first place. It was also noted that the Ultimate Edition still doesn't fix the main problems with the movie and the plot holes filled were very minor threads that didn't contribute much to the story.
The overwhelmingly negative reception to the movie was a large factor in Warner Bros.' decision to meddle with other DCEU movies and mandate changes in tone and characterizations, most notably Suicide Squad and Justice League, both of which were significantly edited to remove the overly dark tones they were initially meant to have, while Snyder's version of the latter, while still serious, is somewhat lighter than this film.
Due to the film's fairly polarized reception, considering that it competed with the comic book film Captain America: Civil War, the film has been described by many fans and the general public as one of the biggest disappointments in the movie. history of the Superheroes, in turn, was described as the most disappointing film of the 2010 decade, at the same time due to the strong repercussions that the film had in the world reception, it snatched the position of the Phantom Menace as the film most disappointing ever.
Box office
The film opened up at #1 on its opening weekend with a domestic gross of $166,007,347. The total domestic gross was $330,360,194. In foreign countries, the film grossed $543,274,725. Overall, the film made a worldwide gross of $873,634,919 against its $250-300 million budget. Despite grossing a large amount of money, the film was a box office disappointment, as Warner Brothers had predicted that the film would make at least a billion dollars at the box office.
Videos
External links
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at the Internet Movie Database
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on Rotten Tomatoes
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