Batman: the Murderer
This Batman was one of the worst portrayals of the character, from a writing standpoint. Here we have a Batman who is vicious, angry, and irrational. Nowhere do we see his brilliance, his calculation, his love for humanity. Instead, we have a man who brands criminals with a hot iron, who tears through the streets of Gotham destroying property, killing people, and causing general mayhem. Here is a Batman that says lines such as, "If there is even a 1% chance he could turn on his, we have to take it as an absolute certainty." That is some baffling ethics right there, considering Batman kills a few dozen people himself in the film.
Batman's detective skills are abysmal in this film. He very easily gets spotted going into Lex's server room (which is near all the wait staff for some reason), gets his flash drive stolen by Wonder Woman, and gets duped into a blind rage by a handful of Polaroid photographs and Joker-esque writings. At no point does he do what Batman does best: figure things out. He's just a rampaging maniac. He really is no better than the criminals. How can we support or trust or love this character? He offers us no redeeming qualities. No heart. No intelligence. He's all muscle and anger. Superman is right to have a problem with Batman in this film - he's crazy! Batman isn't a vigilante helping apprehend bad guys, he's a maniac out for blood. He's much more like the Punisher than he is Batman.
Superman: the Man of Cold Steel
This Superman is easily the most inhuman of any Superman I've seen. He is cold, uncaring, and apparently unaffected by the suffering of others. Instead of compassion in his face, we see annoyance. This was particularly poignant in the lead-in film, Man of Steel.
During his battle with Zod, Superman is apparently more upset by the death of one of his own people (Zod) than he is with the thousands of humans undoubtedly killed during the battle. Once the dust settles, instead of leaping into action in an attempt to rescue as many people as he, he makes out with Lois Lane. The get all smoochy while there are people literally pinned under rubble, people suffering, people still in danger. All he does is smooch and look around with a stern glare. How callous do you have to be to be thinking of romance while your adopted city crumbles and the people you claim to deeply care for are suffering and dying? How disconnected from humanity do you have to be to literally make out in the crater you just made?
This theme continues in BvS. We are told that Superman is trying to help us. We are told he is our protector and that people love him. But look at his face throughout this film!
That isn't a happy man. That's a disappointment dad, not a champion of humanity. He finds it incomprehensible that these puny humans dare question his motives. That they ask why Superman wasn't involved in rebuilding Metropolis. This is a man that I cannot empathize with. His only real concern seems to be to clear his name and have sex with Lois. He breaks international laws, crosses borders, and wreaks havoc to save his frequently-endangered girlfriend.
When the battle with Batman begins, Superman could easily fly a bit higher and simply tell Batman that Lex Luthor is manipulating both of them into fighting one another. Batman (if true to his character, which may not be the case in this film) would see the logic in this assertion and commence a beat-down on Mr. Luthor. Instead, the moment between Superman and Batman that puts them on the same page is the realization that their mothers have the same first name. Baffling.
Lex Luthor: the Joker
This Lex Luthor was an eccentric, high-pitched, scraggly-haired lunatic who places the heroes in lose-lose, devil's-choice style situations with no other motivation than to bring them down. That sounds much more like the description of the Joker than one of the most intelligent, careful, and methodical minds on the planet. Luthor plays the long game. Luthor thinks ten steps ahead. Luthor always has a back-up plan. Luthor is not a mumbling eccentric burdened by his own brilliance.
I mean, look at this guy.
This isn't the face of a man you respect and fear. A man with charisma, with power, and with a plan. This is the face of someone you want to punch. Someone who acts like a know-it-all, who's smug about it, and who is generally unlikable. Lex Luthor is a villain, but he has a natural charisma and force of personality that makes him a presence. That gravitas was missing with this Lex.
What was Lex's motivations for taking down Batman and Superman? He was...jealous of Superman's power? What did he have against Batman? Batman was apparently snooping into the "Super" files that Lex had, though they were simply a contrived way to wink at us and say, "Look who'll be in the next films!" They appeared to not contain anything damning against Luthor. The only detail that was bad for Lex was the fact that he orchestrated Superman's negative PR - something he really didn't need to do, considering Superman was already a distrusted by the populace.
It makes the viewer wonder: what was Lex's end-goal? Did he really think that both Superman and Batman would kill each other? Why did he make Doomsday? It turned on him instantly. I don't see a way that Lex would emerge "on top" after these events. How would he profit?
A Heartfelt Raccoon
Compare these characters to Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy. In the first chunk of the film, we meet the bombastic and prickly Rocket Raccoon. He's all bravado and sass and guns and explosions. He's a bit annoying. However, there's a key scene in which the group of misfits is captured. In this sequence, Rocket is forced to remove his clothes and armor. We see his tiny, frail body. We see the painful looking cybernetic modifications that were done to him. The character is clearly ashamed by it - it's a source of his rage. He was violated and modified to become the person he is now. In that scene, the character becomes so vulnerable that we can't help but empathize, that we accept his bombast and prickle and start to cheer for him.
It's telling that we can empathize and support a talking raccoon more than two of the most iconic super heroes in history. How much more human was Rocket in that scene than even Batman was in the totality of BvS? It's a testament to Marvel's skill and a glaring example of DC's disconnect from its audience. Marvel was able to give more character to this talking raccoon, who was virtually unknown by audiences, than DC could give to Batman. BATMAN!
A Civil Vengeance
Two secondary characters in the film Civil War demonstrated the right way to push characters toward vengeance and to have them reconcile. T'Challa, consumed with vengeance for his murdered father, mercilessly hunts Zemo, who himself is consumed by vengeance due to the loss of his family. The theme of this film is vengeance and its destructive power. In one of the final scenes, Zemo sits in the snow and talks of his dead family to T'Challa. Zemo has a great line (delivered well): "I am sorry about your father. He seemed a good man. With a dutiful son." The villain of the film apologizes. And we believe it. We empathize. This moment between the two men frees T'Challa of his anger, as he sees the depths to which it can pull you down.
These two characters had a more complete and satisfying arc than either Batman or Superman. Zemo and T'Challa's vengeance is understandable. Relatable. I couldn't relate to Batman or Superman in BvS. Their motivations were alien. Remote. There was no humanity to them.
Dreams
The film has five, yes, FIVE dream sequences. (1) During the intro credits, we see Bruce reliving his parents' deaths and figurative transformation into Batman; (2) Bruce dreams of visiting his parents' crypt and is attacked by a bat-demon; (3) Batman receives a prophetic vision while asleep of a post-apocalyptic wold in which Superman has apparently allied with Darkseid, and he then wakes to... (4) Batman has a dream-within-a-dream in which a time-travelling Flash delivers a cryptic warning; and (5) Superman has a dream sequence of his deceased father in the mountains around the Fortress of Solitude.
That is too many dream sequences for a movie not about dreaming. That's nearly Inception-level dream business. It's gratuitous and lazy. Dream sequences are some of the laziest forms of exposition - it's a way to cheat out exposition that would be otherwise ridiculous or out of place without breaking your current reality bar. It's tired and it's hackneyed. As is a common theme with these criticisms, the dream sequences in BvS are one of the several contrived methods used to force the characters of Batman and Superman into violent conflict. The writers couldn't devise believable motivations for Batman's irrational hatred of Superman, so they give him scary dreams to push the subject.
The above doesn't tackle my problems with (1) Lois Lane's ridiculous damsel-in-distress character, (2) the run-time, (3) the black-washed color palette, or (4) the titular battle sequence itself. Those may be subjects for another day and another post.
