Movie Review--Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice Ultimate Edition

"We have always created icons in our own image.  What we have done is we project ourselves onto him.  The fact is maybe he's not some sort of devil or a Jesus character; maybe he's just a guy trying to do the right thing."

--News interviewee, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition

"But the bell's already been rung.  And they've heard it, out in the dark, among the stars.  Ding-dong.  The god is dead.  The bell cannot be unrung!  It is hungry.  He's found us.  And he's coming!"

--Lex Luthor, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition

An R rating and extended runtime are not guarantees that a movie will be better than it otherwise would have been--but the "Ultimate Edition" of Batman v Superman very clearly is not only the superior cut of the movie, but it is actually a great film.  The plot points are more coherent because, instead of having random scenes follow each other with little visual or verbal elaboration, the Ultimate Edition shows a host of smaller moments that reveal the true extent of Lex Luthor's villainy and very smoothly move the plot along.  As is also true of Zack Snyder's Justice League, there are even entire characters that only show up in the extended version.  Jena Malone is one such cast member with a character that was cut completely for the theatrical version--and yet her character helps unveil key aspects of the story.  Other minor characters make the story and themes clearer than the truncated theatrical cut did.  Studio interference clearly did not help the reputation and criticism of Batman v Superman in its theatrical form, but it did rob initial viewers of a superior film with a better grasp of its themes and characters.

Production Values

The only changes to the aesthetics of the former cut include the addition of enough blood to persuade the MPAA to say that violence is the reason why it received an R rating, as if the highly arbitrary classifications of the MPAA have any sort of objective weight.  The famous "warehouse scene" where Batman saves Martha Kent from Luthor's brutes is one of the only places where the R rating affects existing scenes on a visual level.  Otherwise, the largely excellent special effects and cinematography are exactly as they were before.  Everything from the fight between Batman and Superman to the shots of Doomsday radiating its increasing power are reminders to even those most critical of Zack Snyder that he is at his "worst" still a superb filmmaker.

Now, some flaws of the theatrical cut unrelated to its rushed plot points still remain.  Lex Luthor's verbal randomness and utterly bizarre interpretation of the character are still there.  Neil DeGrasse Tyson's cameo as himself just reflects more of his miniscule philosophical depth that is oriented around nothing more than scientific perceptions instead of pure focus on the laws of logic and what they reveal (although his appearance is not something that reflects poorly on Zack Snyder or the broader themes of his story).  Characters were only added, after all, not taken away or changed.  The aforementioned Jena Malone is one new cast member, playing Jenet Klyburn of S.T.A.R. Labs in two new scenes that are actually crucial to explaining an early part of both versions of the movie: the relevance of the African massacre blamed on Superman is otherwise just another random, gratuitous section of the theatrical cut.  Malone makes the most of her small role both with the plot impact and her performance.

Story

Some spoilers are below, but the basic plot is the same as that of the theatrical cut.

The Ultimate Edition, just by including a handful of extra scenes, shows that Lex Luthor was maliciously manipulating far more people than seems to be the case in the theatrical edition.  Lex Luthor's involvement in promoting the prison murders of people branded by Batman and Clark Kent's personal investigation of Batman's atrocities are clear necessities to the storytelling in the Ultimate Edition.  The egoistic, irrationalistic desire of Lex to war against the concept of God and the Superman he sees as a stand-in for the theistic entity drives him to even start to conspire with Darkseid's representative.  At the end, a previously deleted scene (revisited from a different camera perspective in the opening of Zack Snyder's Justice League) showing Steppenwolf communicating with Lex Luthor and exhibiting models of the three Mother Boxes directly sets up the then-upcoming Justice League.

Intellectual Content

Batman v Superman is full of philosophically irrational characters, but it does aim for themes of genuine weight, something that is only expanded in the Ultimate Edition.  Intentionally or unintentionally, the Ultimate Edition does a better job of touching on genuine issues like violence in the American prison system and how someone can be feared by the very people they are supposedly protecting.  The sheer emotionalistic fear of power--except when they have it, highlighting their clear hypocrisy--driving Batman and Lex Luthor are still present in full, as well as in extended forms.  Both of these characters and their worldviews, priorities, and objectives are more clearly laid out.  So, too, are their petty inconsistencies in how they regard power.  They fear one of the most benevolent beings in the universe because of his comparatively extreme power while sinking into their own egoism, unjust hatred, and pursuit of personal power at the expense of honoring reality as it is.

Conclusion

Some movies do not need an additional half hour to become coherent stories but still benefit from added scenes.  Each film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a towering example of this.  Other movies, like the extended version of Suicide Squad (if only Warner Bros. would release the damn "Ayer Cut" and redeem its greatest theatrical blunder!), are still terribly incoherent or shallow, but less so in their extended forms.  Batman v Superman's Ultimate Edition is in between these two general ends of the possibility spectrum.  However, there has never been a better time to watch the Ultimate Edition for those who have not already seen it than an era where Zack Snyder's Justice League is finally available.  The Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman sets up the genuine stakes of Darkseid's impending invasion and the upcoming members of the Justice League while doing a far better job of portraying, communicating, and exploring, its own narrative.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The Ultimate Edition adds blood to fight sequences that are otherwise left as they were in the theatrical cut.  Still, even unaltered, scenes show things like Batman firing his grappling gun into an opponent's flesh and Superman getting impaled by Doomsday.

 2.  Profanity:  "Damn," "shit," "bitch," and the newly added "fuck" are all said at least once.

 3.  Nudity:  Bruce Wayne is shown nude from behind as he takes a shower in a very brief scene before he sees Lex Luthor at the latter's home event, with shadows covering most of his buttocks.