Early reviews for Batman vs. Superman are awful

[Everlong]

Currently at a 39 percent on RottenTomatoes. Some choice quotes:

"For those who go to the movies to see coherent narratives, [this] is Hollywood's latest exercise in fan service...taking the usual screenplay ingredients of logic, reason and character motivation, tossing it all in a blender and filming the scraps."

"
It's a shame that Batman v Superman is also a storytelling disgrace. It has maybe six opening scenes and jumps so incessantly from subplot to subplot that a script doctor would diagnose a peculiarly modern infection: "disjunctivitis.""

"
Filled with scenes of gloomy characters confronting their demons or wrestling with insipid moral quandaries, this joyless slog isn't a superhero film so much as it is an excruciating therapy session with huge explosions and guys in capes."

"With its high-grade visuals, quick pacing and constant motion, Batman v Superman never bores. But it seems less like an actual movie for us than a two-hour, 31-minute sales pitch for the rumored DC Comics sequels yet to come."

"Snyder's movie presents extremist versions of familiar characters in a tonal mishmash that indulges in more thunderous conflict than it can wrestle into coherence."

"Megaton fight scenes are the reason people will put up with bad dialogue or bad logic in a film, so it's an outright tragedy when Batman v Superman's showdowns become as boring as the rest of it."

"From its superfluous opening ... to its clichéd final scene, "BvS" fails to ignite an emotional response - except, perhaps, dissatisfaction. It is unrelentingly grim and oppressive, sucking all the air out of the theater."

"A popcorn film - and this is a popcorn film - should never feel like Sunday night homework."

"A near-total drag, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice plays like a loose, unofficial quarter-billion-dollar remake of The Odd Couple, in which Oscar and Felix are literally trying to kill each other."

"And what of the title's promised skirmish? That face-off between two comics legends becomes but one in a series of big things bashing into other big things, which is what Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer mistake for storytelling."


Goddamn, this looks like it's every bit as terrible as I was expecting it to be.

[Messiah]

I'm shocked.

I'm not sure any Batman/Superman movie can really work and the trailers released beforehand didn't give me any reason to believe otherwise. I don't think the execution can ever be as good as it may sound in theory, unless you do two separate movies (one Batman-centric, one Superman-centric, then combine the two stories in the 3rd one).

[Circled Square]

>capeshit
>bad

Wow im so surprised

[Daz]

Honestly, after Man of Steel and some of the trailers, did anyone expect any differently?

[VaderBomb]

Zack Snyder is one of the worst filmmakers of all time.

[Daz]

Zack Snyder is one of the worst filmmakers of all time.

He's the definition of style over substance.

[DBSoT]

These reviews aren't going to stop me from seeing the movie, but I am sure it may hurt ticket sales. I am just imagining that the movie is has the same dark tone as "The Watchmen", but with some much bigger action scenes. The big reason I imagine this movie is being destroyed is because they are attempting to introduce way to many characters and it can get confusing. That was the same issue with Watchmen. I know people know of Superman and Batman, but getting used to the new adaptations of Batman, Alfred, Wonder Women, Commissioner Gordon, Lex Luther, Doomsday, Aquaman, Cyborg, The Flash, etc can be tiring.

[SlightlyJames]

These reviews aren't going to stop me from seeing the movie, but I am sure it may hurt ticket sales. I am just imagining that the movie is has the same dark tone as "The Watchmen", but with some much bigger action scenes. The big reason I imagine this movie is being destroyed is because they are attempting to introduce way to many characters and it can get confusing. That was the same issue with Watchmen. I know people know of Superman and Batman, but getting used to the new adaptations of Batman, Alfred, Wonder Women, Commissioner Gordon, Lex Luther, Doomsday, Aquaman, Cyborg, The Flash, etc can be tiring.

I've read/listened to spoiler reviews of the movie. It's stupid as fuck

[DBSoT]

If the movie is as bad as the critics say, then DC should move up the solo Batman movie to next year or early 2018. It is a recognizable character that has a history of doing quite well with the audience. It is not going to be directed by Snyder so that should help as well. The Batman returns history is well documented and with "The Killing Joke" animated movie coming out this year, it may be a good transition for DC fans. It will also be front of people's minds after Suicide Squad debuts in August. Since the major players in the Suicide Squad movie are Batman villains (Joker, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Deadshot). Granted Deadshot kind of jumps around from hero to hero.

[Hanley!]

I just got back from watching Sing Street, which was really good. It's the 9th film I've seen in the cinema so far this year, and they were all good. Most of them very good. None of them were Batman v Superman. Because I've never been interested in seeing it. The film has never excited me.

Lots of people have been interested in the film for ages and really hope it's going to be great. But I find it so weird that probably half of the people who are going to see this film are certain it's going to be bad. Those people seem to be going mostly out of morbid curiosity or just because the hype train has been going for so long on this one that they're curious to see how it pans out. For anyone who's really not excited about the prospect of this film, and who expects it to suck, why not go see something else? There are plenty of great movies out there.

