How Batman v Superman could have been a good movie

Batman v Superman was so poor, so badly executed, that Ben Affleck was apparently humiliated by the reviews and is likely to be put in charge of saving the entire franchise. A few weeks ago I drafted a long, wordy review of this film in which I wrestled through all of the film's missteps before finally stumbling upon some deeper truths the movie had possessed but failed to clearly convey.

In short, I could sum up why this movie didn't work with a few pithy sentences such as: "It tries to do a million things and doesn't do any of them well," or "it would have been better if it'd actually been about Batman v Superman."

Director Zach Snyder tried to tell a grim, violent story and engage with deeper truths along the way because that's a popular way to do things these days. The problem is that I'm not sure he himself fully understood the deep themes of the movie and he was also done in by his attempt to have a climactic ending that also set up DC's "Justice League" series.

On a minor note, I also wonder if Snyder has become overly concerned that his reputation is for making cool, slow-motion action sequences rather than deeper, grittier films like he'd prefer. He tried to make Batman v Superman a deeper, grittier film and it lacked the well-choreographed, slow-motion action sequences that would have given the 151 minute trek a better payoff.

*I'm going to give some spoilers on what happens in this movie so don't read on if you aren't okay with that*

What Snyder seemed to at least dimly understand about Superman is that he works best as a metaphor for God. What's more, both Batman and Lex Luthor are equipped with "how does man relate to God" motivations that drive the movie and could have done so effectively.

So here's a brief sketch of how this looks in the movie:

Superman is like Jesus. His character has always been like Jesus. He comes to earth and accepts the role of a humble and unimpressive servant while putting his powers to use at all times to try and protect the planet's inhabitants. He has to wrestle with how to best protect the people around him and in this movie has to struggle with a tendency to show favoritism for Israel Lois Lane. Admittedly the metaphor breaks down here a bit as there's no greater purpose to be accomplished for the world by specifically protecting Lois Lane, as good a reporter as she may be. He just likes her.

Batman is represents man and his frustrated relationship with God. He has real authority issues, seems to be increasingly embracing his role as a criminal/rebel, and he has real frustration with the way Superman does things. Bruce Wayne sees the collateral damage from Superman's battles and says, "why should I trust this all-powerful creature? Aren't I better off in my own hands?"

Modern man asks that question all the time. The problem here is that this frustration isn't really fleshed out that well and there's a big emphasis on Batman's concern with Superman's collateral damage, which is juxtaposed with sequences where Batman seems to show a similar lack of regard for whether criminals or innocents are hurt in his own vigilante escapades.

Lex Luthor is the devil, and he's very explicit about it. He looks to pit man against God and then what that doesn't work out issues the following line:

"If man won't kill God, the devil will do it!"

Another take is that Luthor is another person who's been hurt on earth, this time by an abusive father rather than a criminal who robbed him of his parents, and because his relationship with his father included so much abuse he's incapable of seeing God the father as being a force for good. As a result, he's looking to overthrow God (Superman) and sees Batman as the perfect tool for that purpose.

Now here the movie gets one thing right and two things very, very wrong.

What the movie does well is setting up the "Martha connection" in which both Superman and Batman have mothers named Martha. Luthor captures Superman's mom and tells him she'll die unless he brings Luthor Batman's head.

Superman then reasons that he must go to Batman and either convince him to help or else kill him. I'm not sure why he didn't instead determine to find his mom and rescue her, perhaps he felt Batman would be more effective in that role. This was all fairly lazy and somewhat disappointing, especially in light of how ineffectually the movie sets up Batman's motivations for taking down Superman.

What the movie gets exceptionally right, even though it fell flat for most of the audience (including myself until I finally stumbled upon the underlying theme), is when Batman has Superman beat and is ready to kill him when Superman says "don't let them hurt Martha!"

Batman is stopped, and then emotionally undone by the realization that Superman IS in fact vulnerable. Because he has people on earth that he loves so deeply, he's made vulnerable by their weakness. It's a chosen weakness, the same that God shows by allowing himself to be hurt by humanity's sinful choices as he bears with us in our weaknesses and errors.

Luthor never has this moment, his image of God is too broken (and the movie needs a supervillain), but Batman is reconciled to God by the vulnerability of Superman.

Here's the next error the movie makes, which is that it robs this moment of serving as the climax of the movie in order to pit the burgeoning "Justice League" against this CGI space-monster thing that Lex Luthor has cooked up.

There are so many mistakes here it's hard to count them all. First, Batman is pretty useless in this fight because the space-monster is so overpowered. They bring in Wonder Woman to fight it but she has so little to do in this movie that it's all rather lame. It would have been better to introduce her character with an entire film like Marvel did with most of the Avengers characters. DC was too hasty here, imo.

The plot holes that lead to Luthor creating the space-monster are pretty ridiculous. How did he know that having access to the Kryptonian spaceship would enable him to build it? Once he got aboard the ship how did he so quickly realize that it included procedures for building biological weapons?

The movie would have been much, much better if Luthor had put all his chips in the Batman basket and never said the line "if man won't kill God, the devil will do it!" After all, Batman v Superman is supposed to be the point of the movie. Justice can dawn from their alliance, you don't have to show them fighting space-monsters with Wonder Woman just yet.

Another problem is how silly and over-powered this monster is, which just didn't fit with the intended grim realism of the rest of the film. They literally nuke this monster (and Superman) and it does nothing. The Batman v Superman showdown was way cooler than this stupid fight.

Snyder also tries to give Superman the opportunity to show weakness again and sacrifice himself in order to destroy Luthor's space-monster, which brings about his own death (or not). This is needless, he already showed the vulnerability the movie needed in the "Martha" scene with Batman.

Ultimately, in the devil's battle with God his ultimate play is trying to turn man against him. That's what this movie was trying to do and could have done well. Instead, Snyder tried to add the additional fight scenes with stupid biological weapon creature and Wonder Woman.

Maybe Affleck will get all this right now that he's in charge but if the problem is DC trying to rush things and do too much while playing catch-up with Marvel then I don't know if even Affleck and Ironside's very effective Batman-Alfred combo will do the trick.