Batman in Dawn of Justice (SPOILERS)

[dick_wingnut]

Max Landis made no sense in that video. He knows there's different takes on these characters, as do you.

Also, his Superman comic is VERY similar to the DCEU in certain aspects.

Max Landis is likely just miffed they passed on one of his scripts.

This is obviously a broken, depressed, alcoholic, angry Batman. I have always been staunchly in the "Batman doesnt kill", and "Snyder sucks" camps, but this is the first one of his movies I loved. Superman's sacrifice changed Bruce, as he didnt kill or even hit Lex, I love that about this flick. I love that he said he wont fail him in death. It gave the guy hope, and now he will be the driving force behind uniting the JLA in Supes' name.

[The Whovian]

Just got back from watching it. From the reviews, I was expecting the worse but was mildly surprised. My thoughts on it:

spoilers:

I got my number one wish--Batman kicked Superman's butt big time!! He didn't just beat him, he knocked the crud out of him! Yes, he had to do it using kryptonite, but who cares? It's what Batman does. He knows his opponents weakness and exploits them to win a battle. And he did just that. I loved it when he was holding the spear over Supes and said "You're no God. You're not even a man". To me, and yes I'm a Batman fan, but this one moment encapsulates everything that Batman and Superman are--Batman is a non-meta human who has honed his skills to peak human conditions and can beat anyone given time to prep. Meanwhile, you take Superman's powers away and he's a nobody. He wouldn't even know how to beat a normal martial artist or someone with a weapon like a gun or knife. And that's what Batman was saying to Supes. You're not even a man--without your powers, you're a weakling. Having said that, I thought the scene where the nuke hurt Supes was plain awful. He should have been able to shrug that off like it was nothing, but it actually hurt him and he needed the sun's rays to heal him. If I were a Superman fan, I would be ticked about that. Gadot was brilliant as WW. She had some nice moments and was written very well. She almost enjoyed the battle with Doomsday. And I'm just going to say it, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex was terrible. He's too young in the movie and seems to be taking crazy lessons from the Joker. It was atrocious. Doomsday was okay, but did they really have to add some weird, never before seen, energy discharge that he used as a weapon to his arsenal? He would have been okay with being Superman times ten in powers. No need to give him anything extra. Affleck wasn't great as Batman, but wasn't bad either. I thought when he was playing Bruce, he was okay, but in the Bat suit, he did a lot better job of acting. All in all, I would say it was a good movie, but not a great movie. It's basically a fanboys dream of who would win in a Batman vs Superman fight. Not much of a story.

end of spoilers

[darkseidpwns]

Lex is smarter than Batman. It was nice to see an intelligent Lex Luthor for once. No other Lex Luthor was smart enough to figure out Clark was Superman

It's not a question of smarts,it's relationship dynamic,why doesn't Ra's nuke the Batcave ? just an example People forget that even some of the hokey and silliest of things are truly brilliant in what they do for narratives and story telling. This film just kept killing narrative potential after narrative potential.

[batnbreakfast]

Liked the movie overall. I think of it as aimed not at me but targeting a pre-teen/teen audience. That's why Batman and Superman are allowed to be out of character. They can still evolve into the versions we know taking the new audiences along for the ride. Think of it as HUSH for the movie theatres. The worst parts were Bruce using guns and WW's cringeworthy theme. Very Xena. Best part was the Batman's dessert nightmare. Plan seeing it a second time in 1-2 weeks. Had no problem with the Martha thing. Fits my version of the character who basically becomes Zorro after seeing it in a movie theatre.

[IronLantern]

Just got back from watching it. From the reviews, I was expecting the worse but was mildly surprised. My thoughts on it:

spoilers:

