And now we come to the pièce de résistance of the Easter weekend’s movie fun and frolics, after we’ve eaten all the chocolate eggs of course. Batman Vs Superman or rather sorry, I should have been calling it Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. This is the film which will give us an epic battle of two DC comic book characters as well as set up the entire series of films to follow already planned out by Warner Bros over the next few years.

It’s actually been really hard to quantify this actual post into something coherent to tell you about what’s good, bad etc. So tell you what, I’ll just write down my thoughts as they come and you can all take them as they are. It’s really weird but no more weird than what they do with this.

The major plot points were all pretty much already given away save for one or two parts which of course I would be an asshat to write down here for all to see. I will state for the record that you will have needed to have watched Man of Steel for the story arc, such as it is to make sense in the grand scheme of things, so you have that to consider. The story revolves around the aftermath of the arrival of Superman, with various parties interested in ensuring that the Man of Steel doesn’t cause any more sh*t.

One of these parties is Batman / Bruce Wayne (played by Ben Affleck) who along with his butler Alfred (played not enough by Jeremy Irons) investigate Lex Luthor because of reasons. However, It appears on the odd occasion that Wonder Woman is investigating Lex too, and nicks Batman’s hard drive at one point, only to return it back.

Slowly but surely as time and the plot unfolds, we see Bruce get more and more worried about what Superman could do if left to his own devices, but the real threat to everyone is indeed our new Lex Luthor (played by Jessie Eisenberg) who seems to have plans of his own for our heroes.

Actually I have to stop here describing the story any more as there was a massive feeling like there was 3 or 4 plots or indeed separate films all nestled within this and none of it really gets a proper airing out. That’s a terrible shame as surely Marvel has shown how it can be done, actually give everyone their own space to grow and allow us the audience to get invested in them before bringing them together for an almighty battle?

Who wants to see Clark Kent take on the Batman? Well it’s sure as sh*t ain’t us!

This meant we didn’t get to see more of Alfred’s sage advice and see him more as the Q of the Bat operation, considering he seems to be the one making Master Wayne’s armor as well as his tea. Again, Laurence Fishburne started to show glimpses of a funny / interesting character in Perry White but again was not in often enough to make any real difference aside from a couple of lines filled to the brim with foreshadowing.

Actually there was a metric s*it ton of foreshadowing and teasing to the eventual titular fight in this, almost like the crew behind this wanted to assure us it was coming, just hang in there while we do some other stuff. The reasons why Batman and Superman were brought together were a bit too much to bear as well truth be told.

Buy hey, this film also had to introduce a metric ton of new characters and new actors to stand in established roles too so let’s have a look at them.

Ben Affleck as Batman, was actually pretty good, again considering what he had to work with. He looked the part, was in keeping with how you knew the dynamic of Bruce and Batman to be for the most part, and honestly, I do look forward to seeing what he does next as the Dark Knight. The fight scenes he does are brutal and free flowing, again much like the Batman Arkham games which a lot of people have indeed compared to, but that was few and far between sadly.

This Batman is not afraid to kill this time either. Hell, he brands people with a Bat iron which in essence is a death sentence in prison by all accounts. Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen and put it this way, when people see the Bat signal in Gotham, it will be everyone s*itting themselves, much like if Superman came to save us all after what happened in Man of Steel.

Actually here’s a good question; In this dark version of the DC universe, who is going to trust any of these guys to save us? That trust is looked at within the film especially with TV debates and a hearing at the House of Representatives to question if all this is a good thing, but that quickly will get cast aside during the second half of the film.

What do you mean it’s too late to pull out of this movie?

Ok, back to the new people and we also got introduced more briefly to Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, who a lot of people criticised ahead of the films release as being picked to be the girl with the golden lasso, and again she was quite capable with the little screen time she was given. There was just enough shown of her to want to see the origins of Wonder Woman and leads onto my next point.

Actually given that we’ve been introduced to Wonder Woman, all we’ve been left with is questions. She basically seems to have incredible powers and magic bracelets which can hold back lasers but why does she have those powers and why does she have a magic lasso which can hold anything in place?

Of course the fans of Wonder Woman and what DC have done before will know that, but for the average movie goer? They are just going to be confused as f**k and there’s no context or reasons given, we’re just supposed to accept it. Oh dear, maybe a Wonder Woman standalone film before this one would have helped there….

But again, surely that would have been much better if we saw the origins of a lot of the characters first before this came out to market. For example, this version of Batman hasn’t had a lot of flushing out because it’s not quite the one we came to know from the Dark Knight trilogy a few years ago.

That seems to have been cast aside for a Batman who is still haunted by his parents even though they have been doing this for around 20 years and having a ton of bad dreams / visions. This Batman is world-weary, doesn’t have much faith in the world and given what happened in metropolis, you can understand why he is concerned about the man of steel.

There’s one character however that I am pretty sure every villager would be glad to grab their pitchforks for and chase out of town. Lex Luthor.

Look at the green shiny shiny, and not at the tw*t behind the glass.

