Saw the 3-hour Ultimate Edition of Batman punches Superman, which adds half an hour of (what passes for) character development. While the theatrical release was trashed by everyone, this extended cut has been given lukewarm reviews (i.e. it doesn't entirely suck).
Obviously DC fucked up by not having solo movies first for the Justice League (or at least the main ones) before they assemble. Even better would be to follow on from the Nolan's trilogy (he is Exec Producer on the Snydner ones afterall) but dunno if it was a rights or cast issue, so they had to reboot with Batfleck.
The movie follows on from the punch-up ending Man of Steel, which sets up the plot which seems the same as Captain America punches IronMan and even recent Bond instalments: the government is shutting down vigilante violence. "Collateral damage is unacceptable, except when we do it" (e.g. end of Avengers 1).
Most people like the Marvel version, and I recognize they set up their franchise less clumsily than DC. But I enjoy Snyder's idiosyncratic style, channeling Miller's graphic novel aesthetic.... backlit rain, ultra slow-mo close-ups, stylized violence (like Watchmen, 300, Sucker Punch), and the portentous brood-a-thon tone that pervades DC's films (I think there's three jokes in the entire three hours).
Lots of flaws of course: Amy Adams is a charisma vacuum, Lex Luther's motivation makes no sense and his portrayal by Eisenberg put most people off, there's too much plot for even three hours, the many dream sequences only make sense for hard core fans (and maybe not even then), more than 90% of drama in movies would be avoided if people just talked more, the now infamous Martha pivot, alien ship security seems extraordinarily lax ('warning, we can't grow this abomination except if you want to'), Diana Prince isn't given much to do in the first 2.5 hours, why does Supe's mom still have to wait tables and run a corn farm.... I could go on.
Some positives: Batfleck was acceptable after the initial casting controversy. The onus was on Ben to prove us skeptics wrong and he did. Gadot was intriguing, leaving us wanting more. Snyder continued Nolan's modernist architecture for Wayne's accommodation. The VFX were fine (burning through a quarter of a billion dollars with all those collapsing buildings). The Zimmer score was okay and more memorable than the Marvel equivalents.
Purists won't like that Superman and Batman kill shitloads of people, but not having read any comics, I don't really mind. It's a messy world. What I didn't like is that the movie tries to get an emotional reaction by portraying Superman as dead not once, not twice, but three times! This is a problem with franchises - no one major dies, so STOP PRETENDING they are dead. We know they can't die. It's not emotional. It's not tense. It just wastes time. The upside is that gives it Zimmer another opportunity to insert one of his customary crescendos. But even he's now sick of scoring superhero movies and has announced 'no more'. So I wonder when global cinema audiences will finally get superhero fatigue because there ain't any sign of it yet. It was predicted a decade ago, but each one of these installments, whether from Marvel or DC, still earn around a billion dollars-ish.
Also saw HIGH RISE, which is just a montage of debauchery.
