Movie Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Extended Edition

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice [Extended Edition] [2016]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the second installment in the new DC Cinematic Universe. And, well, it being a bit of a mess (okay, a gigantic fucking mess) is pretty well known. I could go on and on about how the entire premise of having a crossover movie that ends with Superman's death be the literal second movie in a fledgling universe (which itself has a three-year gap between the first Man of Steel movie and BvS) is a dumbass move, but then we'll be here all day talking about the DCEU as a whole and not the movie.

But Batman v. Superman isn't without its merits, of course. It introduced the world to Gal Gadot's amazing rendition of Wonder Woman, who herself would get a solo movie in 2017. It had a surprisingly well-written war-weary Batman played by Ben Affleck, and even though Batman killing is anathema to who Batman should be... part of me wants to say that I enjoy Ben Affleck's acting way too much to not like it, but most of me is just pissed off at a Batman that's absolutely kill-happy. There's taking liberties in adaptations, and there's absolutely breaking one of the few core tenets that make the character who he is. Batman isn't the Punisher or the Vigilante. Batman is the dude that tries to even save the bad guys. So I'm going to say it here, and I'm going to say it however many times as I need until they actually change it: any work where Batman actually directly causes the direct death of a person (even that "I don't have to save you" scene in Batman Begins is dumb as all hell) just takes me out of the movie and makes me angry and just pissed off. I enjoyed Ben Affleck in spite of all that, which speaks more to the strength of the actor and the individual scenes and not the actual writing of the movie.

And I would be lying if I said I didn't squee at the sight of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, the DC trinity, my childhood heroes, assembled on the big screen with the most triumphant background music blaring in the background. Because, man, holy shit. As a longtime fan of DC comics, it's practically impossible not to cheer for a movie that got me that excited -- it's quite a different feeling to seeing the Avengers assemble in 2011, because as much as that movie's a more solid story than BvS, I don't quite have the same nostalgia-filled feelings for Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk as I do for Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Not to say DC is better than Marvel, but simple personal childhood nostalgia, is all. 

That said, though, BvS was still a huge mess. There's a plot buried there cobbled from multiple comic-book arcs, but it took a couple of viewings before things really made sense. And, of course, there are some inherent problems beyond pacing and writing, among them the absolutely moronic "Martha" resolution to the Batman/Superman fight, and the whole CGI-Doomsday fight being unnecessary and way more prolonged than it should be. Oh, and it had a way-too-grimdark tone which has been enveloping any DC-produced live-action movie since Nolan popularized it with Batman Begins, something that I won't discuss too much here. 

It's divisive, and nearly a year since I watched it in theaters, I still have mixed opinions about it. 

The thing, though, is that the filmmakers released an 'Extended Edition' or an Ultimate Edition or whatever. The actual movie that aired in the theateres is 153 minutes long, a mammoth movie in its own right, but the Ultimate edition is 182 minutes, a full 30 minutes longer than what we got in the theaters. The makers promised that it would have better pacing, it would explain the motivations of characters, and it would be the actual, 'complete' product.

While it is no excuse to deliver a sub-par cut to the studios -- no one should be expected to track down ultimate editions and director's cuts to fully enjoy a movie -- I do care about DC superheroes enough to track down a copy. I won't list every difference between the theatrical and extended version, others  have done it better than me (here's a link to Screenrant's helpfully exhaustive listing of the differences) but the theatrical movie that we got did feel like it was rushed and things didn't quite feel paced right. It's not just a restoration of deleted scenes like Suicide Squad was, but actually recut to properly tell the stories. 

So I sat down in front of my television, plopped in the Blu-Ray for the Ultimate Edition, and prepared myself for 182 minutes of superheroing.

And, well, does it improve on the original Batman v. Superman? Yes and no. The final act of the movie (the Batman-vs-Superman, and the proto-JLA-vs-Doomsday fights) remains entirely unchanged, so you still have the utter silliness of having part of the ideological conflict (which is presented far better in the Ultimate Edition, thus making the climax an even bigger letdown) be resolved by Bruce and Clark having moms with similar names. You still have the Doomsday fight drag on and on and on. You still have Lois spending half of the climax diving underwater because she threw the kryptonite spear away like an idiot. Those parts, the Ultimate Edition didn't quite manage to fix, and without significantly changing the scenes shot for the finale, I don't see a way to actually fix those. 

