Let’s Fix BATMAN V SUPERMAN!

When people ask me who my favourite superhero is I always wonder at what makes a good one. Is it the good guy? Is it the guy out for revenge? Is it the guy with lots of money who is trying to right a wrong? Where are all the girl superheroes? etc. So the idea of Batman taking on Superman sounded great to me. The troubled millionaire anti-hero taking on the alien with all the gifts to do good? What would win? Money and technology or alien superpowers? And who would win, the guy predisposed to do good or the guy driven by nightmares and revenge?

I had high hopes for Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice as, I imagine, did you. Were our expectations too high? No, not really. Zack Snyder could have fumbled his way through old DC ideas and imagery about these two and still come out shining. So why, when it was so easy, did Snyder give us something that was like the pages of script had been put into a tombola, picked out at random, and reassembled by a drunk person?

You’ll know the story by now, Batman v Superman is pretty damn slow, boring, and confusing. All the joy I got out of it was in concocting plans to fix it. So, since you’ve most likely already seen it, or haven’t seen it and don’t plan on it, let’s change things up a bit. Let’s not just critically review this film let’s talk about what could be have been done to fix it. Warning, SPOILERS follow.

Act I

The first thing you notice about Batman v Superman is that the first act is far too long. What should have taken 20 minutes at most, actually takes about 50. This is mainly because of the multiple starts to the narrative. The film begins with Superman taking out Zod, and most of Metropolis. Bruce Wayne runs into the havoc, quite valiantly it must be said, and the sequence ends with Bruce glaring angrily into the sky. A good start I would say, then it’s 18 months later.

What we see next is just inessential. We don’t need to see a young Bruce Wayne seeing his parents shot, and then him falling into the cave of bats (we’ve seen it many times before). Kryptonite being hauled from the Indian Ocean? Not needed. Superman flying to Africa to rescue Lois from mercenaries? Okay, that’s essential to the story. When we go back to Metropolis there’s some kind of public inquiry and it’s about this thing that happened in Africa, but we have no idea what happened. Clark doesn’t seem to know either. We also don’t know who found Lois’ notebook and returned it to her mailbox. Clark? The narrative squirms its way around what should have been a simple point. Why was Lois in Africa and what did Superman do while he was there?

At this point in the story you don’t feel as bored as you will become. What happens next is, Clark doesn’t like the Batman, Batman doesn’t like Superman, Lex Luthor has found Kryptonite. It’s all quite plodding and free of any sort of tension. The 50 minutes crescendo with them all finally meeting at a charity fundraiser is similarly free of any tension. This should have all taken 20 minutes, and how?

Superman accidentally destroys Metropolis. Bruce Wayne doesn’t like Superman. There’s a public inquiry into Superman. Superman saves Lois, gets himself into more trouble. Lex Luthor has found Kryptonite, he wants Senator Finch to bring it into the country. Clark Kent doesn’t like Batman. Bruce Wayne continues to dislike Superman. They all meet at the charity fundraiser for a tense stand-off. That’s 20 minutes!

Act II

Act II is pretty much a mish-mash of ‘things’ going on. Wallace Keefe, injured by Superman’s destruction (and apparently he lost his family as well, we’re not given much on that but we should have been), is helped out by Lex Luthor. Keefe is unreasonably mad at both Bruce Wayne and Superman, but he also never feels like a real threat. Between him, Lois investigating a bullet she found lodged in her reporter’s notebook, and Bruce Wayne wandering around, the narrative loses its drive. How can we fix this?

To start with, both Luthor and Keefe should have better motivations to do what they’re doing, they should also appear to be more of a threat to our two heroes. What Bruce Wayne is doing, this wandering around? He’s actually planning to steal the Kryptonite that Luthor is having illegally shipped into the country. But we aren’t told this. We should have been. We are just treated to more of his nightmares, which should have scrapped. The act comes together in a splintered way, where a lot of things are going on, and we don’t know what’s important.

This act should have had two goals. The major one being a show of Luthor’s power. He manipulates Keefe into blowing up himself and the Capitol Building, while Lois is figuring out that Luthor has been selling military technology to the bad guys. The secondary goal? Bruce Wayne working on obtaining the Kryptonite, and Superman falling from grace. That’s all you need. Batman’s nightmares? Batman saving the sex trafficked girls? Lois’ multiple scenes in Washington? Scrap them. Maybe even use the time sensibly to give us some idea of what Luthor is up to in the Kryptonian craft. That might set up the ending a bit better. Also, Luthor taunting Senator Finch with the ‘peach tea’ before blowing her up is a plot point so weak it looks like a plothole. Get rid of it!

