Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, Tao Okamoto, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa.
There are moments of cinema so longed for that when they finally arrive it is always with a touch of hesitation of whether the viewer will actually believe in the finished article. The ultimate match-ups, the suspense, the nature of heroism, the costumes, the fights, the unexpected and the one cruel eye of misfortune waiting in the wings like an errant spider, swollen, ready to pounce on anything that makes the film stand out in a way that just doesn’t fit in with the idealistically placed images running around the fan’s mind.
The longed for can be beautiful, it can be without mercy but rarely in the same film and yet in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, this see-saw of emotions, of cheering so loudly inwardly causes the lungs to feel the burning desire of rapid expanse and feeling so underwhelmed that you feel as though you have been invited round somebody’s house to while away the time and yet you know they are going to moan at everything you ever did wrong; that see-saw gets faster as the film goes along and it with perhaps a pleasant surprise in the heart when the balance comes out in favour of the film.
It may have taken time to finally get these two D.C. Comics’ characters together on screen but it is overall worth waiting for? It is perhaps in a couple of the supporting characters that the film really hits the spot. The inclusion of Wonder Woman in the film is a cause of celebration and in Gal Gadot, the right actor was certainly chosen, dark, mysterious, as brutally charming as the Christian Bale’s Batman and as cool as a cucumber having been told to play outside in the frozen wastes of Siberia; this was an inclusion that really got the comic book fans weeping with joy. When coupled with Amy Adams reprising her role as Lois Lane and Holly Hunter as the tragic Senator Finch, the film really drew upon the side characters with great artistry and finesse.
It is though to the main characters that a film like this is sold to an audience upon and whilst Henry Cavill once more illuminates the screen as Superman, the judgement might be delayed on Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and certainly the undisguised curling of the unimpressed mouth leaves little sympathy to Jesse Eisenberg’s reading of Lex Luther; it may have been hard to truly demolish any residue of apathy for Kevin Spacey’s version of the maniacal adversary of Superman but Jesse Eisenberg manages with complete disinterest.
A film that on balance comes out well, has huge potential and will no doubt finally see D.C Comics take their franchises into the realms that Marvel has held for years, yet it so easily could have gone the other way.
Ian D. Hall