If this film is as bad as people make it out to be, I'd prefer if it wasn't successful. Otherwise Hollywood will just keep cranking out more films that are bad in the same ways. The next decade of DC movies in particular could be terrible if audiences send the studios the wrong message with this one.

[Everlong]

I certainly won't be seeing it. I actually haven't seen any movies in the theater yet this year, but I am thinking of going to check out 10 Cloverfield Lane or whatever it's called. I've heard good things about that.

[PorkChop]

Not sure if you've seen, but on IMDB there's some questionable ratings being given for it right now. Loads of 10/10s from brand new accounts. Smells like corporate brigading.

[Everlong]

Not sure if you've seen, but on IMDB there's some questionable ratings being given for it right now. Loads of 10/10s from brand new accounts. Smells like corporate brigading.

Yeah I saw something about that on Reddit. Not surprising. This happens a lot for all big-time movies where there are likely to be fanboys, but this one is so absurdly over the top that it reeks of corporate involvement.

[Hanley!]

I dunno, I'm seeing a lot of people online desperately defending this one, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just the fanboys. In fact, I really suspect that it is. Anyone involved corporately probably knows that the ship has sailed in terms of the film doing well critically.

[Ali]

Well, I saw it.

Is it as bad as everyone says? No.

Is it good? No.

It's very confused and about half an hour too long. There is a really good movie in here somewhere, and a really terrible movie in here as well. They can not coexist in one coherent film, and as a result, this movie is just kind of... bland.

And that is why, now that I've actually thought about it a bit more, it is, in fact, a BAD movie.

There is some good here. Ben Affleck is pretty good as Batman, and I get the feeling that he directed all of his own scenes, because quite honestly, every scene without Bruce Wayne is acted POORLY. And these are not bad actors. Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams, Holly Hunter, they're all good actors. But I really can't defend this guy any longer... Zack Snyder is a terrible director of actors.

The reason I say Affleck had to have directed his scenes is because of how good Gal Gadot comes off as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman. She has about two scenes where she's not interacting with Bruce Wayne/Batman, and no lines in either of those scenes. But because she's only playing off of Affleck, she comes off great, and I actually want to see her as Wonder Woman in her own film. We'll see then how good of an actress she is, but Affleck really helped her shine.

Now let's get back to the bigger problems in this movie. The editing, the scene-to-scene transitions, are bad. A lot of the acting is bad. A lot of the dialogue is bad. The pacing... is okay. I wasn't as tired as I was coming out of Man of Steel. But it still feels RUSHED. They're trying to set up all of these plot points for future films, showing cameos of The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Lex Luthor has ZERO motivation in this movie! He doesn't like Superman because... reasons. He wants Batman and/or Superman to kill each other because... reasons. He has all of this data on superhumans because... reasons. I have no idea WHY Lex Luthor is evil in this movie other than he's Lex Luthor and its part of Superman's story that he's evil. Jesse Eisenberg is more Lex Luthor-y as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network than he is here. Here, he is more like a knock-off of The Joker or The Riddler than Lex Luthor. He's way too over the top, and in a more traditionally BAD movie, he would be the best part.

This movie is bad, but it's not bad in the way a movie usually is. Usually, a bad movie is awful across the board. This was just wasted potential, and that's just sad. I wish this movie was better. If it were, I would be more enthusiastic about the inevitable Justice League movies. But as it stands now, as long as Zack Snyder remains at the helm, I am so not looking forward to them.

Final Rating: 4/10. There's some good here, but you are not missing anything if you choose not to watch it in the theater. Rent it.

This review made me sad.

[War Daddy]

Im not a fanboy but it really isnt THAT bad. The last hour really saves the film.

[UTK]

I had no interest in seeing it but a group of buddies wanted to, so I said what the heck. Even if it sucked it's still fun to watch an action movie, right? ...eh. I don't know why Snyder can't write a well-paced film to save his life. I forgot how much I hated Man of Steel until I saw BvS (I actually never finished watching Man of Steel because of how shitty the pace was. I was just bored). It was just sudden dream sequences and jarring dialogue in a big stew; not a good stew, but a chicken stew with an entire raw chicken in it and a few veggies. Not to mention that everything in the movie was in the trailer. Wonder Woman, Doomsday, 90% of Batman and Superman's fight, it was all featured in the trailer. Also, is Batman's policy against killing solely a Nolan Batman thing? Because Batman killed a ton of people in this movie.

But on the flip side, Jeremy Irons was a pretty solid Alfred.

[Everlong]

^Batman's policy against killing only exists in certain Batman universes. There are others where he's far more brutal.

[Hanley!]

Batman not killing people is default Batman. That's a big part of what makes up his character. He has killed before in certain comics and in certain universes, because there are always going to be exceptions when a character has been written by literally hundreds of people. But Batman killing is the exception rather than the rule, and purists are naturally going to have a problem with it when a film depicts him this way.

[PorkChop]

One of my mates went to see this, gave it a 'solid 7' out of 10, then went on to say that he'd recently watched The Prestige which he said was a 3.

I felt physically sick. 3/10?