--- description: Batman v Superman lunges for greatness instead of building toward it title: Review: Superheroes Duke It Out in 'Batman v Superman' image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt620191a216b4a8a5/69888b46524fc091dbdf736d/bvs-21584rv5.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Review: Superheroes Duke It Out Superseriously in _Batman v Superman_  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Mar 23, 2016 2:06 AM CUT  A scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice A scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn Of JusticeClay Enos/Warner Bros.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Mar 23, 2016 2:06 AM CUT As superhero spectacles go, Zack Snyder’s _Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice_ is a grand one, with a mondo-operatic climax and a final shot infused with quivering, exhilarating molecules of grace. It’s also not much fun: Barely a minute goes by when there isn’t a character or real-life talking head (Charlie Rose and Neil deGrasse Tyson both make cameos) showing up with some droning pronouncement about how humans today, savvy and mistrustful as we are, still need to believe in gods and heroes. The picture is thick with allusions to “aliens” as enemies of the people, dangerous forces that will only come back stronger when we try to vanquish them. At one point a villain with some crazy ideas intones, “God is tribal. God takes sides.” All of these statements are intended to provoke thought, of the political or spiritual kind, but they’re simultaneously too unshaped and too obvious. Snyder floats them onscreen like ominous nighttime clouds, onto which we can project our own Batsignals of meaning. **Read More:** [_Here’s Why the Batman v Superman Director Cast Ben Affleck Instead of Christian Bale_](http://time.com/4253882/batman-v-superman-ben-affleck-christian-bale/ "undefined") Why, oh why, can’t we just get what we came for? That is, a good, meat-and-potatoes showdown between a brooding vigilante in a pointy-eared mask (Ben Affleck’s Batman, a.k.a. asocial rich guy Bruce Wayne) and a simpler, sunnier protector of humankind (Henry Cavill’s Superman, who, when he’s not in tights, struts around in criminally sexy horn-rimmed glasses as reporter Clark Kent). _Batman v Superman_ lunges for greatness instead of building toward it: It’s so topheavy with false portent that it buckles under its own weight. Snyder, the man behind the Thermopylae phantasm _300,_ as well as the flawed but raggedly affecting riot-grrrl head trip _Sucker Punch,_ is an ambitious visual stylist. And there are more than a few dazzling sequences in _Batman v Superman_, including an apocalyptic dream battle in which spindly, winged terrors, imported straight from a Guillermo del Toro nightmare, buzz menacingly in the margins, while poor Batman gets the batstuffing kicked out of him in the foreground. Incidentally, the brutality of _Batman v Superman_ is the heavy-duty, bone-crunching sort, a factor you might want to consider if you’re thinking of taking very small kids. **Read More:** [_Superman Declared a ‘False God’ in OfficialBatman v Superman Trailer_](http://time.com/3827374/batman-vs-superman-official-trailer/ "undefined") But then, fun isn’t what we’re after when we venture out of the fairly jaunty Marvel Universe and into the relatively irony-free DC Comics one: Snyder and screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer work overtime to make these superheroes superserious, further embroidering all the basic psychological motivations and hangups their creators — Batman’s Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and Superman’s Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — gave them in the first place. Both carry scars of childhood trauma, and both are social misfits: Bruce Wayne/Batman is too self-absorbed to fit in, while Clark Kent/Superman is a literal alien, an outsider perpetually looking into the world of humans but unable to fully join it. They certainly have a lot to talk about — and to fight about. ### Meet All the Actors Who Have Played Batman and Robin  Lewis Wilson was the first actor to play Batman on screen, with Douglas Croft joining him as the first Robin in the 1943 film Batman. Columbia Pictures—Getty Images  Robert Lowery was the second to don the guise of Batman, playing the caped crusader in the 15 chapter serial, Batman and Robin in 1949. Everett  Johnny Duncan played Robin to Lowery's Batman in the 1949 Batman and Robin serial. Columbia  Adam West played the role of masked crime fighter for three seasons on the 1960s television series Batman. Mondadori—Getty Images  Burt Ward joined Adam West as his Robin for the Batman television series. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images  Michael Keaton played Batman in the 1992 film Batman Returns. Warner Bros.  Following Keaton three years later, Val Kilmer portrayed the billionaire playboy in 1995's Batman Forever. Warner Bros.  Chris O'Donnell played Robin for two different Batmen. He was Val Kilmer's Robin in 1995 (pictured above) and then joined George Clooney in 1997 for the widely panned Batman & Robin. Warner Bros.  Hard to remember, but George Clooney once took a turn as Batman, back in the 1997--before the Oscars knew his name so well. Warner Bros.  Christian Bale donned the mask for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Ron Phillips—Warner Bros  Ben Affleck is the latest to join the ranks of actors who have portrayed the caped crusader, in the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie. DCComics.com  Will Arnett voices Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Lego Batman Movie, a 3D-animated take on the DC superhero and a spin-off of 2014's The Lego Movie. Warner Bros. But the enmity between these two never jells as it should. _Batman v Superman_ traces the source of the duo’s disquiet to the collateral damage Superman inflicted while saving Metropolis from General Zod’s giant, three-toed metal spacekiller (as seen in Snyder’s 2013 _Man of Steel_). Bruce Wayne watches, glowering, as Superman zips through the sky, saving most of the city’s people but inadvertently causing harm with some errant eyefry. A U.S. Senator from Kentucky (Holly Hunter’s Jane Finch) also worries that Superman might have too much power, and enters an ill-advised alliance with Superman’s arch enemy Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who is actually Lex Luthor Jr., LexCorp heir and all-out nutter. **Read More:** [_Ben Affleck Shares Behind-the-Scenes Photos From Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice_](http://Ben%20Affleck Shares Behind-the-Scenes Photos From Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice "undefined") In a picture that’s constantly in danger of being ground down by its own gloom, the brittle lightness of Eisenberg’s high-strung savant is a relief. His sentences unspool like wiry puzzles; in need of Ritalin, he speaks in riddles. The stunning and aristocratic Gal Gadot shows up, all too briefly, as Diana Prince/Wonderwoman: It’s a delight to watch her laugh in the face of danger, which is exactly the opposite of the demands placed on poor Cavill and Affleck. Mostly, they’re called upon to act with their jaws, both of which are, at least, quite magnificent. **Read More:** [_Batman v Superman Almost Featured These Two Villains_](http://time.com/4266214/batman-superman-villains/ "undefined") But a good jaw will get you only so far. Affleck, sporting just a frizzle of gray at sideburn level, brings some satisfying gravity to his performance. Even so, both Batman and Bruce Wayne mostly come off as sullen brats, jealous of Superman’s glowing skin and saviorlike demeanor. Meanwhile, Cavill just looks noble and pained. He’s best in a scene with Amy Adams, as his amour Lois Lane: She’s just come home from a particularly rough assignment — one whose effects will boomerang against her boyfriend — and finally has the chance to sink into a hot bath. Cavill’s Clark Kent interrupts her solitude, barging in with a sack of groceries (he’s going to make dinner, he announces) and a bouquet of flowers. He hands the troubled Lois a random tulip, and when that fails to cheer to her up, he steps into the water himself, fully clothed. We don’t see what happens next, because we don’t have to. For once, Clark Kent is having some fun. 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