Directed by Zack Snyder Produced by Charles Roven Deborah Snyder Written by Chris Terrio David S. Goyer Cinematography Larry Fong Edited by David Brenner

Despite my immense dislike for the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I would not say that I “hated” it. As the FilmCritHulk says “NEVER HATE A MOVIE”. Coming out of the theatrical experience the best adjective for my mood was disappointment. The theatrical cut of that film was a humongous failure on two interconnected levels: technically, the editing on a macro-micro level is, atrocious, which effected the representation of the rich characters found in the DC Universe. Going into this new cut of the film, I didn’t expect much; perhaps something akin to Ben Affleck’s other superheroic vehicle, Daredevil. That films director’s cut gave the film 20 more minutes overall, and, with it coherence, a functional story to tell, on top of the clearly loving recreation of Daredevil’s iconography. The extra roughly thirty minutes in BvS gives the film more coherence in that scenes have better flow, Its funny how watching scenes with beginnings, middles, and ends is an overall more pleasurable experience to just seeing the middle portion. It does not, however, stop the “Ultimate Cut” from feeling overly long and while lacking both coherent internal logic and, emotional sense. Certain plot details are expanded on (the wheelchair was laced with lead) but the major fundamentally flawed beats still exist and this expanded cut dose nothing to correct how wrong headed and nonsensical the plotting of this movie is.

The film dose flow better, in that the extended scenes make the cutting to one another a less jarring viewing experience. small little side conversations are included that help to recontextualize larger scenes, such as Senator Finch finding out about Luthor’s conspiracy and seeming attempts to bring it to the light or that the Wheelchair was laced with lead (a feat related to Superman I’m not sure they’ve made text yet). But these new tangible details don’t enumerate the overall illogical and emotionally dead storytelling going on. Esienberg’s Luthor is still a mad twitchy mess before his communion with Steppenwolf, his reasons for hating Superman are explained in the same rapid, overlapping, clip none of them sticking. I’m still not certain how Bruce Wayne new of Kryptonite’s existence and that it would negatively affect Superman before he stole it. It’s a moment of relying on audience understanding that is the universal understanding of what it does. For a movie all about questioning superheroes and power, no one takes a second to step back and think beyond Lois (Amy Adams comes off slightly better). All the fundamental storytelling problems found in the theatrical cut are unsurprisingly still in here.

The biggest additions to the feature mostly involves Henery Cavill as Clark Kent or Superman. Which isn’t surprising with how clearly cut out of the movie he was, despite being the titular co-lead. The North Africa sequence is longer, the CIA photographer gets to clearly state he is “Jimmy Olsen” and the beginning of Luthor’s mad conspiracy to discredit Superman is more clearly shown. The particulars and his entire scheme overall still don’t make sense, powered by plot and nothing else. We get some Clark Kent as journalist, in a pair of new scenes that, combined, last about 5 minutes’ total. It’s not much, but with how reactive his character was shown in Man of Steel, getting to see him take the initiative and investigate the Batman (a seemingly new phenomenon for him in the 18 months since Man of Steel) is a nice change of pace. Cavill is still shortchanged whenever preforming in the Superman suit, in that suit he seems to have the emotive range and demeanor of a wet log. You’d think there were some alternate takes they could’ve used.

With how little Clark or Superman was shown in the original cut of the film, and the overall tenor of his presentation, it’s hard not to get the impression that Zack Snyder hates Superman. Upon further inspection, I think it’s more that his worldview cannot comprehend Superman, his empathy, and willingness to selflessly help people. I’ve previously written on this, how that negative view is represented in the fact that Batman is shown to have come first, which is counter to the DC way of doing things. Unable to comprehend Superman’s innate heroism, Snyder is wedged into a series of half measures. He cannot show Superman not acting like a superhero, but that doesn’t mean he has to show him acting that way for long either. The “heroic” montage after the library sequence shows Superman saving a person and looking away like that was the worst thing he’d done, hovering above them implying he will save them - or pulling a random ship through ice - but he and the film never stay and actually helping people with clean up. In an extension to the Capital Hill bombing (a sequence that continues to have negligible effect on the story) he is shown saving a single person. And then he stares mopey eyed at Lois and flies away, with everyone wondering where he went with the cleanup not even half finished. Snyder attacks Supermans innate heroism as being old fashioned and out of touch with characters like Perry White, mocking Clark for wanting to do good journalism and not giving into the cynicism around him. You get the impression Perry lives in Gotham with a worldview like that. Snyder systematically gates Superman off from the world, and a Superman who is not of the people isn’t Superman.

