The DC Extended Universe began with the birth of a boy on a dying planet millions of light years from earth. Man of Steel had its problems but one thing was for sure, it new exactly what it wanted its Superman to be: an alien who can bring hope to mankind. Like it’s follow-up Man of Steel’s themes were in direct conflict with its execution. Superman was a symbol of hope, but what Batman vs Superman shows is that he is a symbol of fear as well. Any good work director Zack Snyder had done setting up Henry Cavill’s Superman was immediately undone by his cynical, and decidedly un-comic book world view.
The clue is in the title for this highly divisive movie. Batman, played by Ben Affleck trying his hardest to bring some class to proceedings, believes that after the destruction of Metropolis, which he witnessed at ground level, that Superman is a threat to the entire planet. The rest of the movie is a confusing, and nonsensical set of events, most of which are bafflingly masterminded by Jesse Eisenberg’s embarrassing Lex Luthor, in order for the world’s most popular superhero’s to beat the crap out of each other. Oh, and Wonder Woman’s in there somewhere too.
Zack Snyder offers up a bloated, self-indulgent mess trying to disguise itself as a piece of epic film-making. The plot makes little sense, there are six dream sequences, those of which not setting up other films only hammer you over the head shouting THEMES right in your face. The cast, those of which who weren’t anything to do with Superman came through mostly unscathed. Affleck’s Batman at least made the possibility of a standalone film preferable, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman provided an exciting introduction to the character, and Jeremy Iron’s Alfred is a lot more hand on than previous incarnations of the character. 
What all this adds up to is that Zack Snyder seems to hate Superman. If his own re-imagining of Bruce Wayne’s traumatic past didn’t hint that he much prefers Batman, his characterisation of Superman as a moody cry-baby who just takes the publics hatred of him rather than entering into some kind of discourse before he’s forced too, will finish the job. The movies main problem is the comic that it so desperately wants to be: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The no canonical story of a grizzled, older Batman, who has to defeat Superman, now a stooge for the government, at the end of th story. The Dark Knight Returns is a deconstruction of both Batman and Superman, a story in which both characters go to their logical extremes: Batman as an all-out fascist vigilante, and Superman as a tool for America. What Snyder doesn’t seem to understand is that you can’t start a story by deconstructing your main characters. Due to this we still don’t really know who Superman is after two films, and Batman has gone a bit crazy.
Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice will be shown, for years to come, as an example of how to completely stall a cinematic universe.