I got my number one wish--Batman kicked Superman's butt big time!! He didn't just beat him, he knocked the crud out of him! Yes, he had to do it using kryptonite, but who cares? It's what Batman does. He knows his opponents weakness and exploits them to win a battle. And he did just that. I loved it when he was holding the spear over Supes and said "You're no God. You're not even a man". To me, and yes I'm a Batman fan, but this one moment encapsulates everything that Batman and Superman are--Batman is a non-meta human who has honed his skills to peak human conditions and can beat anyone given time to prep. Meanwhile, you take Superman's powers away and he's a nobody. He wouldn't even know how to beat a normal martial artist or someone with a weapon like a gun or knife. And that's what Batman was saying to Supes. You're not even a man--without your powers, you're a weakling. Having said that, I thought the scene where the nuke hurt Supes was plain awful. He should have been able to shrug that off like it was nothing, but it actually hurt him and he needed the sun's rays to heal him. If I were a Superman fan, I would be ticked about that. Gadot was brilliant as WW. She had some nice moments and was written very well. She almost enjoyed the battle with Doomsday. And I'm just going to say it, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex was terrible. He's too young in the movie and seems to be taking crazy lessons from the Joker. It was atrocious. Doomsday was okay, but did they really have to add some weird, never before seen, energy discharge that he used as a weapon to his arsenal? He would have been okay with being Superman times ten in powers. No need to give him anything extra. Affleck wasn't great as Batman, but wasn't bad either. I thought when he was playing Bruce, he was okay, but in the Bat suit, he did a lot better job of acting. All in all, I would say it was a good movie, but not a great movie. It's basically a fanboys dream of who would win in a Batman vs Superman fight. Not much of a story.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

That fight,. is why the WB and now the GA will never care abotu Superman. He got his ass kicked,. people in my theater literally groaned and laughed when it happened. All the WB does is milk batman dry. Now they literally sacrificed Superman for a "new take" on batman. The fight wasnt even close to 50/50,. then Superman basically tells batman to save his mommy? Yea,. i and every friend i went to see the movie with have no interest in Superman anymore. So i guess for them congrats,. they ruined Superman for Batfleck.

end of spoilers

[Dr.Octagon]

Liked the movie overall. I think of it as aimed not at me but targeting a pre-teen/teen audience. That's why Batman and Superman are allowed to be out of character. They can still evolve into the versions we know taking the new audiences along for the ride. Think of it as HUSH for the movie theatres. The worst parts were Bruce using guns and WW's cringeworthy theme. Very Xena. Best part was the Batman's dessert nightmare. Plan seeing it a second time in 1-2 weeks. Had no problem with the Martha thing. Fits my version of the character who basically becomes Zorro after seeing it in a movie theatre.

I love Marvel and DC and I found it had just as many slight plot hole problems that all comic book films tend to have to an extent and I felt it was no better or worse than all the Marvel films I have seen. The one thing I did think it had that a strictly only marvel film's fan may be envious of is the visual affects camera angles and tone of Batman vs Superman really did make me feel like I am almost reading a comic book and that is something I have never had when I have watched the Marvel films, they never quite had that real comicbooky feel and I put this big positive down to Scott syder's skill with visuals.. Only Marvel film I felt has been better than Batman vs Superman has been Winter soldier purely for the structure of the film and choreography. So saying that I think Batman vs Superman bodes very positive for the future of the DC shared Movie universe.

[bat39]

To me, Ben Affleck's Batman is probably the best thing about the film. He is literally, the comic-book Batman brought to life (or rather, A particular interpretation of Batman from the comics). That first scene in the tenement building with the cops following the screaming sounds of the sex-trafficker, sighting the batarang, and then the the cops suddenly noticing Batman hanging onto the wall literally like a bat...not to mention how he swiftly disappears like a true nocturnal predator...gives Batman's debut in Batman Begins a run for its money! And that's really saying something...

Batman's fight sequences were mind-numbingly awesome. And I loved the scenes where he's doing some actual detective work (something we rarely see in the live-action movies). And I think they did a great job portraying pretty much every facet of the character - the playboy (albeit, very subtly), the businessman and philanthropist, the private person he is with Alfred and of course Batman.

But honestly, where I feel BvS really does justice (pun intended!) to the character is in his character arc.

Think back to the opening 'origin' sequence (which, while watching it, I thought was beautifully filmed but unnecessary...until I realized its significance later). We have Bruce dreaming (or hallucinating) about rising out of the cave when he's surrounded by a bat, with the accompanying VO "The bats took me into the light...a beautiful lie".

And therein lies the crux of the character (or this interpretation of him anyway). Taken into concert with Alfred's speech about the feeling of hopelessness that "makes good men cruel".

As a child, Bruce Wayne helplessly watched on as a mugger gunned down both his parents. His sense of helplessness against the crime of Gotham turned into rage. Developing the Batman persona however helped him channelize that rage with the feeling that he was no longer helpless and was empowered to prevent others from feeling helpless as he once did.

Flash-forward 20 years and he's starting to realize that the sense of purpose and power his crusade gave him was a 'beautiful lie', because, as he says in the film "Crime is like a weed...pluck one out and more grow in its place" (don't remember the exact line). He's seen a lot of other things, including the death of Robin at the hands of the Joker, which further this sense of futility and despair.

