The sequencing of scenes in a narrative is one of the most important and oft-overlooked elements of storytelling. As South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker have talked about, one of the best ways to form an engaging narrative is to look at your consecutive scenes, and if the only way they’re linked is that one happens “and then” the next happens, rethink things so that they are linked with the words “therefore” or “but.” For a storyteller, it’s a simple way of reminding yourself that causality matters, and that if your story is just a series of things happening with no obvious relation, then, in the words of Trey Parker, “you’re fucked.”
Of course, in complex narratives, it is not always possible to do this with every single scene transition, but it should always be a goal. The biggest problem in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s laundry list of issues is that it so seldom manages any sort of connection between its consecutive scenes. While you can look back at most of them and justify their necessity in the story, they’re so haphazardly thrown together that it becomes nigh-impossible to care about anything going on onscreen. It’s just scene after scene of shit happening, “and then” more shit happening for completely different reasons.
Still, for the first 40 minutes or so of the film, I felt like critics had perhaps been too hard on the film. Despite the lack of cohesion, there was at least a growing tension and an escalation of events that mostly worked. The oft-derided lack of action during this segment of the film was actually effective for me, more-so than something like the awkwardly abrupt first scene of The Avengers. Unfortunately, the film then continued to prove me wrong for another 2 hours.
To say that the motivations of the various characters are unclear in this film would be the understatement of the century. If the writers had a plan for why the various characters do what they do, then it was inevitably chopped up and obfuscated by the myriad of cuts this thing must have gone through in post production. At least Batman has some legitimate gripes with Superman and his disregard for collateral damage (a trait completely removed from the traditional characterization of Superman that continues in this film), but the motivations of Lex Luthor and Superman are nonsensical at best and completely counter-intuitive at worst.
Such inconsistencies wouldn’t surprise me coming from writer David Goyer, who has repeatedly shown that he has little interest in or understanding of comic characters, but I was hoping that Argo writer Chris Terrio would balance him out and save the movie. However, when you consider that this is his first real experience working on a tentpole movie, it is perhaps not surprising that he may have faltered, especially considering that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is attempting to be every one of the following things:
A sequel to Man of Steel
A Batman and Superman fight movie
The introduction to a new Batman
A prequel to the Justice League movie
The introduction to the new Wonder Woman
The introduction to the new (radically re imagined) Lex Luthor
A light adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns
A light adaptation of The Death of Superman
Considering all that, it’s no wonder that the scene construction is a mess, or that, even at 2 hours and 33 minutes, it still feels like loads of significant material has been removed. Warner Bros bit off way more than they could chew, and the result is a movie that tries to do so much that it ultimately fails to achieve anything at all.
Most of my other complaints are too specific to get into without diving into spoilers (which I’ll do below), so let’s wrap this up with some of the positive aspects of the film. For one, it’s technically very impressive. Zack Snyder may not understand story or characterization of a fundamental level, but he is one of the best visual stylists in Hollywood. There are loads of sequences which, removed from the context of the narrative and represented on their own, are spectacular. The opening scene, juxtaposing the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents with his fall into the cave, is one of the most striking versions of an overly-adapted moment, and the iconography he uses for Superman and Batman is a beautiful realization of the imagery in some of their most memorable comics. The movie looks and sounds spectacular from beginning to end.
The cast really gives it their all, too, despite often being saddled with subpar material. Say what you will about Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, but regardless of your opinion on his re-imagined take on the character, you have to admit that he fully commits to the character and lends the film an energy that it is so often missing. Meanwhile, Amy Adams does her best with a plotline that goes absolutely nowhere, and Gal Godot makes a great impression as Wonder Woman, despite having no motivation, character traits, or purpose in the narrative. Henry Cavill does his best with a version of Superman that is, quite frankly, kind of an asshole, and Ben Affleck does better than anybody expected as Bruce Wayne/Batman.
