Batman v Superman:Dawn of Justice UE- The ultimate manifestation of misunderstanding.

Before beginning the actual topic at hand, let me take you back a few years, March of 2016 in fact. Me and my friends had just finished school. I was a huge dc comics fan ever since I was a kid, and I was very vocal about it too. I always thought that even though the MCU was amazing (and I enjoyed it), they literally had no competition and always argued that movies like V for Vendetta and Watchemen (which I didn't know was directed by Zack Snyder at the time) quintessentially showed a more realistic side of superheroes. Another funny little thing about me was that I never liked Batbale to begin with, I always loved Michael Keaton's Batman and also had a soft spot for Val Kilmer, so for me anyone taking on the role of the Caped Crusador was not acceptable, and when I actually heard the news that Gigli was going to play Batman in the MoS (which I still think is one of the best origin movies ever) follow-up, I was angry (to say the least), I went on the Internet, liked a few pages that sprung up saying 'We don't want Batfleck'. But nonetheless, me and my friends booked our tickets to the most awaited movie of all time for the first weekend itself. At the time, I never had the habit of looking up a movie to see it's 'reviews' by the 'critics', so watching stuff like 'batman v Superman is a disaster ' on the Internet 3 hours prior to the show was disappointing as it was exasperating. (Even though I loved the trailers and the look and the voice of Batman , I blamed it on Batfleck)
But then I looked at the reviews of movies that I loved , namely MoS, Watchmen, Troy, etc, I was shocked, to say the least. So fueled by a lot of love for the characters and a love for Zack Snyder's take and a slight disappointment and hate for Batfleck, I went inside the theatre. Most of you reading this won't believe the next few lines, some of you might even stop reading and just go about minding your business and hate Snyder and BvS in the process, but when I say that I totally bought the idea of Ben Affleck as Batman for the DCEU in the first minute of BvS,it's nothing but the truth.The movie starts with the funeral of the Waynes and it kept cutting back to the Waynes getting murdered back and forth with the voice-over of the slow, deep voice of Bruce Wayne going " There was a time above... a time before... there were perfect things... diamond absolutes. But things fall... things on earth. And what falls... is fallen. In the dream, it took me to the light. A beautiful lie." ever since Snyder had announced that they were going for a Batman who's experienced and old, I always had the doubt (like many still do) that we won't be able to relate to or understand this character and his history, but these lines scream one thing and one thing only... This is not your Batman ,he's a morally bankrupt, sad, broken man who thinks that his life, his 20 years as Batman has been a lie, set within a flashback to young Bruce Wayne's childhood are gruesome slo mo deaths of his parents, their funeral and him encountering a cave of bats. The bats leading him to the light, symbolically shows a 25 year old angry Bruce Wayne being led to believe that this path, being the Batman is going to lead into something beautiful, something good, but in his 20 years, as is referenced later on the movie when he says " Twenty years in Gotham, Alfred, we've seen what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?" Him, being led to think that something good will come out of his life was the beautiful lie, but more on that later.
When I, like everyone else was expecting a testosterone and anger fueled feud between the two greatest sueprheroes of all time stuffed inside an entertaining blockbuster, little did we know that Snyder had something different in his mind. But since I had seen MoS, I kinda had an idea of his vision, that combined with the surprising opening, I knew that we were in for an art house type of a movie.
And now to actually give justice to the title of the essay, let's talk about the actual movie. The biggest problem and in my opinion the only problem worth mentioning about this movie is the audience, before you stop reading, allow me to elaborate. Ever watched a movie you didn't like at first and then watched it and thought, "hey it's not that bad, this movie is actually great" or vice versa, yes? No? maybe? I've had that a lot of times and let me just say this is not a bad thing. Critique or reviews is basically personal preference, so everytime you read someone's review of something, good or bad, you're looking at their perspective, and Batman v Superman and the director behind it, Zack Snyder wants you or rather forces you to look at the movie from his perspective, or rather, from the perspective that he wants you to look at. Now, this opposed to the popcorn flick theme of the MCU or any other movie franchise which has a 'anyone can enjoy' premise is entirely different, and an audience who has been accustomed to the idea of going to the theatres to laugh and enjoy would find this idea painful and someone like that would most probably resort to the most simple thing he/she can do -hate. Zack, for me makes movies which feels like a painting, or a poem, or better yet, a combination of them both. He, as we can see in this movie is not trying to selling the story as much as an idea. If the reader is able to distinguish between a 'scene' and a 'moment' you'd understand what I'm about to say ( basically a moment is the first thing that you remember about a good movie when you're thinking about it, or if you're discussing it with your friends, like the joker monologue from the TDK, the elevator fight from CA: Winter Soldier, etc) Scenes in a movie guides the viewer through the story of the movie and the moments mostly don't, they don't necessarily control the story of the movie in a broader view. Snyder breaks this trope by making his movie all about moments, you could say that he (like me) is a moment slut. In BvS, the scenes in the movie weren't about the story, they were always leading into the moment, and every moment was crafted beautifully, every aspect with well constructed lines and stunning visuals, and the moments in turn crafts the story of the movie. Now, this is a quite different storytelling method, and quite complex too, and because Snyder chose this method, he expects a lot of intelligence,and moreover, patience from the audience. This change in the storytelling device used and the fact that 90% of the audience wanted a showdown was in the ring with a political drama about Gods and the dilemma of good and evil all crafted like a Victorian era poem, and the former winning was not unprecedented.
Batman v Superman, like I said before is trying to sell an idea, not the story itself, but the idea that is embodied within the story, here, the idea is not a device to tell the story, the story, is a device to convey the idea. What if we had 'Gods among us'( pun intended)? What if, Jesus was born in the 21st century? What if God had cast Lucifer out in this age? A beautiful, short version of this was actually there in the first Thor movie when Loki jokes "this is not like your visits to earth when they treat you like a God" and then when Thor was actually cast out and sent to earth, that was not the treatment he received, that movie deals with that part pretty lightly and like most marvel movies, took those high stakes and converted them into a joke, but BvS handles this differently. To explain this, let me give you an insight on the main characters of the movie, (do mind that these characters, and their ideologies are what guides the movie) Superman /Clark, Batman / Bruce, Lois Lane, the media, the law. Okay, I guarantee that I am writing this whilst maintaining the highest possible level of sobriety. The movie has a "must there be a Superman?" montage, where the law, the people and the media talk about Superman, his feats, the general idea of having a Superman, do we need one? Who is he? What is he trying to do? Etc. This sequence doesn't come in the middle of the movie, or the end, it doesn't leave a cliffhanger, because it's not trying to, it came almost at the beginning of the movie, asking us a question, "Must there be a God?" Media plays their key role in movie throughout, Batman and Lex who in this movie basically share some similar ideologies, which is that an alien can't be trusted with the security of the world. Of course, both these men have different reasons and different motives even though the core ideologies are the same - Lex Luthor is a man with a dark childhood, in his scene with Superman towards the end of the movie, he talks about God, about Gods being tribal and bad, he says "No man in the sky intervened to deliver me from my daddy's fists and abominations, I figured it out way back, if God is all powerful, he cannot be all good, if he's all good, he cannot be all powerful", I personally could relate a lot to this character and his motives(minus the genius maniac part), I'm an atheist, and everytime I get into an argument about it, I always raise the point... If there exists an omnipotent being, why is there evil in this world? If he's a person letting this evil happen, then ( if he exists) shouldn't be worshipped. These points later converge to the motives and ideologies of Bruce Wayne. The common misconception is that Bruce is angry because Superman destroyed his building, that's wrong people, Bruce, like Lex is afraid that such power without any control or supervision is dangerous. He says "even if there's a one percent chance that he's our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty, we have to destroy him", this is a high stakes round, it's about the security of the world, as Bruce himself puts it, "this maybe the only thing I do that matters" so to all the people questioning Bruce's plan to kill Superman, think about it, what if he's right, what if Superman isn't Superman? What if he's an evil person? Batman, or Bruce, here is not himself, he's not the greatest detective in the world, he's not the dark Knight now , he's a man who can't differentiate between revenge and justice anymore. Both these characters exhibit a form of xenophobia, combined with a concern for the welfare of humanity and flawed pasts. While batman in the end is redeemed and is made to understand of his faults, Lex stands firm on his ideas and resorts to a last resort, which was doomsday.
Now to get to Superman, he's a newborn superhero, a man who is trying to fulfill the dreams of his father and to live up to his kryptonian heritage. As is mentioned in the 'Must there be a Superman ' montage, "maybe he's not a devil or Jesus character, maybe he's just a guy trying to do the right thing" . This is true about the character, he doesn't want to be anyone's Jesus, he doesn't want to be anyone's prophet, he doesn't want glory or dominion, he just wants to help make the world a better place. In John Green's Paper Towns, there is a line," What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.".I believe that this quote applies directly to supeman is so many ways. Here, in the world, Superman is seen and judged by three different perspectives :

