Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice OK, my Brother and I talk via text a lot about this stuff, and I figured I would try to summarize our conclusions into a review. there will be spoilers. So, I will start with the positives. Zack Snyder understands imagery and iconography. He cast the movie almost perfectly. Looking back at his filmography, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was his only real misstep in terms of casting. Affleck was great as Batman and as Bruce Wayne. Looked the part, sounded the part, and he did not do the growl thing that hurt the Christian Bale version. Henry Cavill is Superman. I am going on record saying that he has played Superman in two bad Superman movies in a row, and his portrayal has been dictated by the scripts. He looks, acts, and sounds like Superman. He is the only guy that has gotten it right since Christopher Reeve. It is a different version than Chris Reeve's, which is OK in my book. Gal Gadot was the best part of this flick. She was PERFECT as Wonder Woman. Beautiful without being overly Sexual, Powerful and Fierce, but above all else: Grace. She brought a grace and dignity to the role that it needs. The supporting cast was great. Jeremy Irons is great fit for Alfred. Amy Adams is a great fit for Lois. Diane Lane is great as Ma Kent. Kevin Costner was great too, for that matter. Nailed it. Perry White, Jenny Olsen, and so on? They were fine. The Daily Planet staff was great in their roles. No complaints there. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex was... Wrong for the movie. And, in a weird way, his casting and portrayal was indicative of the biggest problem with the movie. Jesse went for the 1930's Mad-Scientist Fleischer Serial version of Lex. a Crazy guy on the edge of town with a death ray kinda thing. it did not fit with the tone of the movie, and it did not fit with the portrayal of the other characters. If you do a Golden-Age Lex, you kinda need to do a Golden-Age Superman. They play off each other better. So, I get what he was trying for, but it did not work. It is indicative of the larger problems with the movie because of that one crucial word: Tone. Cavill is doing a modern Superman. Affleck did a Batman heavily influenced by the Dystopian Future that Frank Miller envisioned. So... Dystopian Future Batman, Modern-Era Superman and Wonder Woman, Golden Age Lex, and a shit-ton of references to iconic scenes from the past 30 years of the comics. It felt... Forced. It felt like there was no story there, so Snyder just threw every "cool" thing he could think of at the wall and just kept filming. Doomsday as a villain was a stupid move too. That was a blatant attempt at "let's have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman go through their greatest hits!" That's what the movie was, really. A montage of Snyder's favorites moments from the comics, with a crappy story meant to loosely tie it all together. It... Sucked. It was fun to look at Batman fighting Parademons. It was fun to watch Wonder Woman chop off Doomsday's hand with her sword. Affleck was fun as Batman. the whole fight scene between him and Superman was fun to watch. And that's the key: Snyder understands IMAGERY. He understands casting. What Snyder does NOT understand is storytelling or tone. The movie was all over the place in terms of tone. It could have been a fun World's Finest movie, with a brief confrontation in the beginning. A fun, "World's Finest" would have even worked with the version of Lex Luthor that Eisenberg did. Have Lex team up with Hugo Strange or something, and it would have been great. Mad Scientists Versus Superheroes would have been fun. Instead, we got dystopian, dreary, doom and gloom Superman Vs. Batman. and Wonder Woman was in it for no other reason than because they could. She showed up to get a photograph. Really? I mean, I am glad she was in the movie and all but... really? She was in the movie to get a photograph back? That is a pretty dumb reason, and they should have given her more motivation, but whatever. Dawn of Justice was a bad movie. It was better than Man of Steel, but it was still a bad movie.