Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

There is real ambition in the setup. A world that watched a city die now has to decide whether an alien deserves oversight, and Ben Affleck's older, brutalised Batman, branding criminals and stockpiling weapons, is a genuinely dark reading that the actor sells completely. Larry Fong composes shots of enormous power, the warehouse rescue is the best hand to hand Batman action ever filmed, and Gal Gadot's arrival with that cello riff is the only moment the whole enterprise feels like fun.

Then the script. Jesse Eisenberg plays Luthor as a jittering internet troll, a choice that lands nowhere. Plot advances by dream sequence, including one about a future that never arrives and a fully unexplained visitor. Lois throws a spear into a pool and retrieves it for no reason. Doomsday is a grey computer generated lump. And the fight everyone paid for ends because both men have a mother called Martha, which is not a theme, it is a coincidence dressed as one. Beautiful, self serious, and structurally broken.