Act III

Everything starts to happen in the third act. Unfortunately it’s also where the acting and directing starts to fall apart. Luthor gets hold of Lois, and Clark’s mum Martha. Superman saves Lois but then Luthor dares him to go kill Batman in return for his mother’s safety. Because, although no one else knows Superman’s secret identity, Luthor had no problems, it seems. A tenuous plot point, but I’ll go with it. Of course, Superman isn’t going to kill Batman so this feels a bit silly. And it gets sillier.

Superman goes to confront Batman, who now has Kryptonite gas bullets and a spear. Why these two things? Why not just a pile of bullets? I don’t know. I suppose a spear is more cinematic, but it all feels a bit farcical. By this point Bruce Wayne has all the moral fight of a toddler who is yelling at his mother for his dessert. I seriously don’t think his reasons for hating Superman are based on any real fact. His motivation is shoddy and should have been fixed.

Of course, a fight goes down. It all culminates with Superman screaming about ‘Martha’. Not ‘Mom’ but ‘Martha’. He has to say Martha because that’s the name of Bruce’s mother too, and Bruce has to take an angry emotional moment. If scenes had faces I would punch this angry emotional moment in it. It’s a ridiculous scene. Snyder, Affleck and Cavill should all be deeply ashamed of it. It gets worse when Lois runs in ‘to explain’ and Batman immediately flips his position and teams up with Superman. Could no one be bothered to write anything better? What was wrong with just a fight (with just the spear and no gas bullets), Superman screaming about his mother, and Batman coming to his senses?

The Finale

The finale is pretty fun, principally because Batman and Superman go off to deal with other things and Lois and Wonder Woman take centre stage. Though even this is not without its problems. Luthor has created some sort of Zod-based Kryptonian genetic mutant and the only way to kill it is with the Kryptonite spear, which Lois threw down a well. Firstly, why did Lois throw it down the well? Secondly, why does she go to get it out when she has no idea that the creature is Kryptonian? I like this scene so it can stay, but I want the spear to end up in the well because Batman throws it there, and I want Lois to know what the creature is before she goes diving. I’m also okay with Superman dying, it’s the only real emotional moment in the film.

I have no complaints to make about Wonder Woman/Diana Prince. She is beautiful and mysterious, and every scene she is in is engaging. When she turns up for the final fight she puts the guys to shame, plus she brings a kick-ass soundtrack with her. Luckily the Wonder Woman film is being directed by Patty Jenkins (Monster), unfortunately it’s been written by Jason Fuchs (Pan), so cross your fingers for that one.

But Even Then…

Even if someone went through Batman v Superman and deleted scenes and filled in plotholes it still wouldn’t be that great. Zack Snyder’s direction really isn’t all that, and as a result Affleck and Cavill’s acting borders on dubious. More than that the characters just seem to be without motivation and the drive to the plot is as thin as ice. Batman v Superman was written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer. Goyer has a long history of writing dark screenplays, and ones about Batman. Terrio, on the other hand, wrote Argo and that’s it.

My guess? One writer was brought in to fix the script that had already been written, and what we have is the scrambled mess of scenes that this film is. To be fair, there are good ideas in there and if Snyder had been on the ball he could have found them. Instead, what he actually did was a bad job of directing and editing a script that was unreliable and problematic to start with. Terrio and Snyder are also making the Justice League films, god help us.

Conclusion

It’s a shame that a film with so much potential turned out to be such a scrambled mess. It had the legacy, the acting chops, the sharp special effects, and a pretty good score. But it chose to build itself on a poor script, and it should feel bad about that. What is a greater shame, though, is that I can sit down and pick this apart and know full well that I’m right. That these scenes are boring, or pointless, or confusing. But no one in the whole host of producers and executives that passed this film saw what I, and no doubt you, all saw in it.

In coffee shops these days if they accidentally burn your panini or make a mistake with your coffee they’ll make it again, sometimes you even get a refund as well. Because they see this as an insult and they have some respect for the business you bring them. We don’t get the same treatment from movie franchises, who continue to disrespect the business we give them. Snyder? DC? I’m calling a foul, Batman v Superman should have been better. We trusted you to make something good if not great, and you let us down. We gave you $500 million (as of 1st April) and you gave us a gigantic burnt panini. We are insulted.

[highlighted_p boxed=”false” center=”false”]Have you seen Batman v Superman? Did you like it, at all?

Batman v Superman was released on the 25th March in the US & UK and is currently playing in cinemas across the globe.