And then of course, Superman showed up and half of Metropolis was destroyed, including all the Wayne Enterprises employees in that building. Suddenly, Bruce feels as helpless as he once did as a child. In fact, his sense of helplessness is even more acute because he's now projected it onto the entire world, and arguably has a strong rationale for doing so.

So he deals with this feeling of helplessness the same way he did before...by seeking to empower himself. But this time, he's become even more 'cruel'. He's decided that he needs to go to new extremes in the war against this alien threat. He's become a darker, more brutal and more unforgiving Batman than ever before. And all of this culminates in him preparing to kill Superman with the kryptonian spear.

Then the whole 'Martha' scene happens and Batman becomes aware of two things. 1) That Superman is an actual individual with friends and family...a person and not just some 'alien threat'. And 2) The purpose of his crusade (or rather, his way out of his helplessness) is to SAVE people, to save all the hypothetical Thomas and Martha Wayne's out there so that their children don't have to go through the trauma of losing them. In other words, he realizes that his mission is about compassion and not just about cruelty. And Superman's death inspires him to form the Justice League and prepare for the new threat to come because he wants to help save the world, rather than just lash out against what he doesn't like in it.

I thought it was a brilliant arc. In a way, it is an 'origin story'...not for Batman per se, but for a certain more heroic, more overtly 'superhero'-ish version of Batman. Or to put it another way, this is not the origin of the Dark Knight but it may well be the origin of the Caped Crusader!

[Dr.Octagon]

To me, Ben Affleck's Batman is probably the best thing about the film. He is literally, the comic-book Batman brought to life (or rather, A particular interpretation of Batman from the comics). That first scene in the tenement building with the cops following the screaming sounds of the sex-trafficker, sighting the batarang, and then the the cops suddenly noticing Batman hanging onto the wall literally like a bat...not to mention how he swiftly disappears like a true nocturnal predator...gives Batman's debut in Batman Begins a run for its money! And that's really saying something...

Batman's fight sequences were mind-numbingly awesome. And I loved the scenes where he's doing some actual detective work (something we rarely see in the live-action movies). And I think they did a great job portraying pretty much every facet of the character - the playboy (albeit, very subtly), the businessman and philanthropist, the private person he is with Alfred and of course Batman.

But honestly, where I feel BvS really does justice (pun intended!) to the character is in his character arc.

Think back to the opening 'origin' sequence (which, while watching it, I thought was beautifully filmed but unnecessary...until I realized its significance later). We have Bruce dreaming (or hallucinating) about rising out of the cave when he's surrounded by a bat, with the accompanying VO "The bats took me into the light...a beautiful lie".

And therein lies the crux of the character (or this interpretation of him anyway). Taken into concert with Alfred's speech about the feeling of hopelessness that "makes good men cruel".

As a child, Bruce Wayne helplessly watched on as a mugger gunned down both his parents. His sense of helplessness against the crime of Gotham turned into rage. Developing the Batman persona however helped him channelize that rage with the feeling that he was no longer helpless and was empowered to prevent others from feeling helpless as he once did.

Flash-forward 20 years and he's starting to realize that the sense of purpose and power his crusade gave him was a 'beautiful lie', because, as he says in the film "Crime is like a weed...pluck one out and more grow in its place" (don't remember the exact line). He's seen a lot of other things, including the death of Robin at the hands of the Joker, which further this sense of futility and despair.

And then of course, Superman showed up and half of Metropolis was destroyed, including all the Wayne Enterprises employees in that building. Suddenly, Bruce feels as helpless as he once did as a child. In fact, his sense of helplessness is even more acute because he's now projected it onto the entire world, and arguably has a strong rationale for doing so.

So he deals with this feeling of helplessness the same way he did before...by seeking to empower himself. But this time, he's become even more 'cruel'. He's decided that he needs to go to new extremes in the war against this alien threat. He's become a darker, more brutal and more unforgiving Batman than ever before. And all of this culminates in him preparing to kill Superman with the kryptonian spear.

Then the whole 'Martha' scene happens and Batman becomes aware of two things. 1) That Superman is an actual individual with friends and family...a person and not just some 'alien threat'. And 2) The purpose of his crusade (or rather, his way out of his helplessness) is to SAVE people, to save all the hypothetical Thomas and Martha Wayne's out there so that their children don't have to go through the trauma of losing them. In other words, he realizes that his mission is about compassion and not just about cruelty. And Superman's death inspires him to form the Justice League and prepare for the new threat to come because he wants to help save the world, rather than just lash out against what he doesn't like in it.

