Heres what I suggest the problem is: Zack Snyder doesnt understand comics. Sure, he loves them. Thats more than evident from his loyalty to the source material, his invariably bombastic character introductions, the way he amps up scale, scale, scale
but like Kevin Kline misreading Nietzsche in A Fish Called Wanda I well and truly doubt he gets what makes the comics he is fond of so special in the first place. His Frank Miller adaptation, 300, gratuitously emphasised the worst aspects of the original work; his Man Of Steel robbed the worlds most loved character of all colour; his Watchmen which I, as an Alan Moore fan, have not watched should simply not exist, made in defiance of that grand creators wishes; and now comes this overblown monstrosity.
Sure, this could be his plan all along. All part of a grand supervillainous scheme to show audiences how stupid the superhero genre is by murdering their heroes on screen, impaling them with mediocrity over and over again. It may well be by design, because Batman Vs Superman is so lunkheaded it seems unreal: there is a lot of action, with Snyder literally throwing in the kitchen sink at one point, but the setpieces are all dispirited and unspectacular made worse by the way the director keeps cutting away from the action to insert some sappy moments and the film feels four hours long, especially when the moment for it to fade-to-black at the end happens at least a half-dozen times. It is a film that aims for big revelations which, surprise, arent revelations at all. There is some talk of collateral damage and superhero responsibility, but this is blatant lip-service. All this film wants desperately, incessantly, relentlessly is to be louder.
To me, this is the worst superhero movie of all time, particularly in terms of squandered potential. It is moronic enough to believe two people sharing a name is a coincidence of world-altering import. You, as a fan, deserve better. Superman and Batman, collectively known in DC Comics as the Worlds Finest , deserve far better. And Zack Snyder, be it inability or subversion, needs to be kept away from these icons at least till he figures out that the red of the cape is the colour of a bright and stunning Testarossa, not merlot spilt on the floor.