But the real problems with this film are at a much more basic level. There’s simultaneously too much and too little story here, with no real likable characters and few clear narrative through-lines to follow or invest yourself in. It’s still going to rake in plenty of money and probably turn a profit, but as a jumping off point for a shared cinematic universe, Warner Bros is in deep trouble.
SPOILER SECTION:
First off, let’s talk about the so-called “knightmare sequence.” On its own it’s a really crazy but visually interesting piece of fantasy about a post-apocalyptic Batman facing a tyrannical version of Superman, but just shoved into the middle of the movie with no context, it’s a complete head-scratcher. It’s simultaneously positioned as a dream sequence and a message from the future (an alternate future?), and that such a baffling scene is then positioned as a primary motivation for Batman to want to kill (not defeat, but straight-up murder) Superman is a real problem for the narrative.
It’s also a scene that makes even less sense to people unfamiliar with DC Comics lore. For the initiated, it seems clear that The Flash has traveled back in time to give Batman a glimpse into the future, which we may see in the Justice League films. The Flash is known to be able to turn back time and cross universes with his power, and the sequence hints through its symbols that Darkseid (who is foreshadowed by Lex Luthor and his painting numerous times) has come to Earth and destroyed civilization. But if you don’t know anything about Darkseid or The Flash, like 95% of the people likely to see Batman v Superman, then it’s a completely random dream sequence shoved into the middle of an absurdly long blockbuster film to give cheap motivation to Batman.
The film seems to assume that audiences are overfamiliar with the material a lot, actually. I’m sure that there are ways to argue why Lex Luthor wants to destroy Superman so much, or how he knows to have the Kryptonian ship cross his DNA with General Zod’s body, but none of it comes across onscreen. Luthor initially claims that his fear of Superman comes from the idea that Superman is a “devil” coming from the sky, but when he creates Doomsday to take down Superman, he refers to Superman as a “god” who needs a “devil” to take him down. Not only is his source of hatred unclear, he can’t even keep his own perspective on Superman straight!
Not that he’s any more confused on purpose or theme than his nemesis. Roughly halfway through the movie, Superman breaks down to Lois Lane, admitting that maybe he doesn’t need to be a hero. The problem is, he claims that his heroism was just him trying to live up to his father’s desire for him to be a hero. Excuse my language, but what a load of fucking horseshit.
Apparently Man of Steel was so forgettable that even David Goyer, who wrote that film, forgot the entire central arc. Remember: Jonathan Kent so DIDN’T want his son to be a hero that he scolded him for saving a school bus full of children from drowning. Later on, he stops Clark from saving him from a fucking tornado because he would have to reveal himself. I repeat: Jonathan Kent hates heroism so much that he chose death-by-tornado instead. I don’t mind if the movies switch up elements of the characters from the comics; given the number of different iterations Batman and Superman have had, it’s inevitable. But to not even pay attention to your own established motivation for a character is pure hack work.
Even Batman, whose initial motivation I lightly praised earlier as being relatively sound, stops making sense at the moment he’s talked down from killing Superman. It’s been derided online so much that it feels almost too easy to criticize, but that Batman’s worldview shifts so significantly just because he and Superman’s mothers shared the same name is unbelievable. He goes from being seconds away from stabbing Superman in the face with a Kryptonite staff to helping Superman rescue his mother, mourning Superman’s death, and using it as a reason to form the Justice League. That’s one hell of a turnaround.
I’m roughly 1600 words into this review, and I still have a number of things I’d love to complain about (seriously, how is Lois Lane’s subplot in any way relevant to anything?), but this may be enough. It’s possible that with a more defined focus, the rest of the DC slate will be better, but Warner Bros has a lot to prove when it comes to storytelling. Instead of introducing every element of their universe in the same movie, they need to slow down and build, as Marvel did with the five films leading up to the original Avengers. The executives that caused this mess need to hire people who genuinely likes these characters, let them tell compelling stories, step back, and let them work.