I thought it was a brilliant arc. In a way, it is an 'origin story'...not for Batman per se, but for a certain more heroic, more overtly 'superhero'-ish version of Batman. Or to put it another way, this is not the origin of the Dark Knight but it may well be the origin of the Caped Crusader!

I have to say I agree 100% with your opinion...
And yeah Affleck was da bomb as Batman.. also afflecks square jaw and chin really reminded me of Batman\Bruce wayne from the 90's animated series as well as the comic's

[Jadeb]

That's a good read, bat39. Your analysis even addresses some of my concerns about having him continue to kill after the big fight with Superman. The "Martha" moment isn't about teaching him not to kill but reminding him whom he wants to save. Interesting ....

[TooFlyToFail]

To me, Ben Affleck's Batman is probably the best thing about the film. He is literally, the comic-book Batman brought to life (or rather, A particular interpretation of Batman from the comics). That first scene in the tenement building with the cops following the screaming sounds of the sex-trafficker, sighting the batarang, and then the the cops suddenly noticing Batman hanging onto the wall literally like a bat...not to mention how he swiftly disappears like a true nocturnal predator...gives Batman's debut in Batman Begins a run for its money! And that's really saying something...

Batman's fight sequences were mind-numbingly awesome. And I loved the scenes where he's doing some actual detective work (something we rarely see in the live-action movies). And I think they did a great job portraying pretty much every facet of the character - the playboy (albeit, very subtly), the businessman and philanthropist, the private person he is with Alfred and of course Batman.

But honestly, where I feel BvS really does justice (pun intended!) to the character is in his character arc.

Think back to the opening 'origin' sequence (which, while watching it, I thought was beautifully filmed but unnecessary...until I realized its significance later). We have Bruce dreaming (or hallucinating) about rising out of the cave when he's surrounded by a bat, with the accompanying VO "The bats took me into the light...a beautiful lie".

And therein lies the crux of the character (or this interpretation of him anyway). Taken into concert with Alfred's speech about the feeling of hopelessness that "makes good men cruel".

As a child, Bruce Wayne helplessly watched on as a mugger gunned down both his parents. His sense of helplessness against the crime of Gotham turned into rage. Developing the Batman persona however helped him channelize that rage with the feeling that he was no longer helpless and was empowered to prevent others from feeling helpless as he once did.

Flash-forward 20 years and he's starting to realize that the sense of purpose and power his crusade gave him was a 'beautiful lie', because, as he says in the film "Crime is like a weed...pluck one out and more grow in its place" (don't remember the exact line). He's seen a lot of other things, including the death of Robin at the hands of the Joker, which further this sense of futility and despair.

And then of course, Superman showed up and half of Metropolis was destroyed, including all the Wayne Enterprises employees in that building. Suddenly, Bruce feels as helpless as he once did as a child. In fact, his sense of helplessness is even more acute because he's now projected it onto the entire world, and arguably has a strong rationale for doing so.

So he deals with this feeling of helplessness the same way he did before...by seeking to empower himself. But this time, he's become even more 'cruel'. He's decided that he needs to go to new extremes in the war against this alien threat. He's become a darker, more brutal and more unforgiving Batman than ever before. And all of this culminates in him preparing to kill Superman with the kryptonian spear.

Then the whole 'Martha' scene happens and Batman becomes aware of two things. 1) That Superman is an actual individual with friends and family...a person and not just some 'alien threat'. And 2) The purpose of his crusade (or rather, his way out of his helplessness) is to SAVE people, to save all the hypothetical Thomas and Martha Wayne's out there so that their children don't have to go through the trauma of losing them. In other words, he realizes that his mission is about compassion and not just about cruelty. And Superman's death inspires him to form the Justice League and prepare for the new threat to come because he wants to help save the world, rather than just lash out against what he doesn't like in it.

I thought it was a brilliant arc. In a way, it is an 'origin story'...not for Batman per se, but for a certain more heroic, more overtly 'superhero'-ish version of Batman. Or to put it another way, this is not the origin of the Dark Knight but it may well be the origin of the Caped Crusader!

100% agree!!! But, you forgot, he also didn't hit, brand, or kill Lex at the end. The Batman form that chase scene, or the Martha Kent rescue, would've killed Lex, but he didn't. He's changed. I think it actually makes a potential UtRH movie even better.

