Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Superman Related Batman v. Superman

Have you seen Batman v. Superman? Is it worth seeing in the theatre?

Also, I realize that by its very nature, there will be fight scenes in it, but did they go overboard in the amount of fight scenes? (I personally think that Man of Steel could have been greatly improved if they had cut out about two thirds of the fighting near the end of the movie.)

Please keep in mind that people reading this thread may not have seen the movie: Please make generous use of the spoiler tag. Thanks.

Joy,
Lynn

Hmmm, haven't seen it yet. But Anti-K says it was great!

Just saw it -- was pleasantly surprised. There were the expected darker elements and shadowings of character, but it stayed generally true to the characters.



Semi-spoiler below, but nothing specific:
(I think there's a way to write in spoiler code, so it blacks it out, but I can't remember... Please feel free to tell me!)












The only thing I'll say is be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster if you have NOT read the comics. I left the theater relieved that I knew circumstances wouldn't stay as they had left it.





PS Wonder Woman was a badass bonus!!!

I saw it today, and it was awesome. I even liked Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex Luthor, in a large part because he reminded me of a former student of mine, with similar speech patterns and grandiose behavior (but I'm pretty sure my former student isn't evil, just aggravating).

I recognized quite a few of Batman's lines as being from The Dark Knight Returns, which is one of my all-time favorite books. I thought Ben Affleck was a good Batman and Bruce Wayne, in spite of the Internet geek rage that accompanied the news of his casting.

The trailers showed Doomsday, so I can mention that without spoiling anything, but the outcome


The beginning of the film, where Bruce Wayne's building in Metropolis is destroyed in the battle between Superman and the other Kryptonians, looked like it was heavily inspired by 9/11.

There was one part I thought was really odd, though, and that was


In conclusion, though, it's definitely worth seeing in the theater.

Thanks for the use of the spoiler tags, Annie. I'll read what is inside them once I have seen the movie. And thanks to all who posted; I definitely will be seeing the movie now; I'm just not sure when I'll get the chance.

Joy,
Lynn

I saw BvS this afternoon. I'll start with the one non-spoiler thing I'd want to know, if I haven't seen this yet: There's no bonus scene at the end of the credits, so you don't need to stay for it.

BvS was pretty predictable up to a point if you saw the previews, then it veered into the unexpected. The surprise was refreshing as I was wondering how / why Batman and Superman were going to join forces against Lex Luthor.

They definitely tackled the idea of consequences to the battle in MoS. That was what most of the drama in the story was. In this respect, it was less an action movie than MoS.


I must say that I liked how they portrayed Lois and Clark's relationship. It was sweet and romantic, showing how important they were to each other.

Ben Affleck did a good job with Batman. I liked his interpretation of the character. They didn't show him as the playboy type (per se), but more as a caring leader of Wayne Industries. The kind of man we wish was running big corporations. Was a bit surprised by Batman's use of lethal weapons, though, as I thought that went against his code. They also made Batman my age (which was surprising), and he'd been the Batman for at least 20 years.


The Batmobile was cool in a edgy sort of way. It wasn't sleek and stylish (like Michael Keaton's) but simple, rough, and tough.

Holly Hunter's character (the Senator against Superman) wasn't what I anticipated. *trying so hard to be vague.* Wonder Woman was aloof and showed Batman up, so I liked her.

Lex Luthor did a good job of making us hate rich, power-hungry, spoiled brats more than some of us already do. Although, at times, I did wonder if he was possessed by the Joker. He certainly wasn't suave, like LnC's Luthor; he did creepy very well. One would hope that his portrayal would convince those with power in DC not to let themselves be bought by those with money, but I doubt it.

Bruce was dark, edgy, and full of revenge, due to his own failures (or inability) to save people. Despite Clark being full of melancholy by how his actions had hurt people (especially, during his battle with Zod), he was portrayed as full of love and a positive life force. All he wanted to do was help. He lived to make others (Lois's and Martha's) lives better. You can't help but love that guy!


