‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ (2016, 12A)

Based on the characters from DC Comics, ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ is the exciting second instalment in the new DC Movie universe. But does it live up to the hype and expectations?

Set after the events of 2013’s ‘Man Of Steel’ (my review of that film can be viewed here), ‘Batman V Superman’ follows The Dark Knight going up against the red-caped Kryptonian in a head-to-head battle. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and his crime-fighting alter-ego, Batman, is getting old. After twenty years as the caped crusader, he is becoming more and more reliant on his technology and Head Of Security and friend Alfred to defeat the villains of Gotham rather than his training and fighting. However, he dons the Batman suit one more time to fight Superman (Henry Cavill), the extra-terrestrial being with god-like powers who claims to be doing good but Wayne thinks could be a threat.

This film exists really only for one purpose – setting up the next ones. The not-so-subtle references to the Justice League (a film which is set to come out in 2017) and to comic-book characters such as the Joker and Robin prove that there is a lot more to come in the way of DC films linking to one another. To that end, I think the title ‘Batman V Superman’ can be quite misleading for two things: the heroes are only against each other for a small proportion of the film and the best scenes in this movie were when they weren’t fighting.

Apart from the title and its lack of hero-versus-hero action, ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ is a mainly good film. Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne is one of the best and may even beat Christian Bale’s in the amazing Dark Knight trilogy (my review of the first of those films can be viewed here). However, my favourite character would have to be either Lex Luthor (played by Jesse Eisenberg) or Wonder Woman/Diana Prince (Gal Gadot). Unlike previous versions of the character, Lex Luthor in this film is young, enthusiastic and definitely insane. He almost reminded me of Heath Ledger’s Joker from the Dark Knight (my review of that film is here), only not as extreme. He’s very eccentric and quite entertaining to watch, so it’s a shame he had so little screen-time in comparison to the rest of the characters.

Similarly, Wonder Woman was an amazing character who should’ve been used a lot more than she was. For the most part she existed only introduce the idea of meta-humans – people with super-human abilities, a topic covered on ‘The Flash’ TV Series (my review of that show can be viewed here) – to both the characters and the audience and provide hints for upcoming films. Hopefully we’ll be able to see more of both these characters in the upcoming DC films that have been mentioned and hinted at throughout ‘Dawn Of Justice’.

Overall, ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ is a good film for both the causal-viewer and the comic-book fan. However, it lacks the hero-on-hero action that will surely make its upcoming competitor, ‘Captain America: Civil War’, a lot more successful than this film. Because of this, I’m going to give ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ eight-out-of-ten, as I wish there was a lot more Batman fighting Superman and a lot less hints and mentions at upcoming films.

8/10.

 

If you like what you read here, please say so in the comments below. Don’t forget, if you’d like me to review any film or TV Show in particular, just click the button at the top of the screen labelled ‘Film and TV Show Requests’. Happy watching!

 

My review of ‘Man Of Steel’, the predecessor to this film, can be viewed here.