TL;DR version – don’t waste your money. Long version includes spoilers. Lots of spoilers because this movie sucked my brain out one ear and spit shot it across the street.
Okay, ready? This is going to be a long vent.
First, some redeeming features to the movie:
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Ben Affleck doesn’t suck at Batman. I’m ambivalent to Batman in general, but Affleck worked for me here.
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Gal Godot didn’t suck as Wonder Woman. Then again, she didn’t have to do much except look sexy, flirt with Bats, and growl during the battle. Still, she’s pretty good at growling.
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Henry Cavill is still pretty, even with a scar.
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Nod to Robin existing in this universe. Or formerly existing since we don’t know if it was Dick Grayson or Jason Todd who was killed. I’m voting for Jason because I would love to see Under the Red Hood live action.
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Jeremy Irons as Alfred. Cranky without pontificating.
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The Clark/Lois love scene at the beginning. Nice touch.
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The Martha and Batman exchange when he rescues her. Also, nice touch.
Non-redeeming features. While the plot in and of itself wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t brilliant, and the whole film was dragged down by bloated waste of stuff the audience didn’t need to know and/or didn’t need to see. It reminded of how I felt about the Dark Knight, an okay film that could have left 45 minutes on the cutting room floor. Specifically:
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Why did we need to waste so much time rewatching the death of Martha & Thomas Wayne? Everyone who’s going to see this movie knows Batman’s backstory. It would have been so much better if they’d handled that with the same deft touch that they handled Robin’s demise.
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Wonder Woman served no purpose. They used her as a funnel for a product placement sequence advertising the Justice League movie. Yes, she fights at the end, protects Batman while Superman is distracted by rescuing Lois (again), but there was no real reason for her to be there.
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The reason Wonder Woman shouldn’t have been there is because there was no reason they couldn’t have blocked the final battle with Superman and Batman teaming up and still have the same outcome.
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Superman has to save Lois no less than three times during the movie. Batman then has to save Martha Kent. Really people? So much saving of women just to avoid fridging them?
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Batman, the world’s greatest detective, has been emotionally manipulated by Lex Luthor for over two years? Seriously?
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Lex’s security is so bad, no one notices Bruce Wayne or Diana Prince wandering down to the computer servers in Lex’s house all three times.
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Lex is the new Joker. For someone who finds the Joker boring on a good day, this didn’t help. Joker is psychopathic, Luthor is sociopathic – learn the difference people.
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They had to make Lex psychopathic because he has no motivation. He makes vague references to getting beaten by Daddy and Daddy’s childhood during the Third Reich, but Lex himself has no personal reason to want Superman dead.
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Batman decides to bring Doomsday from the uninhabited island BACK TO METROPOLIS so Bats can find the kryptonian spear to stop him? Why couldn’t Bats just go to Metropolis, get the spear, then return to the island where no one was getting hurt? (And this is a guy who based his whole anti-Superman vendetta based on Superman supposedly not caring about the thousands killed during his battle with Zod).
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Batman’s crossfit training montage. Yes, he’s sexy, but for a movie already bloated to 2 1/2 hours, it was unnecessary and didn’t move the story forward.
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Useless Bat-dreams/nightmares that tells the audience what we already know: Batman fears Superman’s god-like powers.
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Batman decides not to kill Superman because their moms share the same first name. Ummmm, okay.
I could go on but this blog post is going the way of the movie – bloated to the point of useless. Just wait for it to come on TV at some point and make sure you have something else to keep yourself busy while you watch it.