Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) [Blu-ray]
Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline: Who will win?

From director Zack Snyder comes Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, starring Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark Kent in the characters' first big-screen pairing. Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City's own formidable, ful vigilante takes on Metropolis's most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it's ever known before.

Storyline: The general public is concerned over having Superman on their planet and letting the "Dark Knight" - Batman - pursue the streets of Gotham. While this is happening, a power-phobic Batman tries to attack Superman.,Meanwhile Superman tries to settle on a decision, and Lex Luthor, the criminal mastermind and millionaire, tries to use his own advantages to fight the "Man of Steel". Written by Mine Turtle

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, July 22, 2016 Warner's Blu-ray release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (hereafter "BvS") has arrived in at least ten iterations (including retailer exclusives), nearly all of them containing both the theatrical version and a director's cut that adds an additional half hour to the film's 151-minute running time. In an optimistic prediction, Warner has labeled this three-hour epic an "Ultimate Edition", and its added scenes are being touted as the magic bullet to cure BvS's narrative shortcomings, which even the film's defenders have acknowledged. The release strategy smacks of desperation, as if the studio were trying to force-feed BvS to the Blu-ray fanbase. No matter where you turn, BvS awaits.

This aggressive marketing suits director Zack Snyder's divisive blockbuster, because, in whatever version, BvS is less a movie than a corporate strategy, a declaration of franchise war marketed as entertainment. Having watched with envy as Marvel and its producing partners built their comic book properties into the cash cow known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or "MCU"), Warner and DC Comics are now desperately playing catch-up, after their first attempt at a Superman reboot (Superman Returns) fizzled and the latest (Man of Steel) disappointed. But the overseers of the anticipated "DCU" have failed to learn essential lessons from Marvel's success. That company's strategy was meticulous:



The MCU wasn't built in a day, but Warner and DC have tried to construct their equivalent in a single film—hence BvS's non sequitur of a subtitle, "Dawn of Justice", which has little bearing on a smackdown between Batman and Superman but refers instead to a future film about DC's Avengers equivalent, the Justice League. Trying to accomplish too many things at once, Warner and DC have done all of them poorly, and the problems can't be patched with deleted scenes.

The theatrical cut of BvS has been widely reviewed and its flaws extensively catalogued, including by my Blu-ray.com colleagues Brian Orndorf and Josh Katz, and I see no reason to repeat those criticisms here. I'm more interested in what the additions in the director's cut reveal about the thinking behind BvS.

The critical early sequence in which Lois Lane (Amy Adams) attempts to interview an African terrorist and has to be rescued by Superman (Henry Cavill) now makes sense. In the theatrical cut, shooting erupted wildly, without any sense of who was doing what to whom, stranding the viewer in narrative incoherence at a critical point where the master plan of arch-villain Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is beginning to unfold. In the restored version, the players are now clearly delineated (except for Luthor's mercenaries, who are identified subsequently), and the process by which Superman is framed for a massacre is laid out systematically. As a result, when Lois realizes later in the film how she and Superman were set up, her light-bulb moment now makes sense. More importantly, the African events now build logically into the fateful Congressional hearing convened by Sen. June Finch (Holly Hunter), which turns out to be the second phase in Luthor's scheme to destroy both Superman and his reputation. Luthor's role as puppetmaster behind the scenes is now thoroughly illluminated, including his manipulation of former Wayne Enterprises employee, Wallace Keefe (Scoot McNairy), and of Kahina Ziri (Wunmi Mosaku), the chief witness against Superman. In the director's cut, the viewer gets enough information about Luthor's master plan to generate some genuine suspense.

Also restored is Clark Kent's investigation of Batman's (Ben Affleck) activities in Gotham City, especially his practice of branding criminals with the bat symbol so that they are marked for death in prison. The extent of Kent's activities on this personal quest now provides context to the constant stream of complaints from editor Perry White (Laurence Fishbourne) about Kent's neglect of his assigned duties. Kent/Superman's disapproval of Batman's vigilante tactics also supplies the missing motivation from their initial confrontation, when Superman interrupts Batman's pursuit of the kryptonite being transported to LexCorp. In the theatrical cut, the Man of Steel's dire warning to the Caped Crusader ("Next time they shine your light in the sky, don't go to it") made no sense. Now Superman's threat has a basis, and the scene plays effectively as the first skirmish leading to their ultimate showdown.

