http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433246/batman-v-superman-culture-war-gets-mythic
BRAVO.
Fanboys do not own the franchises of Batman and Superman movies, so director Zack Snyder went against the mob and dared to raise the genre to a level of adult sophistication in 2013s Man of Steel, the most emotionally powerful superhero movie ever made.
It helps that Snyder is also visionary, inclined to extravagant spectacle and gifted with a signature erotic touch. An early montage equates violence, wealth, loss, and grief through symbolic images of bullets, pearls, blood, and tears.
Snyders opening sequences interweave the origin stories of these mythic heroes and their alter egos. What has become overly familiar through years of repetition acquires new dynamism and new understanding that particularizes and personalizes each wounded mans suffering. Not only are these time-shifts audacious (movie marquees announce the 1940 The Mark of Zorro and the 1981 Excalibur implying the evolution of history), but so is Snyders proposition about the nature of heroism and vengeance: Both stem from the way individuals react to and comprehend their experiences. Snyders thrillingly intelligent use of interior conflict and political antagonism vastly outclasses Christopher Nolans Batman trilogy: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises all noxious which were bellwethers of our cultures decline.
He creates the years first great movie image by examining Supermans divinity when he is surrounded by Day of the Dead multitudes. The image echoes our current desperation regarding populism and thats truly audacious.
In this age of petty Marvels, most comic-book movies merely perpetrate fantasies of power, but Snyder, enacting his personal aesthetic, braves a film that examines those fantasies. He boldly challenges popular cultures current decay.
Snyder intends to resolve the conflict between commerce and art, power and morality. Knowledge with no power is paradoxical, one character says. Man made a world where standing together is impossible, frets another. With Batman v Superman, the battle for the soul of American culture is on.
BRAVO.