But the first two acts end up being vastly improved, in my opinion, by a restructuring of scenes and the restorations of over 30 minutes of well-done exposition. Yes, some of the... clumsier and unnecessary scenes from the thaterical cut, like Clark walking on the icy mountains to meet ghost dad, or the incredibly egregiously clunky 'knightmare' sequence that adds no real purpose to the rest of the movie that future!Flash's warning doesn't give, ends up still being unnecessary, but at least the rest of the movie that happens before and after those scenes are far more improved. 

The biggest improvements that the movie makes is making it a lot clearer how Lex Luthor manipulates Bruce and Clark, and as such Bruce's paranoia, and just how Lex sets it up, is far more well-told. We get more extrapolated scenes of Clark going to Gotham City and seeing the damage that this more ruthleess take on Batman does, giving both Superman and Batman a distinctly miscoloured viewpoint on the other. Clark's investigation on the Bat-Brand, and the way the prisoners branded by Batman end up in prisons, gives far more context to the other scenes that the brand shows up in. 

Yes, Luthor still has his scenes that have him act like an insane manchild, and that's very, very unfortunate, but at least this time around he has the manipulations to back up all his stupid piss-tea and jelly bean nonsense. Whereas the original theatrical cut has Luthor be a wacky maniac that seems to be an attempt to ape the Joker, the extended edition makes Luthor into feeling like a mastermind who hides behind a veneer of hipster insanity.  

Lois's subplot in the first half of the movie is also greatly expanded upon, and her investigation subplot on the disastrous African massacre is a lot more well-structured, with the movie making it clear that it's Luthor's lackey Anatoly Knyazev that machineguns the terrorists, and then uses a flamethrower to burn the bodies to hide the evidence. Luthor's manipulations of the politicians, the crippled Wayne employee and other witnesses is also a lot more structured here.

The end result means that the character subplots for Luthor, Batman, Superman and Lois, at least up until the climax of the movie, ends up being far more believable and organic. It's not a perfect story, of course, but it does a long way to telling us why these characters do what they do. Even if "Martha" is still a goddamn stupid way to end a fight.

Let's talk a bit about the plot of the movie itself, and not just differences, since I never actually did a proper review of BvS. 

The movie opens with a quick recap of Batman's origin story, told as the opening credits roll. We get to see the basics of the story without retelling it, but not without rushing into it so as to confuse those that are somehow unfamiliar with how Bruce Wayne became the Caped Crusader. We get the murder of Bruce's parents in Crime Alley, we get him falling down the well into a cave of bats... and then we cut to Man of Steel. It's an amazingly shot scene from the ground level of Bruce Wayne as he drives around Metropolis in a car, desperately trying to save his employees as the two godlike beings Superman and Zod fight it out. The scene is actually paced exactly like the climax of Man of Steel, with specific things that the two kryptonians do replicated seamlessly, which is an amazing bit of filmmaking. In the aftermath of that, Bruce sees all the devastation wrought, including the now-orphaned daughter of one of his employees, and simply glares angrily at the destruction this does. 

Then we cut into the real plot, where Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are reporters interviewing a civil war in the fictional African country of Nairomi. Here the plot is expanded upon a little more, with the situation being told to us by both Jimmy and the Nairomi warlord, and the fact that the faction is more of a rebel faction. Of course, for whatever rason, Jimmy Olsen is shot in the head -- one of the bigger problems that the DCEU had prior to the bad reviews is moments like this. Being dark and gritty for no real reason at all. Did killing Jimmy Olsen accomplish anything that killing a nameless CIA agent would accomplish, beyond pissing off Jimmy Olsen fans? Nope.

At least the 'main' story's told a bit better, mind you. I've already discussed above how the Ultimate Edition made changes to how the massacre is carried out, how Superman is framed by Knyazev's men to murdering the rebels in his attempt to rescue Lois. This leads to a B-plot that is absent in the theatrical cut, where one of the survivors, a woman named Kahina Ziri, giving testimonies as to the question of Superman being "whose hero?" considering her people were slaughtered and Superman did nothing (or, well, arrived to late). 

