I don't think anything was lacking in the performances or direction in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" or that anything else was needed to tell the story that Snyder wanted to tell. The film was divisive because of Snyder's take on Superman and Batman. Some liked it, others didn't. Personally I hated his take on all the characters with the exception of Wonder Woman who almost seemed like she was from another, better, movie altogether.
I found the theatrical BvS incoherent, but yesterday I decided to check out the Ultimate Edition director's cut on Max to see if it was as much better as people say. It is definitely a more coherent and better film, feeling like an actual narrative instead of just a bunch of pieces stapled together in the vague shape of a narrative, and it is effectively directed. It makes Clark feel like less of a MacGuffin and more of a character, the flow of Knyazev's machinations on Luthor's behalf and Lois's investigation unearthing them are clearer, and the focus on the civilians that Luthor manipulates into his tools is effective. But it still has a lot of the same problems, like the pointless intrusion of the future-vision sequence; it would've been a better movie overall without the need to set up a Cinematic Universe. And I feel the improvement was mainly to the first half; the second half was still too cluttered, with the gratuitous inclusion of Doomsday. And I agree with
thribs that there should've been at least one more movie before they killed Superman.
So I can understand now why people like the film, at least the expanded version of it, and I certainly have a higher opinion of it now, up to a point. But while it told a reasonably coherent story about Snyder's versions of the characters, they're far from my favorite versions. In particular, it seemed to me that many of the problems could have been avoided if Superman had just
talked to people, if he'd let himself be a public presence from the start like many other versions of Superman have done, instead of remaining this mysterious, aloof, Dr. Manhattan-ish figure that created so many doubts about his intentions even nearly two years after his debut. Okay, maybe this Clark is just really uncomfortable with publicity, but he seemed to make things much harder on himself by staying silent and letting the media and Lex shape the narrative (and failing to explain himself to Batman during the fight even though he had plenty of chances after his brief token effort at the start). I mean, he lives with a world-famous reporter. How hard can it be to get his side of the story out there?
