Batman vs Superman : Dawn Of Justice

               I am writing this review after watching the last show of BvS in my city. I saw this film almost a month after its release. And thus, before having known y opinions about the film, most of you must have made the opinions of your own.

                Not really getting into the story of the film I would skip to the part where I share what I felt about it. -

                I was never too excited to watch this film after knowing that Zack Snyder is going to don the hat of the director for this one. I liked 300, I am yet to see The Watchman, but I did not like 'Man of Steel' one bit. Therefore, I didn't feel that Snyder can do any justice to the characters of DC comics. But two things - It was BATMAN and it had Ben Affleck.

                The Dark Knight series hangover still makes itself fresh every time we watch any part of it. The Christopher Nolan's trilogy has taken the BATMAN character and Batman psychology to the pinnacle both in terms of film-making and in terms of significance. And if anyone had to take forward the Batman franchise, they should have been either better than him or at least as good as him (Christopher Nolan).

However, Snyder doesn't even reach up to 25% of what Nolan has done.

                Keeping Nolan away and considering this as the film that came to us - Batman vs Superman : Dawn of Justice, is an action pack film. It starts very well with Bruce Wayne and Gotham and the destruction impacts in the previous Man of Steel. They have brought two worlds of Batman and Superman together in a very convincing way. The background set up that is made on the basis of comics and previous franchises of DC films makes you eager to know what lies ahead. Plus, Ben Affleck is great as Bruce Wayne. You cannot wait more to see him in a Bat suit.

                However, maybe after shooting or perhaps writing that much of the script, Snyder's wife cribbed to go on a vacation to India - Snyder had to listen and here he met all the conventional Masala Bollywood film writers of Yash Raj, Rajshree and Balaji. The film after that becomes too typical. The story is like just any other superhero story. Two heroes fight against each other because of some simple miscommunication. They become friends because of their MAA (mother). (At a point I felt Snyder also met he writer of Mother India while doing planchet or something, all of sudden the mother becomes too important in the story as big as this for its biggest plot twist.) Then the human villain creates a monster, who is shapeless and brainless and shouts loudly when he sees the camera shooting him. And there is some symbolism of women empowerment because they had the budget o cast Amy Adams and Gal Gadot. And some random clippings of Flash and Aquaman because they have to make JUSTICE LEAGUE in 2018 or 2019.  

                The story lacks depth, the characters lack significance. Half of the things happen in dreams of Bruce Wayne.
Jeremy Ions as Alfred and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor are impressive. Ben Affleck is good too.

                And about the overall impact of the film. It is too much in dark. Maybe they failed to connect a few sockets while shooting and that's why a few bulbs didn't lit. There was no visual clearance to anything. You had to take efforts to understand the frame, to spot the characters and to understand their placement in the field of vision. The moments captured and uncertain editing put you in so much of confusion and lack of clarity in what they wanted to communicate through the medium.
              Maybe they knew the story lacked uniqueness and characters lacked significance and yet they had to show as if they are doing a great film of some kind and that's why they kept a few things so un-understandable that people would say that the film was different. They have not shown Bat suit properly. the Bat mobile is only seen in outline in spite of a huge car chase.
 
All this was present in Nolan's batman. His treatment was similar, he had major level of chaos in his films as well. But There was hell lot of clarity and every single frame meant something. It had substance.

            Maybe I am struggling to like the film. I have liked Ben Affleck, but the film can never be called great as an individual film. It will be liked only because it has Batman.

Verdict - 4/10.