We then cut to the proper introduction of Batman, in one of the most badass scenes ever (BvS has no shortage of badass scenes, it's the product as a whole that fails) where two stupid Gotham cops investigate a beaten-up criminal, while Batman is perched on the corner of the ceiling. It shows Batman's status as a boogeyman pretty well, and shows us some really great classic Batman scenes. One of the scenes after focusing on the bat-brand given to the criminals cuts to Clark Kent, after some lovemaking, see this on the television, and decide to head to Gotham to investigate as a reporter. We get some additional scenes with Perry White as well, who keeps telling Clark to work on football articles and ignore the whole Bat vigilante thing. Clark Kent's bright-eyed Metropolis boy heading into the dark slums of Gotham City and experiencing firsthand the terror that the Bat of Gotham strikes into the criminal scum from eyewitnesses. it's a pretty powerful scene. 

Bruce, meanwhile, is shown to not be healthy. Between abusing drugs and generally being cold and dark and far more violent than traditional potrayals of Batman, we get to see a reason why -- the camera lingers on the costume of Robin, spray-painted with HA HA HA HA, implying that this version of Batman has already lost a teenage sidekick to the war against crime. This is where some context would work for the more casual viewer, though. As someone more in tune with the DC lore, I could go 'huh, Jason Todd and the crowbar already happened', but most viewers probably missed this little easter egg. Whether by actually showing us, or having lines between Bruce and Alfred going all "the last time I let a maniac run rampant he took away Robin" or something along those lines would go a long, long way to better explain Bruce's determination to stop Superman, far more than the weird kryptic Knightmare sequence (god how I hate that name) did. At least Jeremy Irons's snarky Alfred gets a few more lines than before. He's fun. I like him. 

Lois, meanwhile, does her own investigation, in a series of scenes that, with the spaces between them filled, makes a lot more sense. She finds out that the US government is supplying bullets, or at least involved in, the Nairomian civil war. It's actually pretty interesting, really, and makes a fair bit more sense with the added time that the Ultimate Edition gives her. 

All the while, we also get to see Lex Luthor's introduction, getting the chunk of kryptonite from the ocean, manipulating senator June Finch about import laws and whatnot. It's also a bit more evident that, while Luthor here is portrayed like an unstable and hipster maniac, he's doing things in service of a larger goal, obtaining resources and acccess to Zod's ship from Man of Steel, engineering the paranoia between Superman and Batman, and we even get some humane moments where he drops his veneer of mania and talks about the father he doesn't quite have a good relationship with. It's still a pretty iffy portrayal of Luthor, because Luthor really shouldn't be crazy (or have hair), but it's, again, a lot more serviceable than the original theatrical version of BvS. Oh, and it's actually made clear here that he manipulates the initial meeting between Clark and Bruce at the charity ball, something that the theatrical version omits. 

This leads to the meeting between Bruce Wayne and one Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, who steals the data that Bruce downloaded from LexCorp... but quickly returns it and makes it clear that they're on the same side. Poor Diana doesn't get much to do after that, mostly checking her email from Bruce on an airplane ride and seeing the videos that LexCorp has on other metahumans -- Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg, in a montage of pretty cool 'look at all these guys you'll see in the cinemas next year!' before showing up at the climax. 

But back to the ball! Clark and Bruce have some discussion about vigilantes, Lex breaks down while giving a speech, and it's back to their personal investigations into the other vigilantes. Lex manages to track down Wallace, the Wayne employee crippled in the prologue during Superman's attack on Metropolis, and sponsors him in an attempt to bring Superman to trial, so to speak. Meanwhile, Clark gets word that the criminal that Batman arrested -- who is moved to a Metropolis prison and killed by Knyazev's thugs -- and gets a very discoloured view that Batman marks his victims for death in prisons, even meeting the wife of the criminal. It's clear why Superman ends up flying and stopping Batman's rampage in the pier, with this miscoloured view of the vigilante.

