Batman v Superman: Long and spoilery thoughts after watching it a second time
The critics have been completely mauling this film and I don’t really understand it. Last I looked, it was at 30% on Rotten Tomatoes when it was so much better than e.g. Mockingjay 2 which is at 70% at Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t get me wrong, I am a Hunger Games fan but Mockingjay 2 was a bit of a mess compared to the other movies and yet it managed to get a higher rating critically.
This movie isn’t for everyone. It’s a super hero movie, it’s a bleak movie … but overall, I thought it was a good movie and I enjoyed it even though I am not a Ben Affleck fan and was pretty unhappy to find out that Batman had essentially hijacked the Man of Steel sequel. Spoilery thoughts beneath the cut.
Things I didn’t like
- Some of the editing was off and a bit distracting. I didn’t really understand the sequencing sometimes. Why have poor Lois hold dirt in her hand that long at the end so that we could flash over to Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince and into Wayne’s flashback’s to his visit to Lex?
- We didn’t need to have two flashbacks of Martha Wayne’s death. I’m in the camp that is a bit ho hum about the fact that we had to see the Waynes’ death again but I get that this is a reboot so fine, but we definitely didn’t need to flashback twice to Martha’s death
- I felt like Batman got way more of the screen time than Superman did and I wasn’t cool with that.
- I didn’t like Doomsday. Like Snoke from The Force Awakens, he just looked like a crappy version of a cave troll from Lord of the Rings:
Other random unanswered questions that made me a bit ho hum
- Why did Diana go home, change clothes and then surf the internet and read emails when all the crap was going down?
- Why is Lex’s server room in a glass room instead of in a normal room and why is it across from his kitchen?
- Why doesn’t Superman keep a better eye on his mum? He’s keenly attuned to Lois’ activities and can save her in the nick of time but his poor mum got nabbed without him even knowing about it.
- Why didn’t Superman try harder to reason with Batman? Yeah Batman was being a jerk
Things that I was ho hum about but improved on a second viewing
- I didn’t like it the first time but actually came to rather like Jesse Eisenberg’s take on Lex Luthor. Sometimes it came across as too twitchy and more Joker than Lex Luthor but Eistenberg’s facial expressions were great and he telegraphed displeasure and anger with perfection:
- I didn’t really get the antipathy between Superman and Batman at first - it seemed manufactured just so that we could have a clash of the titans but I suppose I appreciate it a little more now. Batman’s horrified by the unchecked power that Superman wields and is still haunted by the deaths in Metropolis from 18 months ago. Superman is disapproving of Batman’s vigilante justice and brutality:
- I didn’t really care for Batman at first but on a second viewing, I came to almost understand/like Bruce Wayne. He’s jaded, burnt out and pretty much in the throes of undiagnosed PTSD. The training montage was a little gratuitous though :P
Things I absolutely loved
- I loved Wonder Woman. She was so cool. I loved her poise, intelligence and beauty as Diana but also her fierceness as Wonder Woman and the pure enjoyment that you could see on her face when she was fighting Doomsday. She looked so strong and determined - but then she’d pause and smirk a bit. Plus even her shield is gorgeous.
I also loved her theme music “Is She With You” with the crazy guitars and wild drums. So much better than Lex’s motif which is kind of ghastly.
Click to viewOf course it’s wonderful that it segues into Superman’s motif that I loved so much from Man of Steel and is embodied by the Man of Steel track “What are you doing to do when you’re not saving the world”.
You also hear Superman-Clark’s motif during Day of the Dead and also This is my world.
- I loved all the moments between Lois and Clark, Lois and Superman. Their familiarity, the fact that they’re in an established relationship, the fact that he calls her Lo, that he cooks for her … that he’s so attuned to her that he always knows if she’s in danger. It’s always been one of my favourite ships. He’s an alien, she’s a human but it works. Yeah the bath tub scene was impractical and crazy but it was also so sweet and sexy :)
- I loved the Trinity together. They’re absolutely wonderful together and the whole battle with Doomsday was fantastic. That’s how it’s supposed to be. They’re supposed to fight together as a team and not against one another! I totally got chills when they turned and faced Doomsday as a unit.
Superman Superman Superman
I wanted more of Superman and Clark Kent in this movie and there wasn’t enough but some of my favourite parts of it went to the exploration of the character of Superman-Clark Kent.
When I was a wee koala, I’d twirl around in circles like the other girls and pretend I was Wonder Woman but I always had a soft spot for Superman in my heart - partly because Superman was either the first or at least one of the first movies I ever saw at the cinema. For a while, I liked Batman because of Batman Begins, but given that I didn’t really care for any of the other Batman movies, Superman remains my favourite super hero.
Batman became Batman because of a sense of revenge and anger - he’s a dark vigilante and his motives are somewhat twisted. Spiderman never did it for me. Captain America and Iron Man leave me cold. Superman on the other hand is just a really nice and decent guy. He doesn’t do good things because of guilt, a sense of obligation, for glory or fame. He just does them because he can and it’s the right thing to do.
