Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

A misunderstood CBM which gets a lot of hate, dig deeper and don’t look into the surface level stuff on show !

It would appear the ultimate edition is a separate item to buy at £13.99. This was bundled into this?

Besides from the special effects, this movie is rubbish. Almost walked out of the cinema way back in the days, so not sure how some gave this 4/5. Unless they’ve changed the movie. Plot points felt so forced, horrible lines, Gotham was right next to Metropolis the whole time? Why not! I thought I was watching a film about Superman Vs Batman? Don’t bother wasting your time on this.

I bnought this as I wanted to watch the 3hr edit of the film with the new colour scheme and the IMAX scenes in the new ratio. This is how the film is presented on the 4K disc that came out earlier in 2021. However, this is not available. Instead you have two very unsatisfactory choices. 1) the original 2:30 edit of the film in 4K with Atmos sound and IMAX aspect ratio 2) the new 3hr edit of the film, but in HD with no Atmos sound The 2hr30 edit is generally reckoned to be very poor. The 4K video and Atmos audio is meant to be reference level for quality. So if you buy this you have to choose between watching the worse verion of the film in excellent quality, or the directors cut of the film with degraded picture and audio. It's a poor choice - and is not at all what iTunes conveyed when it talked about having the enhanced re-edited, with new aspect ratio and new colour. All those things are mostly available, but you can't watch it because they're split across two streams. BTW - I thought the 3hr film was OK (not as good a story as Man of Steel, but I'm glad I watched it) and the Atmos and IMAX scenes are both excellent.

Great movie

Simple amazing and visually so beautiful! Ben Affleck is one of the top batman and Henry is the superman of this generation!

I’m reviewing this now that we’ve got new context courtesy of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. I think you’d be wise to watch that and the BvS Ultimate Edition if you want the best experience. Also, I won’t compare this to Captain America: Civil War or the rest of the MCU because people have done so already and I want to critique the DCEU as its own thing. With this review I wan to get the negative things out of the way first. Watching BvS on its own, my general feeling is that it came too soon. And what I mean by that is that it feels like they forced multiple stories together that need a lot of time to explain. On the one hand, it’s Batman one upping Superman, which is what it says in the title. But it peculiarly acts as an origin story for Batman, a Man of Steel 2 of sorts and a set up for the Justice League. The biggest problem with this movie is it feels like 3 movies jumbled together and as a result, it feels unfocused. Not a lot of things make sense and a lack of context makes it hard to like. With that out of the way, there is actually a lot to praise. The structure of the film is very different from the superhero formula and while there isn’t much context to the characters, the performances are very good. I would never have thought that Ben Affleck would have made a good Batman but he is probably the best Batman to date. The only thing wrong with his Batman is that he kills, but this Batman was based on The Dark Knight Returns in which Batman did kill so I can give it some leeway. Gal Gadot is excellent as Wonder Woman but I think her solo movie did a better job with her than this. And Henry Cavill is once again a really great Superman. There’s also some really good commentary on superheroes as a whole in this movie and how regular people would perceive of an all powerful being like Superman. It’s very thought provoking and makes the film feel more realistic. The action is excellent as well and the visual effects are very impressive. Warning: the next part of this review contains spoilers for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. For me, the most compelling thing about BvS was the Knightmare sequence, a scene where Batman has a vision of a post apocalyptic world where Superman rules over the Earth. But while this scene appears to solidify Batman’s motivation to kill Superman, there is something more, something darker 😉. The appearance of the parademons and the omega symbol etched into the Earth point towards the involvement of Darkseid. The parademons appear alongside Darkseid and Steppenwolf in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. It seems that this isn’t just a dream but a premonition of events yet to come in the DCEU. The fact that Cyborg has the same vision before using the mother box to resurrect Superman confirms this. This extra context is the reason as to why you should watch the Ultimate Edition and ZSJL together. Overall, I think that watching this movie alongside it’s sequel is the best way to understand some of the looser elements of BvS.

Please sort it out, the theatrical cut is what made it receive so many bad reviews. Apple USA gives them both options.

The ultimate edition isn’t upgraded and isn’t able to be played on Apple TV app at the time of writing. The standard version seems to be just fine which makes me more confused. I will update this review if these problems are resolved but for now this isn’t a way I’d recommend seeing the film.

The new aspect ratio 4K remaster has not been applied to the ultimate cut editon. Only to the theatrical version. I'm not happy.