1) To some people, superman is a God, a savior sent from above to save them. This is mostly anyone Superman has saved.
2) To the others, he's an alien who doesn't belong here, these are probably the people who's only knowledge of him is the fact that he's an alien, this is the perfect immigrant situation.
3) To the rest, he's evil, these are the ones who might've been affected badly (like Wallace) or people who just hate the idea of unchecked power. (like Bruce and Lex)

All these types of people, have a common source, a source from which they've formulated their ideas on this being : The media, this further explains and establishes my point on media being a character that defines and controls the narrative and story of the movie.
Another huge complaint about the narrative is 'bvs was overstuffed'. If you ask me, it wasn't overstuffed. The film, as it's star Henry Cavill said, is fairly niche. Snyder wanted this movie to be a part of an arc. In other popular movie franchises, there are movies and then you have its sequels. But Snyder's vision is different, every movie in the DCEU under him feels like the next chapter in book, or like the next issue of a comic book, so to judge this movie's story or narrative without considering the complete vision of the arc is criminal.
In the end, Batman v Superman : dawn of justice UE may not be everyone's cup of tea, it may not even be a great film or a masterpiece like I think, but the fact that the movie stands for something more than just standard superhero tropes, the fact that what the movie tried to accomplish transcends into something more than we'd ever expect from a superhero movie is commendable. Maybe, in a decade or so, people will understand Snyder, his choices and his movies, especially BvS, and let this article, be my way of saying "told you"