[Jadeb]

I wasn't sure that scene with Batman really happened. On second viewing, it looked like the bat brand was still in the wall, but I couldn't tell.

[ekrolo2]

I didn't think I'd like a murderous Batman ala Keaton's but I really appreciate the fact how well the film makes a good case for it: he's old and tired. He's spent years of his life preparing for this job and in his 20 years of crime fighting he's accomplished nothing but mentally & physically make a wreck out of himself and alienate or get his partners killed.

Him being more of an antagonist who treats Superman more like a dangerous animal than a person was pretty fascinating (and ties delightfully into the old colonial stories of the first Wayne's being hunters).

But the best moments with him were him realizing Superman is an actual, caring person, one beginning his own soon to be murderer to save his mother just like how Thomas called out to his wife and him vowing not to fail Superman in death.

There are a lot of great directions they can take with this character and I hope Snyder & Terrio get the chance to tell this, very obviously, three part story.

[TooFlyToFail]

I didn't think I'd like a murderous Batman ala Keaton's but I really appreciate the fact how well the film makes a good case for it: he's old and tired. He's spent years of his life preparing for this job and in his 20 years of crime fighting he's accomplished nothing but mentally & physically make a wreck out of himself and alienate or get his partners killed.

Him being more of an antagonist who treats Superman more like a dangerous animal than a person was pretty fascinating (and ties delightfully into the old colonial stories of the first Wayne's being hunters).

But the best moments with him were him realizing Superman is an actual, caring person, one beginning his own soon to be murderer to save his mother just like how Thomas called out to his wife and him vowing not to fail Superman in death.

There are a lot of great directions they can take with this character and I hope Snyder & Terrio get the chance to tell this, very obviously, three part story.

Well, Batfleck may get his shot next August man. I don't think it's a coincident that Affleck is talking about his project, w/ Johns, again and a August 2017 event movie is announced by WB. That would be the best way to maximize profits for JL; a Batman movie, starring Batman, written by Batman, and directed by Batman.

[Agent Z]

Just got back from watching it. From the reviews, I was expecting the worse but was mildly surprised. My thoughts on it:

spoilers:

I got my number one wish--Batman kicked Superman's butt big time!! He didn't just beat him, he knocked the crud out of him! Yes, he had to do it using kryptonite, but who cares? It's what Batman does. He knows his opponents weakness and exploits them to win a battle. And he did just that. I loved it when he was holding the spear over Supes and said "You're no God. You're not even a man". To me, and yes I'm a Batman fan, but this one moment encapsulates everything that Batman and Superman are--Batman is a non-meta human who has honed his skills to peak human conditions and can beat anyone given time to prep. Meanwhile, you take Superman's powers away and he's a nobody. He wouldn't even know how to beat a normal martial artist or someone with a weapon like a gun or knife. And that's what Batman was saying to Supes. You're not even a man--without your powers, you're a weakling. Having said that, I thought the scene where the nuke hurt Supes was plain awful. He should have been able to shrug that off like it was nothing, but it actually hurt him and he needed the sun's rays to heal him. If I were a Superman fan, I would be ticked about that. Gadot was brilliant as WW. She had some nice moments and was written very well. She almost enjoyed the battle with Doomsday. And I'm just going to say it, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex was terrible. He's too young in the movie and seems to be taking crazy lessons from the Joker. It was atrocious. Doomsday was okay, but did they really have to add some weird, never before seen, energy discharge that he used as a weapon to his arsenal? He would have been okay with being Superman times ten in powers. No need to give him anything extra. Affleck wasn't great as Batman, but wasn't bad either. I thought when he was playing Bruce, he was okay, but in the Bat suit, he did a lot better job of acting. All in all, I would say it was a good movie, but not a great movie. It's basically a fanboys dream of who would win in a Batman vs Superman fight. Not much of a story.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

it's funny how you basically ignore that Bruce was basically a bully who got played by Lex for a fool in this film

end of spoilers

[Predator JP]

Well, Batfleck may get his shot next August man. I don't think it's a coincident that Affleck is talking about his project, w/ Johns, again and a August 2017 event movie is announced by WB. That would be the best way to maximize profits for JL; a Batman movie, starring Batman, written by Batman, and directed by Batman.

it's too late isn't it?
JL movie start shooting in April so they don't have enough time for new Batman solo for summer 2017.