BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (DIRECTOR'S CUT) review

(Reviewed by Daniel Shakespeare)
About the film
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (abbreviated to BvS throughout the review) is a 2016 DC comic book movie directed by Zack Snyder. The Director's Cut is 31 minutes longer than the one originally released by WB in theatres.


Positives
+ Score. Composed by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, it is simply one of the greatest scores in a comic book movie in the 21st century. The pairing worked well in Man of Steel, and it works even better here. Hans Zimmer remixed his Man of Steel tracks (adding an emotional Batman tune and Lex's theme), while JXL made a new, incredible theme tune for The Caped Crusader. While it's probably not as iconic as Shirley's and Elfman's respective themes, it still perfectly conveys the emotions of Ben Affleck's Batman. They also worked together for the score for the titular fight and Wonder Woman's incredible theme. Basically, JXL's best and close to Zimmer's best as well.

+ Cinematography. Larry Fong's cinematography, combined with Zack Snyder's characteristic visual story-telling is instantly distinctive. Not as over-bearing as 300, not as boring as some MCU movies (in terms of cinematography alone. Due to killer CGI, MCU movies are still a joy to watch from a visual-centric viewpoint.), the movie has a grainy yet modern feel that surpasses even the Nolan trilogy.

+ Bold story. BvS might make a lot of references and visual nods to Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but has a much more structured story, mercifully free of plotholes in the Director's Cut. It's a dark story, yes, but it is very original and refreshing, in the same way that the MCU was refreshing when Iron Man dropped.

+ Great performances from the entire cast. However, I should warn you, almost all of them veered from the mainstream source material, meaning this movie had a mismatch of comic book iterations of various characters. Then again, they all worked well enough in the context of the movie. The brooding, one-man army Batman, a struggling Superman, a jovial Luthor, all three that really shouldn't work on one screen, but really blew me away. No performance was bad. That, and I'm not too much of a fan of the mainstream iterations that everyone associates with the characters, so the changes were welcome for me.

+ Great action that's not the focal point of the movie. And one of the best-paced movies Zack Snyder has ever made (Not an incredibly hard feat, since pacing usually derails a lot of his movies, but really, this movie is well-paced.)

Negatives
- Titular fight was a little on the short side, CGI in one scene looked off, Justice League cameos unnecessarily screwed in, and, while the movie had a brilliant story written by Terrio and Goyer, the dialogue is a bit heavy at times. Doesn't take away from the quality of the movie too much (minor nitpicks at best), but worth mentioning in any review of the movie.

- WB. Absolutely ruined the theatrical cut of the movie in a multitude of ways. Started by cutting out 31 minutes of incredibly important details from a tightly scripted movie for THE THIRD TIME IN A SNYDER MOVIE, then poorly advertising the movie, then saving themselves by releasing the Director's Cut (dubbed the Ultimate Edition) just for the want of money. I mean, BvS wasn't really an R-rated film, and the R-rating of the Ultimate Edition is definitely extreme if the only complaint was lack of Puritanism. They used the R-rating of the Ultimate Edition to use Snyder as a scapegoat. Yes, there's a bit of blood and one F-bomb, but they edited out both in the theatrical release, so why couldn't they do it for the Director's Cut in order to release it under a PG-13/12A banner? They would lose one viewing per day, not thinking of the scores of people that wouldn't see the movie based on the horrible reviews. It seems that they're doing this for Justice League as well, although this time what they're doing is a little more justified.

VERDICT
BvS is actually a great movie. Don't get me wrong, I can understand the complaints of not sticking to the soul of the characters, but comic book accuracy isn't really a norm in the modern filmmaking world. Besides, it is faithful to some comics, just not the mainstream ones. And if you're still not convinced, well, you'll enjoy it for the incredible soundtrack, brilliant cinematography, and some solid fight scenes at the end. Trust me, the DIrector's Cut is worth your time.

FINAL SCORE=>9/10

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