The Complete List Of Everything Wrong With Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

I may be late to the game in finally seeing Batsoup but at least I didn’t have to brave the crowds to see it. While my fellow Gabbing Geeks have given the movie much higher ratings (above 5 out of 10) I thought rather than just give a review I would list everything wrong with the movie. Warning: spoilers after the break. Second warning: it’s a long list. But if I missed anything let me know in the comments.

1. The Batman origin at the start. This sequence was awful. If you know his origin, and let’s face it everyone knows Batman’s origin, then you didn’t need this sequence. If you didn’t know it you’d think falling down a hole had more to do with becoming Batman than anything else. Plus it was a flashback within a flashback within a dream sequence. Convoluted much?
2. Bruce is dumb. For a smart hero, he sure acts stupidly. Racing towards the Wayne Finance building may seem brave, but what was he going to do once he got there?  Order the evacuation from his phone???  Phones work from beyond visual range. It’s one of their best features.
3. Bruce hires dumb people. The guy in charge of Wayne Finance thinks a skyscraper vantage point for a battle with an alien ship sounds great to him. Oh wait, the boss says it’s time to leave? Okay.
4. Bruce is a jerk who has nightmares. The nightmares are so we sympathize with him. But it’s a cheap ploy. Without those nightmares you’d hate this guy. And we shouldn’t hate Bruce.
5. Not enough Alfred. Isn’t this true for every Batman movie though?  We need a standalone Alfred movie.
6. History is not depth. The movie confuses creating a sense of history for making the characters seem deeper. Instead, the history makes no sense. If Bruce cares about his family legacy, why is Wayne Manor still burnt out?  If Robin is dead, shouldn’t that mean that Bruce is familiar with the highs and lows of being a caped crusader?
7. Bruce apparently forgot what it’s like to be a caped crusader. He’s angry at Clark for what happened to Metropolis. Yeah that makes no sense. Especially to someone who has fought crime and sometimes had to be at odd with authority. Or should we forget that Bruce almost let a cop kill another cop with a shotgun?
8. Bruce almost let a cop kill another cop with a shotgun. Nope. Didn’t forget.
9. WTF is up with Bruce branding bad guys? That’s not dark. That’s not edgy. That’s messed up.
10. Bruce’s desert dream. He wakes from a dream to a vision that gives him actual information he can’t have. Was it a dream within a message from the future? A message within a dream?
11. Clark flies away from people like a jerk. The first few times Clark is near people he flies away in a hurry causing a small sonic boom and a rush of air. I thought that was a cool touch on how he flies in this universe. But then later he starts doing this slow drift away from people before he rushes off and there’s no blast of sound or air. Meaning all the times he did it before, he didn’t have to be a jerk. He was intentionally fly-jerky.
12. Doomsday’s creation. No, really, explain why a ship can do this. If it was a banned practice, never to be done again, why know exactly how to do it?
13. Worst Kryptonian security ever. I’m pretty sure that you can’t cut a cadaver’s fingerprints off and have them work on modern Earth print scanners. But that works on Kryptonian doors?  The second time Lex uses the prints the ship knows it isn’t Zod so it asks Lex if he wants to take command. Really?
14. Nobody has understandable motivations. Lex wants to kill the superheroes/meta-humans because… Bruce wants to kill Clark because… Even the Senator wants to shame Clark with hearings but won’t approve a weapon to kill him because…  Giving characters difficult to understand actions doesn’t make them complex–it makes them non-sensical.
15. Not enough Lex. This was the best performance of the movie but we needed a better story for him. He’s quirky and weird and different but heck even the Gene Hackman Lex had an understandable motivation.
16. Clark is dumb. When Lex introduces him to Bruce shouldn’t Clark have been suspicious?  Why would Lex know Clark?  Later we come to discover that Lex knows everyone’s secret identities but shouldn’t Clark wonder?