Keep your eyes out: the credits show a "Jimmy Olsen" (Jenny's back as well), a "Lana", and a "Pete Ross", but I missed all three.

Overall, I liked it. Although, I have to say that the plot was pretty predictable after they set it up until Lex turned it on its ear. Liked the introduction to the Justice League members too. Can't wait to see the next film to see how they tie up all those dangling threads!

Cool. Thanks for the detailed review, Virginia. I'll wait to read your spoilers until after I see the movie.

Next question: Would the show lose a lot in the transition from the big screen to a television set? It is very difficult for me to get to the movie theatre (the next free time I'm likely to have will be mid-April, when my son is at an Easter Seals camp). I have pre-ordered the movie on Amazon so I can see it at home; would those of you who have seen it consider it worth using my extremely rare free time to see the movie in the cinema? The main reason I would see it in the theatre rather than wait would be if the visuals were absolutely phenomenal. (The only movies I have ever seen which I consider that much better on the big screen were the Hobbit and LoTR movies.)

Thanks,
Lynn

Tahu told me Jimmy but I didn't see Lana or Pete either.

But I really liked the at the end.

I didn't have many expectations for this film, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Gee I hope that character, Kathryn84, wasn't Jimmy.

Virginia, I have found this concerning Jimmy. Spoiler me here

The link doesn't work. Go in and remove the first http:// and the space and it will work.

My niece is a big fan of DC superheroes and really wants to see this movie. Her mom told her no and her dad told her no, so she begged me to take her to see it.

Much to her dismay, I also said no (even though I added that she might be able to see it "in a few years"). I thought the movie was great, but definitely not appropriate for a 4-year-old.

I went to see BvS yesterday and I loved it. I freely admit to having a love/hate relationship with MoS. Most of the things I hate can be attributed to the director, though, and I can get past that and ratify/understand everything I hate. With it being the same director I knew there was a chance I could feel the same about this movie too, but I don't. I love it. As with every film it could be picked apart if you chose to. For example, certain plot points don't make sense, but there could be off-screen moments that explain them and they are not literally conflicting points. I hate it when people slate a film for things like that. I wish I could shout at them - "fill in the missing scenes with your imagination - the director doesn't have to tell us EVERYTHING."

Non-spoiler points:

I found the main plot-line and the gradual build up to the fight as believable. In my mind there were no sudden ‘out of character’ decisions by the main characters, although I have heard others say that the reason the ‘fight’ came to an end was sudden and not powerful enough to cause the reaction it did. I don’t agree.

The Clark/Lois relationship doesn’t get as much screen time as I would like, but I am a complete addict for Clark/Lois scenes. Still, the ones we get are fantastic. Their relationship has never been depicted in this way on the big screen before and I love it.

Teasing the future films. This was done seamlessly. For comic fans it was clear that they were teases for the coming films, but they were not ‘shoe-horned in’ to a plot that they didn’t fit into. It all made sense to me. It was great to see these other Justice League members, even if it was only for the few seconds screen time they got. The other big tease was not about other Superheroes, but about the big baddie that might be coming (for the Justice League movie I presume). But, this definitely falls into the spoiler category, so I will mention it below.

Casting:

Henry Cavill – well, they couldn’t exactly cast anyone else!! He is great. I love his deep sexy voice. His smile, whenever he looks at Lois, or his mother, is beautiful. He is a confident but quiet Clark Kent – just like our favourite Dean Cain, and there is no sign of a bumbling dork. His Superman is caring and strong, but also full of self-doubt (that I just want to wash away with a very long and intimate hug).

Amy Adams – She continues to play Lois as both gentle and yet driven. Her soft voice conceals a brave and determined heart for her career, and also for her man.

Ben Affleck – I was appalled at the thought of Ben Affleck as Batman when I heard – even though I actually love him as Daredevil – another film that everyone slates, but I love. But he is fantastic. My husband has even stated that Ben is now the best portrayal of Bruce he has ever seen and he is a Batman fan 1st and Superman fan 2nd. (I’m slowly working on that though, and have made GREAT progress).