Wikipedia has a whole entry on the Superhero.
A superhero is a fictional character who is noted for feats of courage and nobility, who usually possesses abilities beyond those of normal human beings. Many superheroes have a colour and distinctive name and costume. A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine. Since the 1938 debut of Superman, the character who inspired the term and did much to define it, the stories of superheroes-ranging from episodic adventures to decades-long sagas-have become an entire genre of fiction that has dominated American comic books and crossed over into several other media.
The article is interesting because it lists a series of traits associated with the typical superhero including super powers, advanced equipment, a flamboyant costume etc. The ones that interest me the most, particularly in the context of Superman, are these ones:
"A strong moral code, including a willingness to risk one’s own safety in the service of good without expectation of reward. Such a code often includes a refusal or strong reluctance to kill or wield lethal weapons.“
Sometimes, I talk with my brother about who the real person is. Is Clark Kent is the ‘real person’ and Superman the 'alter ego’ rather than the other way around? Clark Kent was the person who was brought up by Martha and Jonathan Kent and instilled with simple values and morality - Superman came much later. The Kents brought up Clark to do right.
I sometimes hear people criticising Superman i.e. why does he not save people 24 hours a day. Why does he waste his time doing things like be a reporter or do anything other than full time rescue mode. I think he chooses to be a reporter to remain close to people, to be among them, one of them instead of separate and removed from them.
I like that Superman slogs on and does what he does not because he’s going to succeed at helping everyone - in fact he continues doing it even though he knows he’s probably doomed to failure given that there’s only one of him. Superman does what he does because it’s the right thing to do. There’s an episode of House called TB or Not TB in which House and a patient have this exchange:
Sebastian: Look, I know I have a way about me. I know I piss a lot of people off, and a whole lot more I just annoy. But you’re the first person that I’ve ever met who I think is actually annoyed by what I do. Do you think I’m not saving any lives, or is that a bad thing?
House: Right now, I’m just trying to save your life.
Sebastian: Or do you just have a problem with hope? [House rolls his eyes.] You know, the difference between our jobs is not numbers or styles. It’s that I know I’m gonna fail. Even if I save a million people there’s gonna be another million. You couldn’t handle that. I think you resent anyone who can.
The last bit really resonates with me: "I know I’m gonna fail. Even if I save a million people there’s gonna be another million. You couldn’t handle that. I think you resent anyone who can.”
One of my favourite parts of Persuasion by Jane Austen is after Anne Elliott has just had a debate with Captain Harville about who is more constant in love - men or women. She has just declared of men:
“No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as - if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!”
Of course Captain Wentworth then writes her this swoony letter, proving that he’s just as steadfast as she is, but the point is that I do find Anne’s protestation of remaining steadfast when hope is gone. It is only when you do good /try to do good for such reasons that you can continue to do them and not be daunted by setbacks and overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable magnitude of problems.
Part of why I love Superman so much is that despite being an alien and a super human, he’s actually one of the most human of the super heroes. I have always been really moved by the sad and lonely life that Superman leads. The Canadian band the Crash Test Dummies has a Superman song in which they say:
“sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him”
and
“Their planet crumbled but Superman, he forced himself
To carry on, forget Krypton, and keep going”
and
“Sometimes when Supe was stopping crimes
I’ll bet that he was tempted to just quit and turn his back
On man, join Tarzan in the forest
But he stayed in the city, and kept on changing clothes
In dirty old phonebooths till his work was through
And nothing to do but go on home”
In the Five For Fighting song Superman (It’s Not Easy), the lyrics go:
Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see
and finally this:
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed
But won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
It’s not easy to be me
The movie explores some of the elements of the above in relation to Superman’s character. Humanity puts up a bit old ugly statue which is desecrated with the words “false god”.
Superman never wanted to be anyone’s God. He never asked for that. They put it on him and he accepted it, but worship was not what he was seeking.
There’s a scene where he looks almost god-like after he rescues a child and the crowd surrounds him.
But he never, ever wanted that adulation. His own mother tells him he doesn’t owe humanity anything but he still shows up to the Senate hearing in the hope that he can reason with them and say his piece …
He’s the man of steel and he’s supposed to be invulnerable, but humanity turning on him, wronging him, falsely accusing him clearly devastates him. He’s actually hurt by what they think of him.
That’s why I love Superman. He’s flawed, filled with yearning, he continues when hope is gone, he goes on even though he knows he’s going to fail - he tries to care about everything and everyone even though he knows he can’t.
He’s a Big Damned Hero.
And when played by Henry Cavill, he also has eyes of Smouldering Sexiness.
amancanfly: “You look at Superman, and you wonder, what can he possibly have to worry about? What could possibly ever hurt him? But just because his skin is invulnerable, that doesn’t mean his heart is. And that’s how you hurt Superman. You break his heart.“ Lois Lane [New Earth]
