Batman v Superman: My Complaints

Expect Spoilers.  If you haven’t seen the movie then you shouldn’t be reading articles about the movie anyway. Expect some ranting.  I didn’t hate the movie but as the movie has already earned over $424 million in the opening weekend, it will surely break $1 billion and I’m not sure the movie really deserves it.

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So here goes:  The movie didn’t suck and it wasn’t terrible.  It just wasn’t that good.  There were a number of times where I laughed and I shouldn’t have.  There were moments where I thought, “they cut out the wrong scenes from this movie and it hurts the plot.”  There was no surprise.

That said, be sure to buy all of the Batman v Superman merchandise I have for sale!

One of the silly gripes about Man of Steel is that Superman and Zod cause a lot of destruction in their fight.  I actually give Man of Steel some props as that’s realistic.  Either the destruction was deliberate to set up the plot of BvS or the amount of complaints about the destruction in MoS caused a rewrite of the script for BvS.  Either way, it is an issue that comes up in BvS.  Though I couldn’t help but smirk when Batman is driving through Metropolis at the beginning of the movie and he knocks the door off some random guy’s car.  No, he didn’t stop and leave a note or his insurance card.

I found it funny that two police officers find a bunch of people caged up in a building and they don’t radio it in.  They also don’t ask for backup when they hear a noise and begin to explore the rest of the building.  I realize it happens in TV shows and movies all the time but its poor writing in those movies and shows too.  Also, one of the cops is trying like hell to shoot Batman.  Yet there’s a Bat signal in the movie and that’s typically used by the police when they need the Dark Knight’s help.  So it seems odd for a policeman to shoot on sight.

Perry White tells Clark that he’s writing sports today.  Seriously?  That just gets pawned off on anyone?  We wonder why people aren’t reading newspapers any more.  Maybe have someone with a passion for sports writing about them.

Lois Lane has always been a tenacious individual.  A “dog with a bone” if you will.  So when she barges in on the guy from Dollhouse when he’s in the men’s room, it is a bit of a shock when the guy silences her with some comment about putting a halo on Superman after Superman is blamed for shooting people in Africa.  Seriously?  A couple of scenes later we see them meeting and this time she fires back.  I really wish she’d have done that in the first scene as it would have fit in line with Lois’s character as portrayed over the years.  Maybe in these movies she’s not as hardcore as she’s been portrayed previously–bleh ok…just remember that when you’re trying to show her as a tenacious ballbuster who will push and push and trample over anything in the way of her getting the story.

The Batman vs Superman fight was kind of dumb.  Superman tells Lois that he’s gonna ask Batman for help or fight him.  When he gets there Batman is setting some traps and Superman is kinda toying with Batman.  Considering there’s a timer ticking, as Superman I’d have gotten behind Batman and wrapped my arms around him and flown up a couple thousand feet.  Then I’d say, “Hey, Lex Luthor says I gotta kill you or he’ll kill my mother.  Will you please help me out?”  I realize we’d have been pissed at a Batman v Superman movie with no fight, but I feel like that would have been more realistic.

While Superman is weakened, Batman is swinging him around and knocking down large pillars using Superman’s body.  I’m not sure Batman could swing a fully grown man hard enough to knock down pillars that hold up a building.  If he could, you should probably leave that building because it is going to collapse.  More importantly, for Superman to become a wrecking ball at that point he’d have had to be getting his strength back and at that point, I don’t see him being more or less down for the count.  I’m hoping someone more into the science behind it all can explain that.

batman v superman fight explanation

Superman’s costume can survive a nuclear bomb blast in space–one strong enough to knock Superman out.  Yet the suit can’t hold up to getting stabbed by Doomsday’s arm bones?

Speaking of Doomsday…  Lex Luthor goes on a spaceship and he gains access to knowledge from 100,000 worlds–gee its too bad baby Superman couldn’t have been sent to one of those planets instead of earth.  The ship explains to Lex that making Doomsdays is a big no-no but they installed a Doomsday easy bake oven just in case you want to make one anyway.

Speaking of Lex.  He basically orchestrates a number of events that enable him to get onto the ship and create Doomsday.  Then he plans to unleash Doomsday.  It just seems like poor writing.  Basically, he stirs up a lot of trouble and if he doesn’t find something big on that ship to use against Superman then he’s totally screwed.

I really wish Lois would have pushed Lex off the roof.  I know she’s not a murderer and Superman might not understand.  I know some of you are thinking, “this guy can make that claim sitting at his PC but I bet he’d never kill anyone.”  You’re quite right.  However, if I was in Africa and encountered a mercenary using Lexcorp bullets and suddenly he kidnaps me back in Metropolis and then takes me to the roof where Lex Luthor is revealing himself to be a total d-bag?  When Lex is circling me near the edge of the roof, all it would take is one push.  Your life is in danger.  This is a dude of means and he doesn’t plan to be your friend.  One push.  Legally, I think she’d be just fine.  It wouldn’t take too much force.

Instead Lex pushes Lois off the building and Superman saves her.  Then they stop for a movie kiss instead of Lois explaining that she was abducted and Lex has gone crazy.  At that point Superman should go up and fly Lex to the police station faster than Lex can say, “I’ve kidnapped your mother.”

I know I wouldn’t expect Superman to do it and it certainly would never happen in any Superhero movie that wasn’t rated like NC-17 but if I was Superman and someone had kidnapped my mother, I would begin removing small pieces of his flesh and bone until he told me where she was.  That’s your mother, man!

nerdimports gore

While Superman is floating in space after being nuked, Batman theorizes that since Doomsday was creating using Kryptonian technology then Doomsday could be vulnerable to Kryptonite. So he needs his spear.  He must have told Lois as she’s searching for it.  He also somehow told Superman as Superman asks about the spear once he’s revived and back on the Earth’s surface.  I assume this is just poor editing in a long movie.  Expect a 3-hour Blu-ray version of BvS sometime later this summer or early fall.

Wonder Woman was great!  She was kicking butt and I felt like she was the best part of this movie.  I was so busy cheering her on that I forgot that I wasn’t a fan of her costume.  I am really looking forward to seeing a Wonder Woman stand alone movie (or 3).  The first one comes out next June.

I thought Ben Affleck did just fine as Batman and he was a “fashionable man” as Bruce Wayne.

Ok and now it is time for some shameless merchandise promoting!  If you weren’t aware, I sell lots of awesome nerd swag on eBay and Amazon.  These are the links for my current offerings on eBay: [Batman], [Superman] and [Wonder Woman] and for Amazon: BatmanSuperman, and Wonder Woman.

What do you think?