Jeremy Irons – Great. He played Alfred as a loyal butler and friend, not afraid to share his opinion, or his sarcastic wit. I loved some of his droll one-liners.

Jesse Eisenberg – Lex is clearly mad and a genius, but there was no 'power' presence, or 'fear' presence that I felt coming from Jesse. I know that 'height' has nothing to do with how well a person can act (and he can clearly act extremely well), but in this case, he looked way too small - especially against Superman, and so I didn't feel that anyone would ever be intimidated by him. He was also missing the 'suave' feel that Lex is supposed to have been since the 80s and John Shea, followed by Michael Rosenbaum, played excellently. I guess I shouldn’t hang on to that, as actors, writers and directors are at liberty to change the portrayal of a character, but in this particular case I didn’t feel that it worked.

Gal Gadot – She is beautiful, and I love the slightly exotic accent. I believe this is the first time that Diana/Wonder Woman has been portrayed with a foreign accent, but I don’t understand why. Cleary she SHOULD have an exotic accent. Her role was small, but just big enough to have significance. She teased with Bruce especially well and her involvement in the climax was well played.

Scenes/scenery and directing:

I’m still not convinced of Zack Snyder as director. As I said before most of my problems with MoS I put down to the director’s choices to do things in a certain way, or not show certain things. There are not as many instances of this in BvS but I still find some of his directing choices, and the way he patches certain things together, to be jarring. His extreme close ups in MoS, which were meant to give the viewer the feeling of being right in the middle of the action – but just meant that the viewer missed seeing the whole scope of the scene/action, was still used but to a much lesser degree. The fight scenes were mostly viewed from an external perspective, so that the viewer could actually get an idea of the full scope of the action and the few close ups were just enough to bring me in to the scene emotionally rather than keep me as a passive outside viewer.

Conclusion:

I loved the film. Got to see it again the following day with my daughter and she loved it too. We have finally got to see a confrontation between the two major DC players. DC has given us this confrontation in many forms in the comics and the translation to big screen was not going to be easy. The general public (non-comic reading/non-superhero loving public) would never accept that these two men would fight under normal circumstances. They also tend to find superhero movies too unrealistic, especially if they skirt too close to ‘comic book’ story lines and ‘comic book’ suspension of disbelief. I believe that this film actually manages to tell a true ‘comic book’ story-line, on the big screen and does it believably.

In the end I only have two things I really don't like. One falls into the "off-screen things we don't see"/director choice category and cannot be covered in non-spoiler mode, and the other is the casting choice for Lex Luthor.

I am looking forward to the DVD, where I understand there is to be an extra 30 minutes, too. The future of this series, with all the other Justice League members and movies, is also looking very promising and I can see my DVD shelf being full of all these movies in the years to come. I’m only disappointed that it will take a decade to get there!

Spoiler points: I’m going to explain the two things I mentioned above, and also reply to some other spoilery comments by others.


Gosh, that was long. Probably the first time I have fully tried to review a movie, too, rather than just give general comments and thoughts.

THAT was Jimmy? Glad his character will be addressed more fully on the 30 minutes of extra footage on the DVD.

Thanks to all who have been giving their thoughts and opinions. And thanks for hiding the spoilers.

I had been hoping to see the movie in April when my son was going to go to an Easter Seals camp. Unfortunately, I just received notice that camp has been canceled for that weekend. So I guess I'll have to wait until the movie is available in streaming form. Bummer: I've already pre-ordered it from Amazon.

Now to see if I can continue to remain relatively spoiler-free for another few months...

Joy,
Lynn

Just realised that part of my post in the spoiler section shouldn't have been in the spoiler section.


Sorry to hear that the camp has been cancelled Lynn. I hope that you still find some way to have a little time for yourself soon, and also a little special/different attention for your son, too.

