Below is just my opinion. It is merely me attempting to capture my personal preferences, observations, and my overall experience. You will probably feel different, and that is okay.
I hated the trailers, except for one maybe, but most of them left me disappointed. Explosions, explosions, loud music and some more cgi thrown in. I didn't care for the marketing campaign, and I was afraid this movie would be like any other superhero movie I had seen in the past couple of years, that I'd get a typical opening scene, a typical middle, typical scene transition, typical-- you get where I'm going with this. I didn't get any of this. I got a strange fucking movie. Like REALLY strange. The kind where even I went 'uh, I can't believe they did that'.
I loved this movie.
I've always wanted the bigger superhero movies to get the watchmen treatment, and that's exactly what I got for the first half of this movie. The first half is fucking incredible. I can't believe Snyder got to work on that. Larry Fong cinematography is masterful. The whole Batman introduction is INSANE. There is nothing that could top that for me when it comes to Batman. That was a thing to behold.
The amount of story told SIMPLY through imagery in that first 30-40 minutes is absolutely genius. The editing, I'll get back to this, but in this part of the movie the editing is a work of art. The music, the editing, the cinematography, I felt things. This was Batman being introduced like he should have been.
I felt like I was watching a comic come back to life. That was incredible. I haven't seen anything of the sort in a superhero movie since Watchmen.
As I said before, this was a strange movie. Really strangely put together. It didn't follow any real formula. It was the first superhero movie I've seen in a while where I had no idea whether we were halfway through the movie or whether the ending was nearer. And I fucking loved it. It was such a major deviation. It felt as though someone just wanted to make their own kind of superhero movie. Chris Terrio dug real deep into the DC verse and came up with his own stuff, and Snyder attempted to capture his madness in visual representation. This is the kind of movie you get when you have someone who is an otherwise an incredible writer working with a director with an eye for imagery. And together they come up with some strange fucking shit.
There were some moments where I felt the editing was moving away from some scenes too early. Most notably for me was when Lex is talking with the Senator, and I was just starting to get a feel for who he was and their relationship before it cut away. It's a double-edged sword. The editing is what made the first part of the movie work, but at some points it would switch too early. Still a strange way to put together a film. I didn't hate or anything, it was just something I noticed, and don't know how to feel about it.
Some laughably bad things:
1. Everything to do with WW + Bruce Wayne's internet correspondence. That shit is hilarious. But I expect something stupid out of every big budget movie, and that's this movie's big dumb dumb moment.
2. Lex Luthor, although he was terrifying in some parts, I think the way he was portrayed was too much like the joker and had no place in the movie. He was all over the place. But I legitimately didn't know what he was going to do next, which is great, but also bad. The joker is that kind of character, not Lex.
3. 'Expendable' characters that deserved much more. Notably, Mercer and the Holly Hunter. Holly was superb in her scenes. I wanted to know more about both and it is a major problem for me.
4.That scene with Superman and his dad on the mountain. It felt as though 10 minutes was cut between him leaving metropolis and suddenly being a hobo again on a mountain.
5. This movie is NOT kid friendly, which will definitely hurt its box office take. It's essentially an adult graphic novel. Kids will get bored with the first half of the movie because it is too adult, and in some cases, straight up horror.
6. Bruce Wayne basically saying he wants to put together the justice league and work with other meta humans, out of no fucking where. It didn't feel as though he meant it at all.
7.No post credit sequence. That's going to hurt this movie, they could have used that to spam information instead of putting it right smack in the middle of the movie. Audiences WANT to be spammed with info in post credits, so why not fucking use that instead? Absurd.
This movie would have worked better if they had done the following:
1.Removed Lex Luthor entirely.
2. Remove Doomsday.
3. Superman's road to redemption in the eyes of the citizens should have been after the senate hearing, and he should have then pledged himself to the American government, which should have lead to him and Batman having some sort of confrontation both of them fully understanding where the other is coming from, but one in which neither can back out from.
4. With that time freed up, I'd have spent another 10 minutes trying to get Batman/Clark/Loise/Martha Kent together at the Kent farm having a lunch and getting to know each other.
5. Some more scenes with Holly Hunter's character. She should have been the one to convince Superman to not subordinate himself to the government any more after she witnesses how human corruption is worse than letting Superman do his own thing.
6. NO justice league stuff. Just a postcredit sequence would have been enough.
There basically shouldn't have been a bad guy in this movie aside from an ideology clash. And guess what, the death count would have been a lot lower too. And you'd have a lot more time to do more things.
This movie feels as though a bunch of comicbook nerds got together and decided to make their own elseworld story. Someone high up took a serious fucking risk. Did you ever expect yourself to see desert Batman being attacked by an army of Superman henchman, whilst fucking PARADEMONS are flying all across and around? But that's exactly what you got. That's fucking incredible,and you got that.
This movie has its flaws, but it is no way a terrible movie the likes of which some people would have you believe. It is mediocre in some aspects, nothing more offensive than what other superhero movies have done to us in the past few years. It is in some major aspects, superior to some of the latest superhero movies we have seen. The director's cut will win more people over, I am sure, it really felt as though there were some things they couldn't fit in there for the sake of timing.
It looks like it is rewatchable. Which for me is the metric of an enjoyable film for me personally. But like all other superhero movies, the big climax at the end the biggest hurdle stopping me from being able to that after a few times. They all have these boring endings, where CGI is just THROWN in your face whether you like it or not. It's a horrible thing they all do nowadays.
