Jesse
Eisenberg as Lex Luthor (Oh, Boy)
One
of the biggest problems with BvS is Lex Luthor. Sure he is not the
land-grabbing fiend from the Donner/Singer movies, but he is not the
reserved and big thinker of the Luthor from the 90s and 2000s was
either. Eisenberg performance is out there and very annoying to the
point that it is hard to get through all of his scenes.
What
were they thinking? What kind of Luthor is this? You make him a
wormy nerd that has these strange quirks.
Luthor
is supposed to be a foil for both Superman and Batman in the later
comic books. Yet, I don't find him all that convincing in this movie
because Mr. Social Network's performance. Luthor of this movie is
that nerdy kid that got beat up in high school, but is now an evil
version of Bill Gates with a bit of Steve Jobs thrown in there too.
The
performance is way over the top and needlessly silly. His profound
statements aren't that profound due to bad writing. He feels more
like he's playing a cross between Steve Jobs, Zuckerburg and the
Joker. Luthor should never be compared to the Joker in any manner.
Yet, Zack or WB wanted him to be this manic genius who is very much
in shape.
Luthor
should be seen as a calculating businessman with a super mind. He's
a person that believes humans have the potential to be great given a
little push. Super heroes hamper humanity's progress. Luthor should
have viewed Batman as the way humanity can be great and to take it
further with Batman killing Superman. Thus, proving his point. This
should have been the focus of the movie.
Again,
this is where the weak and dumb script hurt the movie. I think Nolan
would have found those parallels. Nolan is good at finding an
overall theme like in the first movie there is a theme of fatherhood
and Superman making a choice between his home planet and Earth.
Luthor
leads to the other problem of the movie.
Doomsday
The
story behind Doomsday's beginnings works for me. I am fine with that
because it is still in the spirit of of Doomsday origins with it
being based
on Kryptonian
DNA technology. In
the comic book, he is basically from
Krypton.
In the movie,
Luthor builds him from Krypton science. It fits in spirit.
The
makers of this movie decided to design Doomsday to look like a lump
of flesh that has similarities to a turd than the actual Doomsday
from the comic book. Doomsday from the books looks chilling with his
bone/horns. Given the progress with CGI, they couldn't have made him
more like his comic book counterpart.
Why
waste one of your most important villains from the 90s on a throwaway
fight toward the end? The Death of Superman should be its own stand
alone movie. Yet, let's shoehorn this into an already bloated script
that is all ready on faulty legs as it is. Doomsday is merely a
means to get to killing off Superman. This is Superman's second
movie. Why kill him off so early in his career? DC, it makes no
sense.
I
think this was John Peters wanting to add his own Superman Lives
story line into the new continuity. The movie should end with
Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman agreeing to making a Justice
League because they are stronger together than apart. Nope.
In
the end...
Batman v. Superman is a bloated mess with a lot of missed opportunities. And, DC micromanaged this story to the nines and it shows with the uneven story. The movie lacks the heart of Man of Steel or the Nolan Batman movies. The writing and character development are the causalities of this mess. The manner DC is handling their collective universe is very problematic. I am not saying DC needs to follow the Marvel movie universe model, but DC needs to take some notes on how to build an universe.
With
BvS being a major misstep, I hope DC can course-correct. And, I hope
DC moves away from Zack Snyder's influences and brings in more
story-centered creative people. If they stay with Zack, he will send
the entire DC universe over a cliff. The movie isn't a total
disaster, but it is still a dreary and un-fun mess. BvS is not the
bad-ass movie we wanted.
Grade: D+
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