“Batman V Superman” is the dawn of a poorly conceived franchise

“Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice” is a terrible, atrocious attempt by DC to continue its movie universe after the abysmal and also terrible “Man of Steel.”

The film has had hype going for it for awhile. I was hesitant after “Man of Steel,” but with the enticing trailers and Ben Affleck being cast as the Caped Crusader, my hesitance was eased a little bit.

Then I saw the movie.

The movie, like its predecessor, is too dark, filled to the brim with lazy and awful acting and simply not fun.

Batman is my favorite superhero, having been portrayed through the years in many different ways such as the cartoony version portrayed by Adam West to the more serious, dark version brought on screen by Christian Bale in “The Dark Knight” trilogy.

There are very few worthwhile parts of this movie.

The very best part of the entire movie is definitely Ben Affleck as Batman. He brings an older, more grizzled Batman to the screen; he’s also the scariest and most intimidating version of the character.

Affleck is able to swap between the two personas very well, and you believe it when he is either of those aliases.

The opening scene of the film is one of the best opening sequences in a film ever. The cinematography is superb, as we see on of the most stylized takes on the origin of Batman.

Thomas and Martha Wayne have been killed multiple times in all forms of media over the years, and this has to be the most stylized of all of them. From the pearls breaking from the gunshot to the scene of Bruce falling into the cave, the opening is masterfully done.

Despite the promise of the opening, the movie has more Kryptonite than General Zod’s spaceship.

First, Henry Cavill is the worst pick to play Superman, and if you have seen this movie and “Man Of Steel,” then you know that. He is emotionless in his acting even when he is with Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who is supposed to be his love interest. He is like putting a plank of wood on screen.

Where are Christopher Reeve or Brandon Routh when you need them?

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor feels like a jittery, cartoon version of Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg from “The Social Network.” He feels out of place in this dark film and more a fit for something like the 60s Batman or the Super Friends.

Another character in this film that just doesn’t fit is Gal Gadot as Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman. Godot, who may be familiar to “Fast and Furious” fans, has little to do.  

The other problem with Gadot is that she isn’t in the film that much and she seems just out of place. DC is too busy getting its connected universe of movies together.

The sub heading of this film, “Dawn Of Justice,” is a way to make people get insanely excited for the “Justice League” movie and the spin off films for those heroes such as Jason Mamoa as Aquaman and Ezra Miller as The Flash. In the film you see clips taken by Lex that shows these heroes acting, well, heroic, kind of.  

The scenes are just ways for the studio to say, “Hey, these movies are coming out, so go see them and make us money.”

The Flash also makes a cameo after a trippy Mad Max esque vision of an apocalyptic future foreshadowing the entrance of the villain Darkseid. The cameo of Flash is weird with him showing up in the Batcave through what looks like a time portal and warning Batman that “She is the key” and that Batman was “right about him.”

The scene make no sense.

The biggest problem in this film is that it is too much stuff crammed into one movie and it messes up the entire movie.

The film tries to adapt the stories of “The Death Of Superman” with Doomsday being made by the dead corpse of General Zod, which is both stupid and lazy, and “The Dark Knight Returns,” a story of an older Batman who comes out of retirement and at the end of the story must fight his friend Superman.

These plots and the “Justice League” setup makes the film choppy by cutting from every single character and just makes the film bloated and hard to watch.

There is one scene that may be involved with Superman and him struggling with being a hero in a world that hates him, then the film will randomly jump to Lex making a nefarious scheme and loses all the depth that the Superman scene had.

I really wanted to walk out of the movie, but I decided to let myself endure the torture of this horrible movie. I was disappointed that a movie with two of the most famous comic characters ever is one of the worst movies ever.

“Dawn Of Justice” is a film that should have been one of the best comic book movies ever but it is in the same group as “Spawn,””Fant4stic,” and  coincidentally “Batman and Robin.”

I give “Dawn Of Justice” 1 star out of 5.