Not that Bruce's investigations are any rosier, mind you. Kahina Ziri, the witness, is clearly sponsored by Lex Luthor to give false testimony to damn Superman, but she was killed by Luthor's agents shortly after. Luthor also manipulates events so that Wallace doesn't get any of the financial help that Wayne Corps gives him, embittering him and allowing him to become a pawn to deliver a bomb on a wheelchair -- a bomb that blows up during Superman's trial and murders not only Wallace, but also a lot of Luthor's allies who might implicate him. Superman then buggers off to the mountain... although that bit's still a bit rough even in the Ultimate Edition. The Knightmare is also indulgent and adds nothing, but I've talked about it above. 

In another great scene, the aftermath of Batman's assault on LexCorp, stealing the kryptonite, taking out an entire facility's worth of thugs and leaving behind a batarang, is another one of those awesome scenes. And as much as MurderBatman is something that makes me uncomfortable, the Batmobile-vs-Knyazev-thugs scene is amazing. And with all the added subplot where Bruce and Clark suspect each other's alter egos a lot more, this scene has a fair bit more impact.

Luthor going off to play his hand is a bit more shaky, though, kidnapping Lois Lane and Martha Kent, while simultaneously accessing the Kryptonian computers and using Zod's body and his blood to create a kryptonian horror. And this is where the big streams of long action scenes and arguably some of the weaker parts of the movie happen. Instead of talking, Superman and Batman fight each other, and... it's cool. As much as I want to talk shit about it, as much as I want to talk about how not even with the added scenes it really justifies the stupidity of them not talking it out, the fight between Batman and Superman is cool. Less cool is ending it with "Martha". There are a gajillion other ways you could've had them stop fighting and end it (Lois throwing herself in-between one of the punches?) without the stupidity of that scene. But okay.

They work together this time, and we get an amazingly badass scene of Batman versus the entire building of Knyazev and his thugs, rescuing Martha. There's nothing else but to describe it as amazingly spectacular and amazingly choreographed. It's brutal, yes, but it's brutal in a not-so-murdery-way. We also get Superman confronting Luthor, who seems to have gone off the deep end (not a fan of second-act Luthor) and created Doomsday and... yeah. It's not very impressive, just this indestructible troll creature. We do get a lot of great scenes in the Doomsday fight, mind you, it just ran on for way too long. Between Superman punching Doomsdsay into space, or Batman's solo Batwing strafing runs, or the united front of the three superheroes against Doomsday, there are some great scenes. It's a shame that the climax isn't done quite well, with the kryptonite spear scene being the worst offender of prolonging the climax.

Luthor is arrested, shaved and put into jail, with Batman warning him to basically fuck off, and send him off to Arkham Asylum. We get another teaser for Justice League in the Ultimate Edition, with Luthor communing with the mysterious metal figure of Steppenwolf when he's arrested by the police, but that's just some cryptic stuff.

The funeral for Superman (and Clark Kent) are both well done, as rushed as the death scene is. It's very emotional, especially in the expanded edition, and this galvanizes Bruce and Diana to basically start the Justice League. Of course, the dirt around Superman's grave floats, so obviously he'll be back.

Honestly, the biggest problem with the movie is that it tries to do so much. Superman meeting Batman. Superman fighting Batman. Introducing Lex Luthor. Introducing a new version of Batman. Introducing Wonder Woman. The Dark Knight Returns. The Death of Superman. The founding of the League. Yes, the extended edition does restore a lot of plot points, and it does make the movie a fair amount more watchable and intelligent than it does before, but it doesn't restore it into any sort of awesome masterpiece. Add that to three of the main characters losing what made them iconic in the  first place -- Superman being turned into a morose glum man instead of a symbol of hope, Batman being turned into a murder machine instead of a vigilante with a rigid moral code, and Luthor being turned into a manic manchild instead of a smart, measured industrialist villain... especially when the characters's transformations don't feel earned, considering that as far as the DCEU universe is concerned, this is the first time we've seen any of them... yeah.

It's still, as I first rated it, a very flawed movie with a lot of great scenes and set pieces interconnected flimsily and a climax that drags on and on. I still don't particularly like this version of Luthor, and I still think that Superman's a lot more mopey than Superman should be. At least, for better or for worse, the gigantic backlash that BvS suffered has caused the filmmakers to restructure their plans for the DC cinematic universe in general, and that, if nothing else, is a great blessing to us. Bring on Justice League!