17. Lex is dumb. If your plan is to kill Clark and Bruce because of who they are in secret, why force their hand?  Take them out secretly. Push on Bruce and Clark, not Batman and Superman.
18. Bruce needs a tracking device to follow the kryptonite to the only place Lex can take it. Oh and let’s ignore how the flying Batmobile just missed the tracker, shall we?
19. Bruce didn’t kill Clark because… Really, the end of that fight makes NO sense. Clark says “Martha” and Bruce wonders why. So do I. Why, in your dying moments, would you ask for help saving your mother by calling her by her first name. “Save…my…mom…” is even easier to say when someone is standing on your throat than “Please….save…Martha…”  I tried it out. But then Bruce wants to know why Clark said that name. Ignoring that Clark already used Bruce’s real name at the start. If you think Clark is evil, then you think he’s manipulating you with your own mom’s name. You don’t wonder. Not like Bruce’s parents were anonymous.
20. Aquaman’s video. Yeah, good luck explaining that in his movie. Oh wait. His movie is never coming out. Otherwise how do you explain someone trying to stay hidden acting like that for a camera?
21. Cyborg’s origin. While I liked the Mother Box, if this scientist cares so much about his subject to break protocol then why is his first instinct to turn off the camera when Cyborg starts screaming?
22. Lex getting shaved. I get wanting to bring the signature look out. But why?  Was he placed in Fort Headlice to serve time?
23. Perry White ordering a helicopter for Lois. The newspaper won’t spring for economy plus seating on a plane but has an account with a helicopter service to immediately hire on for pick-up on the roof?
24. Clark doesn’t fly Lois back from Africa because… Why did he leave her at the site of a mass killing?
25. That senate hearing with the village woman. Why was that called exactly?  Did the Senate have jurisdiction over the village? Do they think they get to regulate Clark?  We see Clark in action around the globe–do any of those governments have hearings on the Superman issue?
26. That family trapped on a rooftop in a flood spends way too much time on the Superman symbol. Seriously, it even had serifs at the end of the S. And the letter changed thickness just like his actual chest plate. Who has that kind of time in the middle of a flood?
27. Lois is a crappy reporter. Her reaction to finding out the photographer she used was CIA was to say she didn’t know and then forget?  Why didn’t she use that as leverage against the Secretary of Defense? Why wasn’t she even angry? She almost died and isn’t upset?
28. Batman’s spear fetish. He figures out how to turn kryptonite into gas but can’t figure out how to make it into a bullet?
29. Wonder Woman is a horrible bad ass. Given her background and technique, shouldn’t she be able to take down Doomsday?  Her armor and sword are magic and can wound Doomsday, as she proves. And he’s just big but thrashes around. While he stands around growing a new spike-fist she could just cut his head off!
30. The title. Dawn of Justice?  Boring. How about Day of reckoning? Or Day of Doom?  I get that they didn’t want to reveal Doomsday too soon but Dawn of Justice should have been used for the Justice League movie.  This movie was better suited to a title like Dunno Why We’re Doing Any of This.
31. This Wonder Woman line. “For the last 100 years I withdrew from humanity.” Um, no, you withdrew from an ATM in France. Unless that’s what they call ATMs in France.
32. Lois’ relationship with the kryptonite spear is more complex than the one with Clark. She hates the spear because it hurt Clark. So she threw it really far away. Because all Superman fans know the only thing that blocks kryptonite radiation is lead and throws that make you grunt. But when Clark leaves, Lois decides to one up her grunt toss and put the spear underwater. Because water is also really good at blocking radiation. That’s just science, people.  But then she seems Doomsday fighting and suddenly decides to get the spear back. Sure, Clark said he needs it but she doesn’t know that.  She just needs that spear.  (h/t Jimmy)
33. Bruce intended his last words to be “Oh shit.”  Yes, this is the edgy DCU where heroes get to curse once per movie. But when Bruce faces Doomsday’s laser eyes he has no idea Wonder Gadot is going to save him. He thinks he’s a goner. That’s it. No more Batanything. So to end your career with “Oh shit” is a bit…lame.
