With introspection and self-doubt abounding, the mood couldn’t be more sombre. With two competing narratives, Batman V Superman is certainly a challenge to keep up with – even before the arrival of another old friend, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) Shouldn’t the world’s first superhero have been able to save more, say his growing band of critics? Or is he a ‘false god’, as the fresh graffiti on a statue of him puts it? He’s being blamed for lives lost when he was busy rescuing Lois from a terrorist ambush. Mind you, that’s the least of the man in blue tights’ problems.
I still wince at what feels like the misuse of 9/11 iconography – the collapsing tower blocks, the billowing clouds of deadly dust – but the sequence serves its purpose: Batman is no friend of Superman. He’s not only taken to branding the criminals he catches but, as a spectacular flashback linking Gotham’s finest with the world of Metropolis makes clear, he hasn’t forgiven Superman for failing to prevent the extraterrestrial attack that led to his father’s death. With 43-year-old Ben Affleck taking over, this Batman is older, crueller and more cynical than earlier incarnations. He confines himself to an executive producing role here, but the mood and tone of the new film are instantly recognisable as his – it’s dark, very dark, with both our crime-fighting heroes in something resembling social disgrace. Linking the two franchises is British film-maker Christopher Nolan, who earned his Hollywood spurs with the Dark Knight Batman trilogy but then co-wrote the screenplay for Man Of Steel. Zach Snyder and Henry Cavill both return, along with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Diane Lane as Superman’s mum and Laurence Fishburne as Lois’s editor at the Daily Planet, Perry White Snyder and Cavill both return, along with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Diane Lane as Superman’s mum and Laurence Fishburne as Lois’s editor at the Daily Planet, Perry White, in a film that, frankly, relies so heavily on the assumption that you’ve seen the earlier film that it might be worth dusting off the DVD and getting up to speed. It’s very much a Superman movie, a sequel to the excellent Zach Snyder-directed Man Of Steel that so successfully rebooted the franchise three years ago and introduced well-muscled Brit Henry Cavill as the man you’ll believe can fly. Yes indeed, the old gang’s all here, along with one or two rather unexpected – even unnecessary – additions.Īt least one thing – whether this is a Batman film or a Superman film – is swiftly resolved.
Batman… Superman… Batman… Superman… Lex Luthor! If flits to and fro between them, often at dizzying speed, in a way that for a long time is quite enjoyable and yet always carried the danger that my head might explode. This is complex old stuff that cleverly posits Metropolis and Gotham (Batman’s) as lakeside twin cities, and has to combine the essentially real world of Batman with the superhero silliness of Superman