Jesse Eisenberg is basically f*cking annoying as the new Lex Luthor. I basically hoped he was going to be killed off and we wouldn’t have to hear the ramblings on of someone who basically has been drinking battery acid and watching Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker a bit too much. Seriously, you couldn’t get any interest from Kevin Spacey to revive the role from Superman Returns? He could do charismatic, sinister and evil in one turn, just look at House of Cards for crying out loud!

This version of Lex was a annoying c*nt, just because he was. For example, he was denied an import license for a plot device (actually with a semi-good reason) and therefore decided to be a d*ck to a senator even if he imported the thing he wanted anyway regardless, well to a lot of people after what happened in the senate building but of course, that’s a spoiler.

The worst part is, how could anyone he interacted with not see he was a complete prick a mile away? How did they allow him to get to where he was, considering the f**king awful speech he attempted to ramble at a party for a new library or something. He even didn’t have time for his sexy assistant who well, won’t be seeing a sequel any time soon.

That pretty much showed he’s not all there and yet he was still allowed to carry on regardless. The foreshadowing part as well where he interrupts Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent talking to one another broke the whole thing and even went as far as saying “Hey everyone, it’s the main heroes, I hope nothing bad happens…LOL”

It’s the money shot here folks!

Given how he was, this Lex reminds you too much of the trendy hipster f**kers you see in tech companies, maybe this performance was what Jesse gave to the Social Network film about Mark Zuckerberg (no idea, never watched it), the type who thinks they can get away with anything because they are smart and wear dickish clothes to match. Either way, this one character did so much to drag the film down. Truly awful and we can only hope this is the last time we see Lex at all.

Henry Cavill must be feeling a bit annoyed surely as Superman by now and the way the story has panned out for his character? After what happened in Man of Steel, there was a thread about whether or not Superman should be doing what he’s doing, with some framing being done of Superman.

Basically the people in this world seem to want to just keep shitting on Superman, to the point where you start wondering why is he still bothering to save anyone? Hell his mum pretty much says the world doesn’t owe him anything. We don’t even really see him establish any goofy traits as Clark Kent, he is the exact same guy now and the whole dual identity thing just doesn’t matter any more.

And oh dear god, why do they persist with Lois Lane any more? She really is just someone to save and have one moment to help Superman against Batman. Aside from that, pointless. Amy Adams is picking up an easy paycheck sure, but remove Lois from this, it wouldn’t have made much difference at all.

HULK SMASH! I mean, err… NOT HULK SMASH!

I have to bring up some other of the main grievances now, starting with the shoe-horning in of the whole “meta-human” angle (the bit they are using the start bringing in the characters from the rest of the DC universe.) With a complete dream sequence which then turns out to be a nope, another plot thread from some random dude I have no idea who he is, but before we have any further clue, then Bruce Wayne wakes up again. It was just so jarring that it makes no sense what so ever.

It seems also that everyone knew who everyone else was too. Ok, I did gloss over the fact in Man of Steel that Lois Lane knew who Clark really was right away. It’s a pretty major thing actually considering that normally you assume that everyone takes a while to figure it out, but what seemed to happen was everyone knew who each other was already and therefore what is the point of secret identities?

But hey on the bright side, they mostly battled in abandoned places and deserted parts of the city which everyone took great lengths to inform the audience of over and over again, so at least not as many folks were going to die with untold amounts of property damage (there’s still a lot of that to be honest). The fights themselves when they did take place looked quite epic, even if some of it with Doomsday (they spoiled it already in trailers so don’t hang me here) ended up looking like a fireworks display.

Even the product placement was kept to a minimum, the only two glaringly obvious moments were the fact that Lois uses Oil of Ulay and Wonder Woman flies with Turkish Airlines.

Oh, and Michael Shannon did an excellent job as General Zod’s Corpse.

It’s Verdict Time

Suffice it to say, I have the impression they tried not only fit in too much into the runtime, they left various holes which didn’t make sense for one reason or another. and actually at the end of the film, if you’re still paying any attention, they basically jump the shark all too soon in terms of a major story and in essence, because it did so much in a quite a long time at two and half hours, though it felt longer than that. I don’t even see how anything to come afterwards is even going to fit in.

Is this a cash-in? You’re damned right it is, with details already of an EXTENDED edition coming our way soon. EXTENDED edition of a two and half hour film which felt much much longer already. Just let that sink in, there’s more of this! They are wanting to do things their own away away from Marvel, that’s understandable as otherwise, how would you tell the difference?

But Marvel took the time to get to the point where multiple characters on screen made sense. Whatever Zack Snider and the WB crew are going to do, they better ensure they look at what they’re doing next and take onboard the criticism leveled so far as a lot of them are 100% justified.

Would I say to you, put down some cash to go see this? No, I wouldn’t. While it’s not a film you could hate, it was all over the place and for any average movie goer, they will just come out dazed and confused. This was too much too soon with way too many holes in the story. Judging from this, The DC Universe needs a hell of a rethink before they risk tanking badly.

For now, WB’s hopes rest with Suicide Squad due out in August and if that’s just as all over the place, then the whole DC comic book film proposition may become toxic for a lot of people.