34. Do good guys ever wax floors anymore? When was the last time you saw a good guy in a movie waxing a floor?  I’ll tell you when: never. If you see someone using a floor waxing machine then you can bet they’re armed and have already taken out some security rent-a-cops. No wonder Lois could recognize him from behind–she’s worked at the Planet for years and those floors have never been waxed!!
35. Superman has a neural connection to the Krytonian WebMD. How else can we justify his immediate insight that he needs the spear to kill Doomsday?  Remember, Superman killed Zod by snapping his neck. Snap, dead, cry for our emo ethical quandary. Kryptonians are strong, but their anatomy is a bit like ours it would seem. So why do you need the spear Clark? (h/t Jimmy)
36. Good thing we have a nuclear missile ready to launch at people flying away from Earth. The President makes the call to fire a nuclear missile at Superman and Doomsday while they’re punch-flying away from Earth. First, that’s a pretty dramatic decision to make given Superman is literally taking the bad guy far, far away. But also–how is that missile ready to go? Seems a strange weapon to have on standby doesn’t it? (h/t Jimmy)
37. Lex is the worst weapon creator ever.  The sub-plot of Lois investigating the bullet to lead to Lex is needed to confirm Lex is a bad guy, but it makes no sense.  It’s a bullet that can be stopped by a notebook.  A small journalist’s notebook.  Is he trying to change the world’s munitions so Kevlar stops making money?  And that bullet doesn’t just fail to go through the notebook–it literally stops in its tracks without changing shape.  Bullets get smooshed on impact, but not Lex’s bullet.  Maybe it stopped to read Lois’ notes.  Oh, and is it just me or was that bullet actually longer than the notebook was thick?  Which makes no sense since Lois didn’t see the tip pointing through the back.
38. Back to that Bat-brand thing.  Why was that a death sentence for bad guys with the brand?  Did prison inmates share some fake chain email that said Bruce Wayne (“And totally NOT Batman, guys!”) would give them a million dollars for everyone they killed with a Bat-brand?  I’d think that’d be some kind of medal of honor, not an implicit Bat-contract.  (h/t Sanjiv)
39. “Do you come to convenient parties often?”  Bruce Wayne gets his mysterious black hacking box THAT HE DIDN’T EVEN PUT A SIMPLE WIFI CHIP INTO SO IT COULD BEAM THE RESULTS TO A SAFE LOCATION INSTEAD REQUIRING HIM TO DOUBLE HIS CHANCES OF GETTING CAUGHT….sorry…taken by Diana at the Lex mansion party.  That makes sense for both Diana and Bruce to be there if they’re looking for something Lex has.  But then why are they both at some museum benefit for a Greek artifact?  Diana comes because Bruce will be there, she makes that clear–but why was Bruce there?  Did he suddenly hit every party looking for Diana?  Because that’d be useful to show us rather than him going to a party with a Greek artifact when he HAS NO IDEA DIANA HAS GREEK ORIGINS.  And don’t feed me some “but her accent was clearly ancient Greek!” nonsense either. (h/t Sanjiv)
40. Nairomi.  Oh hey, speaking of foreign nonsense, can we pause for a moment to reflect on the ludicrousness of this Generically Named African Country?  Cool.  Moving on.  (h/t Sanjiv)
41. Alien warship with more advanced tech in its burnt out wreckage than anything mankind has created?  Bah, just leave it there.  Because that’s what the world did with the Indian Ocean Kryptonian ship.  They put up some strongly worded signs (which, come to think of it, were ONLY IN ENGLISH) but otherwise relied on the honor system for people to stay away.  Compare that to the Metropolis counterpart which has had an entire military base built around it.  Makes perfect sense.  (h/t Sanjiv)

Score: 3 out of 10 bat brands.