Just saw it. The criticism is completely warranted. Overall it's not a good film.
I don't recommend it for anyone who isn't a super fan. I'm definitely not taking a casual movie-goer to see this. I'm not even sure I'd recommend children see it. In the same way "Watchmen" was gratuitously dark, so is this movie. They just double-down on tons of innocent people being murdered.
It really is a joyless downer of a film with a wonky plot, some bad performances, illogical motives, terrible pacing and useless scenes. It has 3 dream sequences. It sets up introductions to future characters in completely hamfisted ways. In many ways it's hacky. You've seen everything you really need to see in the trailer.
I actually like Jesse Eisenberg as an actor, but his performance as Lex misses the mark. It's awful. I'm pegging him as the single worst part of this movie... both his performance, the dialogue, the character's motives, etc. It brings down this movie.
All that said, Ben Affleck is fine as Batman. If this franchise continues, I'd be interested to see a better director give him some better material to work with. But really he might just have seemed good by comparison to the rest of the dumpster fire happening around him.
As a nerd, I was entertained for the most part. This movie is in my wheelhouse. I'm the demographic for it... so I certainly enjoyed aspects of it, but I'm a movie fanatic that goes to movies once a week and watches all the superhero themed shows... There's tons of bad content I'm willing to sit through. If you're a casual viewer, you might want to stay from this one. If you LOVED the Watchmen, you'll probably enjoy this a lot.
What's your take on this review?:
http://m.hitfix.com/motion-captured/review-batman-v-superman-throws-lots-of-punches-but-with-no-impact-at-all
It's spot on.
There are parts that are breathtakingly stupid... many centered on Lex's character. His character makes no sense at all.
Actually for those who see it, I'll delve a little into spoiler territory here, but really anything you need to see is already in the trailers so there's nothing really worth spoiling.
To me, Batman's motives in this movie are far more in line with what Lex should be thinking. Batman doesn't necessarily think Superman is going to bring death to everyone, though he does partially blame him for a lot of the destruction in "Man of Steel". And despite lots of people seeing Superman as a hero that saved everyone, Batman suggests that if there's a 1% chance he turns evil, he needs to take it as an "absolute certainty". Which is stupid, but whatever. At least Batman's motives have some logic. He's got to stop Superman "just in case". No one man should have all that pooowwwah. But for whatever reason, Batman decides the only solution is to murder Superman. I mean... ok?
That should be Lex's motives. Stop Superman, because no one man should have all that poowwwaah. But his character is a chaotic and ridiculous mess. He wants to orchestrate a battle between Batman and Superman, murder tons of innocent people, kill Batman for some reason, unleash literal Doomsday, kidnap and torture Martha Kent... His character is just stupid. And it's heightened by Eisenberg apparently deciding that Lex Luthor should be a cross between the Joker and Riddler. All while stuffing cherry jolly ranchers in the mouths of senators and squealing like a cartoon character.
They also handled the introduction of additional Justice League characters in the most hamfisted way possible. Lex has a database of "meta humans" (complete with character logos). We find out about this after Batman hacks into Lex's database and sends the info to Wonder Woman via e-mail. She opens up the various attachments to see clips of the characters. It's dumb.
There's moments in the movie that neat. I particularly enjoyed the opening scene of Bruce at ground zero of the events of "Man of Steel", but you already saw that in the trailer. Kinda neat to see the actual Superman/Batman battle from "Dark Knight Returns" reenacted. But so much of it was just dumb, cynical and depressing.