Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Cut
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So, BvS... Been a few months since it's (rather controversial) release and just as the dust has settled down WB has released an extended version of the film, labeled the Ultimate Cut in the sense of it holding so much value in terms of content (as stated by Zack Snyder himself). Is this true? That's what I'm writing this for. I wrote a
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for the film when it came out back in March so for my overall thoughts on the movie and the context it's good to check it out first. So, let's begin.
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I'm going to keep this review short and only pay attention to these 3 things regarding the new scenes:
- story
- action
- overall worth
For the most people, the negative opinion of the theatrical version comes from it's story which is by many seen as a convoluted, uncoherent, lackluster mess. So the crucial question here should be: does the cut fix this? The answer is... kinda? Indeed, the new scenes do add more depth to the story, flesh out certain characters and their relations to other characters thus clearing out most of the things people labeled as plot holes, however the extent to which they accomplish this is what will count for you.
Technically we do get stuff that clears a lot of things up and makes them better, however the things I expected this cut to hold (in terms of expanding the story) seem to be only a part of the whole package. So those story building moments won't be the full 30-minutes deal but only a part of it with the rest going to other (mostly unnecesarry and pointless) things.
So in short, we do get plot holes cleared up and we get to understand certain characters *cough*Lex*cough* better, but the movie still forces the viewer to put 2 and 2 together in order to get the whole picture, so if you didn't like that in the theatrical version, this version won't help too much (though it does help quite a lot).
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So, the story is there, but what about the action? Sadly, this is where the cut utterly disappointed me. I didn't expect much from a 30 minutes of additional content (as it did have a lot of things in it) but I feel like a lot more could've been added in. Don't get me wrong, there is added action in there. The Bats vs Supes fight is extended as are other things like Batmobile chase however... the extended parts are short. And I mean ridiculously short. For example we only had one new scene (that I can remember atleast) in the BvS fight and it only lasts a few seconds.
So if you expected a longer fight, unless you were talking seconds, you'll be disappointed.
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Overall experience of the movie is thus quite divisive. It certainly ups the performance and makes the movie better, but the thing is that it could've done more. The story is undeniably improved and the action is only slightly extended but there are still things that bothered me with this cut. The most important downside to it is that a lot of the scenes we get in this edition are completely useless. We have a lot of small extensions (I'm talking 10-20 seconds) to many already existing scenes. Some of them are cool, some of them are not.
This wouldn't bothered me though had the studio used all the potential scenes and only added the pointless shorts after. The problem is that there are still scenes that haven't been shown! For example, even in this cut we still don't see the scene where Batman says "It's time you learned what it means to be a man." (The line was in the trailers btw.) Also, we still didn't get the long awaited scene where Superman goes to look for his kidnapped mother. (A scene mentioned by Zack Snyder in an interview.) So, not only did they stuff some boring stuff in, they actually left out some stuff that would've been interesting to see.
Now, there may be an aditional third cut as was the case with Watchmen which would include these scenes in a sort of 4 hour version, but I find it unlikely as this version is already called the "Ultimate" cut. What are they gonna call it? Ultimate ultimate cut? For that reason mostly, I find this version to be unworthy of the name "Ultimate" and the "Director's cut" would be a more appropriate (toned down) name.
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So in short:
While this cut definitely does increase the movie's value and provide some more interesting content, I cannot help but feel that a good chance has been missed and the cut hasn't been used to it's full potential. Overall though, I liked the film back when it came out and still like it, but still hold to an opinion that this could've been a much better movie had the studio made some slight changes.
That said, the original score doesn't change much, but if I had to change it, looking back now, I'd probably give it a 3.5-3.7, atleast until we get a real "ultimate cut", whenever that may be.