The most traditionally heroic moments of the movie are at the start during the redux of Man of Steels catastrophic finale wherein Bruce Wayne saves some people. However, given that this sequence was preceded by Bruce’s admitted own idyllic dream coded origins as well as the recurring oral motif of the World Engine sequential humming in all following dream sequences, I’m left believing that none of what we saw really happened. It’s all a psychic construction by Wayne meant to assuage his feelings of helpless victimhood, instituting him as the righteous crusader against Superman. The Knightmare sequence continues to be a muddled mess one part clearly coded as dream (you hear the World Engine) one-part vision of the future brought on by the Flash…somehow, who once again reminds everyone Batman is right and Superman is the worst.

The film’s view of Superman reveals how juvenilely cynical the films world view is as, it parades around as “mature storytelling”. The film beats you over the head at least three times in the first hour with how there is a reaction to every action, that no one can be neutral. Which is all well and good, except it never shows anything good coming out of any action. That is such a profoundly un-inspiring and anti-heroic stance to take in a movie supposedly about the meeting of the Trinity of superheroes, then again there are no heroes to be found here. The film continually points towards interesting and weighty themes and is unable to explore them, as if the declaration is praise worthy in and of itself. This one note nature gives me pause when Deborah Snyder, creative and life partner of Zack Snyder, talks about learning in the reaction to BvS “that people don't like seeing their heroes deconstructed.” No. We do if the story is told well, and in the case of BvS it isn’t in either cut. They did nothing to deconstruct either character because they haven’t been constructed in this new context, everything exists as a hollow aesthetic homage to much better work. Draping them in a veil of cynicism and brutality is not getting to the heart of these characters.

A lot has rightly been made about the film receiving an admittedly justified, if still incomprehensible, ‘R’ rating from the MPAA. It’s a first for both characters and is antithetical to the character of Superman, and, yes even the Dark Knight. Then again with the anecdotal evidence I’ve received and read in regards to this movie and parents with children, it’s not likely the ‘R’ rating will drive what exists of this films audience away. This cut of the movie rightly is rated ‘R’ for “Sequences of Violence”, this version of the film is pretty wet (read: bloody). And while I applaud it for showing the violent ends to violent actions; I am simultaneously horrified when it involves Batman bashing anonymous henchmen into walls and other seemingly sturdy construction material who now leave a trail of blood as they smash into the floor. They somehow found a way to make Batman even more of an unsympathetic murdering asshole; Zack must’ve read All-Star Batman & Robin as well. The blood was cut for the PG-13 version, so why not leave it that way? He’s already over the limits, so why push him further? All but one of the new scenes involves violence (when that branding victim we see at the beginning is shanked to death) and even then you could easily reframe it and have the same PG-13 result. The bits of viscera don’t transform this into a better viewing experience. In writing about the announcement to the “Ultimate Edition”, Devin Faraci said “at the very least approaching a new superhero universe only from the point of view of extreme realism and deconstruction would deny the basic pleasures of the genre.” That’s what I received from this film (in both cases) a narratively confounding one note dourer movie with no pleasure for the characters or stories that have made it the dominant film genre.

So yes, the “Ultimate Edition” is better but it’s also worse in ways and still not the movie or story that needed to be told right now. After watching this, despite the recent PR buzz turnaround in regards to Justice League, it’s reminded me why we should all be very very weary of Zack Snyder’s next feature. Batman v Superman cinematographer Larry Fong was right when he initially tweeted “Those of you who are fans, will dig it. If you hated it, you'll still hate it.” In regards to the reaction this cut of film would engender. Maybe the film isn’t the Knightmare it was before but it’s still a very bad dream I’d like to forget.

I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org