Let’s not kid ourselves- we never expected ‘Batman V Superman’ to be something cerebral, deep or intelligent.
No, we walked into the theatres, fully aware that we were going to be handed a sinfully hedonistic clash between two wildly popular DC heroes- the men whose exploits we have read in comics and seen in cartoons and movies. We never expected it to make much sense (after all, why the hell would they want to kill each other so viciously?) but we were glad to swallow down some little piece of hokum logic and sit back and see our titans take each other down in a delicious smackdown that would have had each of us sticking to our sides. Perfect then for an evening with drinks and fries as we boys would have debated which of the two was better.
Alas, Zack Snyder’s long, overblown and often sloppy film fails to make the much-awaited clash even half as spectacular and the problem is a peculiar one. It is not so much that the film lacks style, snap and spectacle; it is just that it spends more two-thirds of the film in ratcheting up some shoddy, overcrowded and plodding backstory to the penultimate fight of the film and then when the big fight actually comes up, it is just another long and loud action scene in a movie that has too much noise and far too little sense.
Of course, it is not logic that I talk about and you will know what I mean.
We begin, of course, with Bruce Wayne as a little kid in a funeral who falls into a well, discovers bats and becomes transformed altogether. Cut then to the present day when a grown up and greying Wayne is seen scrambling towards the falling ruins of his office building, the same being rampaged by beings from outer world. As it happens, they happen to be Superman and Zod fighting it off in the hysterically loud climax of ‘Man Of Steel’ and after much convincingly hard-hitting destruction in tow, Wayne looks up at the grey skies, his eyes burning with anger and the stage for a battle is set.
What follows this promisingly crackling start is a hotchpotch series of sloppily edited proceedings that make little or no sense at all. This is where the problems start right away with Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and David Goyer start cramming in a load of seemingly pivotal characters and situations, all of which are not even fleshed out. There is Holly Hunter playing a gravely unsmiling senator hell-bent on anti-Superman doctrine, there is some half-baked chaos with Lois Lane (a desperately good Amy Adams) in an African desert outpost, there is a disgusted survivor who tries to rouse the rabble and above all this, there is Jesse Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor like a spoilt brat, literally, replacing the dignified, wry veneer of the original arch-nemesis with a plucky sense of boyish mischief that the film squeezes to the point of making it unintentionally cloying.
To be fair to Eisenberg, he is not to be blamed for the farcical tone of his character and rather, it is his single-minded and preening quest to put down the heroes of Gotham and Metropolis that solely brings some nasty edge to the inconsequential plot, even if it merely appears more like a goofy Joker than the ultra-smart Luthor. The problem is that all this randomness would have made some sense if there had been some coherence, some sense of direction in it. But Snyder rarely brings any of it to the film, loading it instead with more self-indulgent narrative excess. In between, our heroes are themselves no better than the befuddling people around them. Clark/Superman is frequently bothered with a grim and self-centered smugness that robs his essence of everything redeeming while Bruce Wayne, even as being slick and edgy, is dreaming too often- dreams and fantasies which make no sense and only amp up the volume deafeningly.
It is actually a cobbled-up mishmash of many well-worn superhero elements actually. The origins story is flimsily borrowed from 'Batman Begins', a thrilling but all-too-brief Batmobile chase is modeled on the incredible tunnel pursuit of 'The Dark Knight' and there are a few smart moments which the film takes from the comics rather cleverly- Luthor, for instance, is destined to discover the truth behind Superman and this is handled pretty well in a scene of unsettling dread. But then, 'Batman V Superman' wastes away these good moments, as if to make space for the no-brainer bashup in the end. And then it comes and then we are instantly letdown.
While there has been solid precedent for a similar clash between the two heroes in the comics (a well-known one is in Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns'), the same has also been backed up with a very intriguing idea or conflict that makes it worthy. There is no conflict at all in this case and if there is, it is contrived. The plot seems to suggest a difference of ideology between the two men but in reality, it is merely content to let them indulge their battered egos into the stage. The battle is not only generic and ruthlessly half-baked and cut short- it is also ultimately pointless. Because the film then pits the two men, somewhat embarassed, together into a bigger bid to save the world. The result is a Snyder-style bash-em-up battle that is only big in numbers and lacking in coherence, style and soul.
Does nothing work then in 'Batman V Superman'? Rest assured, it is not really the worst superhero movie of all time. There are parts which work strongly enough- most of them centering on Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, who must be considered as the film's highlight. You can hear the sinful sighs of all the boys in the audience at the simmering sight of Gadot's Diana Prince, lending this mostly emotionally cold film a dose of sweltering heat and then finally duke it out, warrior-style, in bustier and girdle, in the film's lengthy climax. The film makes the error of making her only a side-character but then we have her solo movie coming up. Well, we can hardly wait.
Ben Affleck is actually solid as Batman and Bruce, effectively bringing a psychotic edge to his both sides, though comparisons with Christian Bale will be forever inevitable. Henry Cavill, as always said, has the right look but is curiously lacking the self-assured mischief that made him so endearing in 'The Man From UNCLE', something that this mostly humorless film required desperately. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner are given some fair bit of sappy philosophizing to do (though Costner also gets some meaty dialogue in a fine cameo) while Jeremy Irons makes for a superbly cynical, wise and shrewd Alfred, effectively replacing the all-knowing intelligence of Michael Caine's version with a grounded common sense so lacking in the actions of the characters around him.
Snyder knows his style, sure. He has certainly learnt a bit to rein his worst impulses in and there are a few flashes of a certain slick style in fits and starts- cinematographer Larry Fong lends a certain occasional beauty to the overblown and cacophonous chaos all around- most particularly in the opening scene of the murder of the Waynes, the camera zooming gracefully at a necklace of pearls breaking apart as a bullet is fired in terrific slow-motion. There is also a down and dirty battle scene in which Affleck's Batman finally comes into his own and takes out the bad guys in lean and mean style. There are occasionally witty moments too- mostly in Eisenberg's mutterings, or the way he quotes 'Lolita' verbatim when meeting Lois Lane. However, all these- along with tragically brief glimpses of a sleek Batmobile- are all drowned out by the excess all around- the director battering our senses with a zillion punches but no punch in the proceedings.
At the end of it all, we- I and my friend- were severely exhausted and hungry enough to devour a sizzler. That is what one feels- unsatisfied and really hungry, not for more, but for something, anything that could fill up the vacuum of punched-up hopes.
My Rating- 2 Stars out of 5.
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