The interesting question is why these sequences were trimmed down to incomprehensibility in the first place. Why was narrative coherence sacrificed while other scenes were retained that not only fail to advance the plot, but also add to the overall confusion? Bruce Wayne's nightmare of a losing battle in a landscape devastated by a Superman-led armageddon, followed by his vision (or is it too a dream?) of the Flash (Ezra Miller) delivering a message from the future, remain just as incomprehensible in the director's cut and should be cut altogether—but they were retained, while vital information was deleted. Wonder Woman's (Gal Gadot) review of the files gathered by LexCorp on Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and the Flash remains just as much a distraction from BvS's main action as it was in the theatrical cut, especially as it occurrs at a point where BvS should be accelerating toward its climactic confrontation.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of Wonder Woman's fans, I'll go one step further: Why retain any of the many scenes in which Wonder Woman's alter ego, Diana Prince, lurks on the outskirts of the story? It's not as if Diana's pursuit of LexCorp's file about her is essential, nor does the extended game of cat-and-mouse between Diana and Bruce Wayne do anything to advance the plot. Wonder Woman's sole function in BvS is to hover in the background until she bursts into the fight against Luthor's Doomsday creation—and in the theatrical cut all that hovering took priority over basic narrative coherence. It's still filler in the director's cut, but at least it's no longer replacing the narrative essentials.

Despite being more intelligible, BvS's director's cut remains a long, tough slog, prompting watch-checking instead of thrills and excitement. Even the occasional attempts at livening the proceedings with humorous asides fall flat, because the quips ("I thought she was with you!") feel like something lifted from another script, one that was written to entertain rather than service a corporate agenda. Far from curing the ills of BvS, the added scenes unmask it for what it really is: an extended trailer for future DCU entries, presented with maximum spectacle and sacrificing the integrity of its core story at every turn to lay the groundwork for coming attractions. The entertainment industry succeeds best when it places equal emphasis on both halves of the phrase "show business", but in this case the business stole the show.

One can discern amidst the bloated excess of BvS the outlines of an effective two-hour movie that could have been made. It would have jettisoned all of the Justice League distractions to focus on Luthor's scheme to set Batman and Superman at each other's throats, and it would have concluded with the foiling of his plot and the rescue of his hostage. It would have eliminated the tiresome and redundant battle with Luthor's genetically engineered Doomsday (which, let's not forget, lays Gotham City to waste just as indiscriminately as Metropolis was wrecked in Man of Steel, thereby restarting the cycle of tragedy and loss that first set Batman on the path of revenge). And it would have left Wonder Woman to her own movie, which, as the Blu-ray extras repeatedly assure us, will be arriving in theaters next year. The "Dawn of Justice" could just as easily have resulted from a reconciliation between Batman and Superman. Instead, in both cuts of BvS, the future Justice League is a mournful proposal that Batman tosses out to Wonder Woman.

To make that leaner film, however, one would have to surrender BvS's misguided aspiration to birth an entire universe of superheroes in a single bound. The film's $872 million worldwide box office may be a testament to the power of corporate spending to foist a product onto the public, but that doesn't make the product any good. Future filmmakers charged with expanding the DCU may yet succeed in building sturdier structures on BvS's shaky foundation, but BvS itself is a lost cause.

Despite critical drubbing, BvS delivered at the box office, and I am under no illusion that my issues with the film will make a dent in its fan base, which is almost as fanatical in its devotion as the equally vocal chorus of BvS detractors. Warner's Blu-ray presentation should satisfy fans, as well as providing an effective introduction to the world of BvS for those seeking to learn what all the fuss is about. My sole recommendation, for both new viewers and old, is to favor the director's cut, which, even with all the franchise-building distractions, manages to do a much better job of telling the story.

[CSW] -2.4- This reviewer explained some things that I couldn't quite put my finger on and even though I sensed it I couldn't explain it, at least not a concisely as this:
There seems to be a problem brewing with DC films, and I'm not sure why WB can't see it. I think this "darker tone" they're going for is sabotaging any chance they have to compete with Marvel. The darkness worked perfectly for Nolan's films because Batman is that type of character... the same way it works perfectly for the current Daredevil series. But when applying that same feel to someone like Superman, and it sucks the fun out of the experience. Look what happened when Sony tried to apply that to Spider-Man in the "Amazing reboots,"... it failed miserably, and Spider-Man got sent to the MCU. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc. should be painted in the same fun style that Marvel uses for Captain America, Iron Man, and so on. Ben Affleck was good as Batman in my opinion, and I was pleasantly surprised by Gal Gadot (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman)... but unfortunately it looks like DC has once again come to the plate with the intentions of hitting singles while Marvel is still cranking out home runs.

[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box.


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