Bombast and bloat: the bread and butter of the superhero movie in 2016. Some, sporadically, sometimes choose to eschew these trends; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice embodies them, emulates them, wrings them dry. The film is dry - there's not a good laugh in it. There is so, so much in this film, and yet so little that we haven't all seen before. So what to say of such a film? That unrelenting bombast turns it into an exceptionally long, dull trailer, and that it is - whether for next year's first Justice League movie or for next year's Wonder Woman. If a trailer generates excitement, then Batman v Superman may be the most exciting film of the year, for what little time Gal Gadot appears on screen. Her character achieves about as much as either of the titular characters do: their mandate is to harumph at each other, and most everybody else, and to look like especially fuckable slabs of meat. Larry Fong's gloomy cinematography only makes this bleak, morally barren (yet entirely too thick to comment upon its burgeoning political streak) movie even grimmer, though it does frame Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill's bulging muscles in such a fashion as to make them appear all the more impossible not to want, even need to cling onto. Batman v Superman's homoeroticism is its MVP, though it's still leagues behind actual pornography, and thus even inferior to that (what isn't?!). Sleek, brutish set design by Patrick Tatopoulos and some fine work by the sound, stunt and composing teams elevate this expensive film's technical specs, though it's otherwise a soulless, thoughtless accomplishment. Bombast and bloat over 2 hours 30 minutes; 2 minutes 30 seconds, and this trailer just might have excited me.
