Title: Batman v Superman (IMDb)
Directed by: Zack Synder
Written by: Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer
Year: 2016
Length: 151 min.
Rating: 12
My IMDb rating: 4/10

This is really difficult. I think there’re two ways to review this movie. The first is reviewing Batman v Superman as a movie without any knowledge of or connection to DC comics and their superheroes. The second is reviewing it as a movie featuring the most beloved superheroes of the DC Universe. As you can imagine, these two reviews would vary significantly.

As it is, I am a comic book fan. While Superman was the first Superhero I came to know, it was Batman who I came to love the most.

Which is why I cannot say that I liked Batman v Superman.

Please note that this review contains spoilers for the entire movie. 

First of all, I have to say that I had my doubts about Ben Affleck as Batman. He surprised me, though. Affleck did a great job. He played the older, rougher Batman really well. Unfortunately, this movie did not give him the opportunity to play a Batman I would have liked. The way Batman is portrayed throughout Batman v Superman is what threw me off the most.

After witnessing the destruction and death that was caused by Superman in Man of Steel, it doesn’t surprise me that Batman would want to have a means of subduing Superman. But killing him? Simply because there might come a time in which Superman turns bad? Just in case, let’s kill him? Nooooo, no no no. That is not how this works.

Admitting that Batman came real close to killing his archenemy Joker more than once – he always (was) held back. He realised that killing someone would make him just as bad as whoever it was he was killing. I saw the Robin costume with Joker’s message in the Batcave, I realise that something awful must have happened in the many years in which Bruce Wayne was acting as Batman. I don’t disagree with showing him to be brutal, even to a point of being cruel sometimes. He is that in the comics, too – no denying it.

Having to watch Batman throw an active granade after someone and see him explode, or actively smashing a guy head first through a floor thus breaking his neck. That sort of thing is unimaginable and unacceptable – at least in my perception of Batman.

The thing is, I did like some parts of the movie. Wonder Woman (beautifully played by Gal Gadot) being a badass warrior – equal in strength to Superman – that was awesome! More of it, please.

Superman himself, and then Lex Luthor… just no. I didn’t care for it. So many things in this movie didn’t make any sense at all. The fact that we had to watch Superman die and see that burial – even though everyone who watches that movie knows that he has to be in the next movie. I wasn’t moved at all by his death or by the pseudo-weeping Lois Lane holding him in her arms (that scene was just bad).

Summing up: Batman v Superman was better than Man of Steel, and I have hope that Justice League will be better still. Maybe I will be able to watch the next Snyder movie cringing only once or twice and not the whole movie. Wouldn’t that be great?