#BatmanVSuperman is made for #Fanboys and #Fangirls. Re-thinking the negative hype. Critics should chill & #BenAffleck knocked it out of the park

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is a mess, but don’t get sucked up into the negative criticism hype. This movie is for fan boys and girls, not critics, and much of the movie (it’s not a film...Batman Begins was a film, The Dark Knight was a...you get it) is ripped from video games, or graphic novels, and thrown into a blender. It is a comic book movie and capitalist hype machine, and though it is getting bashed, it really isn’t any better or worse than Avengers Age of Ultron, or Iron Man 2, or The Amazing Spider Man I & 2, Spiderman 3, or Thor: Dark World, or etc, etc, etc. The critics are exhausted with nerd culture, because nerd culture has taken over the entertainment world. The summer has been the traditional season of superhero flicks, and Batman V Superman is akin to Walmart putting out the swimsuits in March. And this event, as everyone knows, is just one stone in a long road of Marvel, and DC, not to mention Star Wars and Jurassic Park films to endure. I imagine critics looking at the calendar of comic book sci-fi films to come and groaning into their instant latte.

What separates this mess from a Marvel mess is tone and levity. The Christopher Nolan produced Man of Steel, and Batman V Superman borrow from Nolan’s Batman trilogy, in terms of tone. Serious, earnest, troubled, brooding. Sepia tones. Noir. That’s okay for most fan boys and girls. The tone of both comics have been trending dark, because that’s what sells. Consider one of the best Superman story lines in the last decade: Red Son. A must read. What if Superman were Russian. What if Superman ruled the world? Which is one of the themes explored in BVS. Here, DC trumps Marvel by getting to the Superheroes are dangerous and should be regulated plot first. Though, the Civil War movie looks to be as busy and packed as BVS, honestly. Like how many superheroes can be packed into a film and still have like adult dialogue? We will find out.

How the plot is delivered is where the movie falls flat. The stuffed film makes leaps like a video game narrative. Sure, there is plot holes. Many, many plot holes. But it almost doesn’t matter. I found the Batman imagery refreshing and familiar. The Wayne Mansion looks like a burnt out husk left over from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Snyder focuses on falling pearls to reinforce Batman’s anguish over his parents--which beats Wayne visiting the street where his family was killed, or family portraits, or other ways the Dark Knight has brooded over his dead parents.

Ben Affleck delivers what many Batman fans have longed for. Frank Miller’s Dark Knight. An aged, war weary Batman who isn’t afraid of guns, or torture. Affleck is the first actor to really embody the physicality of the character. Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, and Bale are all too small and narrow to be Bruce, who is a freaking Viking. Affleck looks like he stepped out of the Batman video games of the last decade, and so does the action. He jumps around with the dexterity of Spiderman, and clings up in corners, rather than just hanging out on rooftops. In one fight scene, Batman’s combos top any fight scene previously filmed in the Batman franchises. The vehicles are Nolan reminiscent, and thankfully Snyder doesn’t give us a tech gadget orgasm scene where someone mansplains the weapons and gadgets and responsibility needed to wield them, etc. Instead Snyder has Alfred working on them and drinking tea. Just like in comics. My fav Alfred is currently Sean Pertwee on Gotham,btw.

Everyone else is entertaining. The visuals were crisp and vivid, and the dream sequence Mad Max Batman kicked much ass. Why hasn’t that movie been made?

Henry Cavill isn’t given much to do, but he looks the part. And that’s half the battle with Superman. Like Batman it requires a physical presence to fill the role.

And Wonder Woman? I love Wonder Woman. I grew up with Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman and vividly remember playing Wonder Woman with friends at age 4. Gal Gadot knocks it out of the park. But really, we should have had more of her.

What the critics are complaining about boils down to Zack Snyder’s film-making which is entirely influenced by graphic novels, video-games, and music videos. I don’t care for his busy style, but plenty of people will. Why does Jonathan Kent appear as a ghost? Because it happens in the comics. Why does Batman have weird dreams that don’t make any sense? Because it happens in the comics. BTW, on the dreams: Snyder opens the film with a trippy dream sequence. He sets up the audience expectations for weird trippy dreams in the first five minutes and critics be like: hey, where did the Mad Max Batman come from? Etc, etc.

I didn’t buy Gotham across the water from Metropolis either, but my kids know this is true from the Lego Batman video games, and other sources, etc. I’m willing to let that one go by: I always thought Gotham was Boston to Metropolis’ New York. Or better Metropolis is Chicago for our corn fed and raised Kent reporter to be.

My kids loved BVS. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And as far as cinema goes, are the plot holes and lack of out of the box thinking really any worse than JJ Abrams recycling the Death Star again, or Marvel bringing yet another Spider Man to the screen? Nope. Not at all. Turn off your brain and enjoy the bodies hurling across the screen.