I'm struggling with where to start. I guess, firstly, the pros; Ben Affleck is great as a vengeful Batman, and the low key one on one combat scenes with Affleck and armed guards are well executed. It's clear Affleck took getting the look for this character right very seriously!
However, everything else is cons. The storyline is convoluted, incoherent and messily arranged; Henry Cavill isn't given anything meaningful to do and is just left to look moody and scowl occasionally; it takes 90 minutes to set up a seemingly endless fight that has no substance; and finally, Jesse Eisenberg is awful as the maniacal Lex Luther.
Let me break that all down a bit for you.
The film begins the other side of the end of Man Of Steel with Superman fighting Zod and destroying most of Metropolis, with Bruce Wayne watching broodily on. Zach Snyder, who also did Man Of Steel, has real trouble balancing the storyline with fight scenes and in the end we get both but without any meaningful link. We're never entirely sure why Batman and Superman start fighting, and then when it ends on the mention of Superman's mother, Martha, it's all a bit anti-climactic; like, is that it? The reason for why Lex Luther brings back Zod as Doomsday is never explained, and appears to have been put in just to fill the last 30 minutes and give all three superheroes something to come together for.
There are far, far too many elements being juggled for the ending to make any sense. They spend so long on the final fight with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman against Doomsday, that they forget they need to somehow set up the film coming after this one. To set up the film, while at a funeral, Bruce Wayne and Wonder Women discuss setting up a squad to fight with all the meta-humans Bruce found and showed her from Lex Luther's hard drive. It's so messy. As if they finished the final cut and thought, "Oh crap, we forgot to set up the next one!" so just put one quick scene in an the end to save themselves; it hasn't worked.
Add to that the seriously annoying presence of Eisenberg's Lex Luther. He's going for crazy psychopath, but instead comes across as over the top and trying too hard to make the character his own. It's his weird Mark Zuckerburg turned up to 11.
And then there's the question why Lois Lane is even in the film. She starts off as a credible journalist and doing lots of investigative work - great - but by the end is just the girl who keeps finding and dropping the object that's pivotal to the ending. In addition to that, Wonder Woman, with her lasso of truth, is the only superhero that can keep Doomsday in one place in the final fight; a dirty metaphor perhaps?!
Verdict - 2/5
Not much else to say except very disappointing. I wouldn't say don't see it, but it's not worth getting excited about.
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