Hi Victoria,

Thanks for the good wishes. Unfortunately, the next camp won't be until August, and that is a day camp run by a different charity and specifically targets kids with severe autism. The good(?) news is that I am at least getting something of a break since I am on short term disability at least through the end of this week. (I feel fine, but I get winded and tired extremely easily as an aftermath of having had bronchitis; the infection has passed but the inflammation lingers. I had tried returning to work but lacked the stamina to be at work full time, and the policy is all-or-nothing; they don't allow one to return to work part time.)

I'm glad to hear that I won't be missing *too* much by waiting to see the movie on a small screen. I would imagine that by late June -- when I'll next have free time in which to go to a movie -- Batman v. Superman will have left even the second-run theatres.

Joy,
Lynn

Folks,

I am delighted to hear good things about the movie from a group of people whose opinions I can trust.

Based on the trailers I had planned on waiting for it to hit Redbox in a few months, now I will pencil it in sometime soon.

Thanks much

Hiya folcs!

I've been so underwater with work recently, but I saw the movie and I wanted to hop back on here and see what everybody else thought. Glad to see so many positive reviews (in spite of critical reviews). I went in with semi-low expectations and ended up pretty genuinely impressed by the end.

I'm not going to lie, though. At first, I was fairly disappointed by the first hour-ish of the movie. I get why a lot of critics are saying it felt like they were watching two different movies, but I also understand why. There's a lot of exposition (A LOT) that I guess needed addressed but it felt like it took too much time. I also think they used too many dream sequences (fyi, I hate dream sequences). But after watching the whole film I got to thinking about it and I can accept the dream sequences under this potential little clause:
And that certainly makes me more at peace with their usage.

Yeah, there were some lines I found cheesy, but who cares. I wish we could have seen a little bit more of Lois/Clark interactions, and also a lot more Clark/Bruce interactions. Wonder Woman kicked some serious butt and I've never been happier about that. She's my absolute new favorite character.

The second half of the movie got exponentially better, and reversed my worries from the whole first half.. The rest of my thoughts will be in spoilers below:

And that's my two cents. Or maybe fifty cents. I wrote a lot, but I miss you guys.

Also, just went hunting in search of some evidence to support my first Spoiler section, and found this maybe-not-so-official source: Spoilers be here

And one more thing:

Mouserocks, I hope you completely wrong about the direction they're planning on taking the DC heroes in the future films. I personally wouldn't want it to go there.

I saw the movie a second time yesterday. I noticed a few things I hadn't seen the first time, such as:


A couple of students were discussing the movie this morning. The boy said he'd heard it was bad, and he didn't plan on seeing it. The girl thought it was awesome, and went "See?!" when I agreed with her.


One thing that I find odd is that there doesn't seem to be any novelization of the film -- not an adult novel, not a junior novel, and not a comic book adaptation. I checked Amazon, but there just doesn't seem to be one.

They're usually so horrible that this isn't necessarily a bad thing.


Also (a TOTAL aside), what a cool librarian you are, Annie. My kids have checked out every graphic novel at the local library, I had to show them where the adult section was (and why they couldn't rent Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and some other titles, they're not old enough to read). My high school library would never have had graphic novels. Then again, the more I'm learning about other schools, the more I'm realizing how bad mine actually was. Sigh. Live and learn.

Thanks again to all who provided answers to my initial post. I have now finally seen the theatrical release of the movie. Although I did enjoy it, I'm glad I waited until my summer vacation to see it.

I thought it much better than MoS overall; it had far more plot to it and although I think they could have done without some of the fighting, at least they didn't have a stretch that was so long I kept looking at my watch to see when it would end. (Yes, MoS, I'm looking at you.)

I think everything else I wanted to add is in the realm of spoilers, so...


I could probably say a lot more, but these were my initial reactions. I'll probably see the Ultimate/Extended edition next week. It will be interesting both to see the earlier scenes from the theatrical cut again, in light of what I now know about the later scenes, and to see the extra footage. Has anyone seen the ultimate edition version yet? if so, what did you think?

Joy,
Lynn

p.s., It will be good to be able to listen to podcasts again without having to worry about whether I'll have to stop them to avoid spoilers.