Anxiety-ridden Superheroes

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Reviewing a comic-book title like “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” should be a cinch. The two most iconic superheroes fight each other, there is the diabolical Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman and the potential members for a future “Justice League” film show up and there is some monstrous, Frankenstein-like creation called Doomsday. The fight of the century, lots of ear-splitting explosions on cue, crumbling tall buildings and it is all over. In other words, Michael Bay could have directed this in his sleep. Case closed; millions of dollars later, the studio got itself another cash cow that fell short of those billion dollar expectations. Only none of this is true. The fight of the century occurs at the hour and a half meter and it lasts a mere ten minutes. Zack Snyder’s cool, calculated and elegantly somber film is suffused with political innuendoes and a touchingly brief romance between Superman and Lois. It also asks us to question Superman’s existence – friend or foe? It also has Ben Affleck’s Batman who is conflicted about that flying alien with a red cape. No ordinary comic-book movie by any stretch of the imagination.

Right from the start of the film, I could tell that Zack Snyder found his calling in making something more epic and deeper than what I saw in trailers. Ben Affleck’s aged Bruce Wayne is zipping around Metropolis as he witnesses Superman fighting General Zod (the finale from “Man of Steel”) as they thrash against buildings left and right. The trouble is that one of those buildings is Wayne’s property and he watches it crumbling with his office workers down for the count. Yep, he is none too happy.

Meanwhile, the idealistic reporter Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is hoping to expose Batman as a masked avenger who literally brands criminals. Yet the evermore cynical Daily Planet editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne, who supplies a few flashes of humor) won’t have it. Clark lives with reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and they have a tender scene in a bathtub that shows devotion to each other. Still, Lois can’t be engaged in love matters for too long when she faces trouble in the fictional African country of Nairomi while trying to interview a terrorist. This particular section of the film is slightly muddled (and we get a Jimmy Olsen cameo that tragically ends too soon) since it deals with a bullet that may have been engineered through LexCorp. Superman is blamed for killing civilians in Metropolis and in Nairomi and now he faces a congressional investigation – is Superman a threat to the planet Earth? Lois tries to back up Superman as a savior, not a murderer.
 
“Batman v Superman” is not as fully realized as it should be when it comes to the women characters. Lois is on the sidelines for most of the film, Clark’s mother (Diane Lane) is threatened and held prisoner, and even Gal Gadot as the Amazonian Wonder Woman makes one wish she was given more than a glorified cameo where she helps our caped heroes fight that gargantuan creature called Doomsday. This Doomsday has Kryptonian DNA from General Zod and Lex Luthor’s blood. Speaking of Lex, he is played by long-haired Jesse Eisenberg as a pathological, devilish version of Doc Brown from the “Back to the Future” movies. Eisenberg’s Lex waxes on with a frantic speech pattern and anxious use of his hands and dry-witted lines like, “The red capes are coming.” It is a chilling performance that even takes Superman aback.

But even with its glaring flaws, the movie soars with headless enthusiasm. It has a smooth rhythm and texture of coolness and contains a deliberately serious mood with attention paid to its two main characters. It is not all doom and gloom – I especially laughed at the Lex Luthor scene where he is astounded to see Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne together. Ben Affleck would not have been my first choice to play Batman but I did like his restraint and the world-weary edge he brings to it, provided with welcome support from Jeremy Irons as the faithful servant Alfred who provides dry-witted commentary. Henry Cavill still makes a formidable Superman yet it is really Affleck (surprise, surprise!) who walks away with this movie. Director Zack Snyder also walks away with presenting a more epic, ambitious picture than anyone had any right to expect. He presents two comic-book icons as potential terrorists in a world gone mad, with Lex upping the ante on the anxiety everyone feels. “Batman v Superman” may be the first truly post-modernist comic-book movie of the new millennium.