Why I liked Batman v Superman: Some personal thoughts

Last Tuesday, I saw Batman v Superman. I talked it over with a couple of others at the screening. I went home, wrote my review, scheduled it to go live in the morning and went to bed. I felt like the film had its fair share of problems but, all things considered, I came out of the screening having enjoyed it more than not. As I said in my review:

“There are definite moments where the film soars but taken as a whole, it’s closer to good than great.”

As someone who reviews a lot of films over at The Iris, the outpouring of bad word about the film that took over social media last Wednesday morning leaves me in an interesting spot. My review stands out like a sore thumb in the sea of critics savaging Snyder’s work — talking up how bad this film is has practically become a meme in of itself. At a certain point, I have to start picking at my memory of the film like a scab and scrutinizing my own review process. What are they seeing that I’m not?

Occam’s Razor says that I’m *probably* wrong about this particular movie — but I came out of Batman v Superman having enjoyed it and I’m writing this article to try and understand why. Supremely-pretentious though it may sound (and unavoidably be), I want to understand why I feel so positive about this movie that seemingly-everyone hates.

I’m not some kind of die-hard Batman or DC fan and while I can totally see and acknowledge almost* all of the film’s many flaws, I’m baffled at the scope of hyperbolic and vitriol around the film. There are plenty of legitimate shortcomings in this movie but a lot of things that people seem most riled about are either general comic-book movie problems or just radical creative choices (as with Luther and the film’s murderous Batman).

The last time I felt this out of touch with the critical consensus about a film it was Thor 2 — but looking back before even that it was another Zack Snyder film, Suckerpunch. In fact, my enjoyment of Snyder’s films seems to almost rise the more-critically they are. I adore his adaption of Watchmen, am in awe of the mythic tone and visceral spectacle of 300 and thrilled by the punchy originality and slick aesthetics of Suckerpunch.

Man of Steel is the exception here — though I love the production and sheer scale of the action in it, I’m bored to death to death by the generic and lifeless script. All these films have problems but the constant between them — Snyder’s style of direction and filmmaking has repeatedly won me over. The word I keep seeing thrown around concerning his talents in light of Batman v Superman is impressionism — and perhaps this explains it.

From my admittedly crash-course understanding of it, impressionism is all about maximizing visual impact. In the context of Snyder’s filmography, it reflects how he’s less interested in telling a traditionally coherent story and more interesting in finding the rich images within it.

I love the vivid dreamscapes of Suckerpunch, I love the gritty violence of Watchmen, I love the epic scope of 300. These films leave me with a kind of memorable imagery that plenty of other — better — films don’t. It’s very possible this aspect of Snyder’s work elevates the rest of the film in my eyes, and this probably shaped my reaction to Batman v Superman.

Though the film is probably two prologue sequences too long, these opening moments are dripping with visual flair in a way that I loved — and this got me engaged from the get-go. The way the film cuts between the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents and the discovery of the Batcave in a way that just worked for me. It felt minimalist and stylized in a way that I really liked, and what I wrote about the film reflects this. More than that, it felt like Snyder was leaning towards the audience and saying “You probably already know Batman’s backstory so here’s the important stuff — we’ll leave it to you to fill in the gaps.” It’s not that the story of Batman v Superman doesn’t make sense, it’s that it kind of doesn’t need to.

All of this adds up to some prickly new questions to consider in the field of my own film-review methodology.

1. Am I conflating the experience of watching a film and the film itself in a review?
2. Is it possible to separate those two things in my review of a film?
3. Is that divorce even desirable?

There’s not a lot of clear answers here. There are no strict rules to film reviewing, nor any elegant math that guides the process. It doesn’t come down to listing all the things you liked about a film against those you didn’t and seeing which is longer. Surely the sum of those parts — the enjoyment you get from watching a film — should play a factor?

Try as I might, I can’t get incensed to anywhere near the level of fury that other critics are directing at Batman v Superman. Sure, it has a lot of problems but, for me at least, those problems are overshadowed by the things I really liked about the film, and the memory of this is one almost-defined by the distinctive visual punch of the piece.

If I’m in the critical minority on this, so be it. It’s hardly new territory for me when it comes to Zack Snyder’s work.

*Jesse Eisenberg is incredibly and exquisitely entertaining in this movie, we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.