The movie has been universally panned by critics, and on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator site owned by studio Warner Bros. Pictures themselves, the 29% rating is one of the lowest for recent superhero movies. Despite this, Batman v Superman has collected US$261 million (S$352 million) from the U.S. box office alone, and US$681 million worldwide.
This could be due to global fans’ three years of waiting, thinking and arguing. With the movie trending and me being in Team Superman, I just had to catch it. Here are my views on the movie’s highs and lows.
High #1: Plot and story’s steady start
The plot starts off with both Batman and Superman disliking each other. Batman dislikes Superman because of the damage he caused to Metropolis in the previous movie, Man of Steel. Superman dislikes Batman for his extreme ways of dealing with criminals. This small dislike is strengthened by villain Lex Luthor who is determined to kill Superman.
The beginning creates a rock-hard foundation for the movie, making it easy to follow through and understand the story.
Low #1: Gevil
However, during the second half of the movie there were many metaphors linking Superman to being the god and then later the devil and then later the god again. It got a little too confusing.
High #2: Beautiful cinematography
The movie was beautifully filmed in Detroit by cinematographer Larry Fong of 300 and TV show Lost fame. When Superman flies or pushes or punches, the impact of actions are incredibly well shown. This made the fight scenes even more enjoyable.
Low #2: Vomit of flashing lights
However, the climax scene was just overloaded with explosions and graphics, making it too much and too messy. They could have taken it down a notch.
High #3: Sensitive Superman
We also get to see a different, human side of Superman. We got to see that he, despite being all powerful and mighty, is not perfect and cares for justice.
Low #3: Where are the powers?
There is nothing fans like myself would like to see more than Superman using his powers. Superman has so many abilities and it would have been better to see him utilize them in fight scenes other than just the regular pushing and punching.
High #3: Henry Cavill
Henry Cavill’s improvement in acting is evident in this movie. He is more animated here as compared to his previous movie, Man of Steel, where he was stiff and expressionless. With his face and body he most certainly looks like he was born for the role.
Low #3: Henry Cavill
Yes, you saw that correctly. Despite lifting his performance from his previous effort, Cavill is still the weakest link in a star-studded cast that includes Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams and Jesse Eisenberg.
Overall, the movie is humourless which I think is the biggest difference between this movie and most superhero movies. They did have to forcefully squeeze in some scenes for the purpose of creating a link to upcoming Justice League movies.
If you are not a fan of Batman or Superman or just superhero movies in general I would not recommend you to watch this movie.
My rating: 6/10
Bat-head A’bidah Zaid Shirbeeni likes this movie a little better. Check out what she has to say.
