Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition [4K UHD]

Batman vs. Superman was in part a sequel to Man of Steel and in part, a setup for The Justice League movie, introducing the new DCEU versions of Batman (played by Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), and via short cameos the new Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). It also brought back Amy Adams in her role as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and brought in Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.I won't go into too much of the storyline so as not to spoil it for the few who may not have seen the movie, but it essentially dovetails off the end of Man of Steel in which Metropolis was destroyed in the climactic fight between Superman and Zod. We see that battle from the perspective of Bruce Wayne who is trying to get to Wayne Financial to get his employees out of the building. This sets up his distrust of Superman, and then there is an 18-month time jump and Batman is becoming more violent which gets him on Superman's radar, and with Lex orchestrating things in the background, the two end up in battle, until they have to team up.The movie gets ragged on a lot, undeservedly so, in my opinion. It is clearly setting up a larger story and has to be seen as a piece in a multi-movie arc. While I do think it would have been better for DC to follow the Marvel format of setting up the characters in individual movies before bringing them together, so there would not have been so many logic jumps as this movie took, the plot does make sense (especially after you see it a couple of times), and the darker tone that Snyder used for the movie (really all the movies in his "Snyderverse" worked well. And, of course, when Joss Whedon attempted to shoehorn his brand of humor that worked in the MCU into the DCEU, it totally fell flat and was universally rejected.For those who get the blu-ray set, there are two blu-ray discs. One with the theatrical cut of the movie and the bonus features, and one with the Ultimate Edition of the movie that adds about 30 additional minutes to the run time. Some of the scenes are kind of useless, but others really flesh out how much Lex had put the events of the movie into motion. The extras included several behind-the-scenes and making-of features, character profiles for Wonder Woman and Batman, and shorter ones on the characters of Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. All, in all, there is about two hours' worth of extras, so those who like watching the bonus material will be satisfied.Also of note, there is a 4k version of the Ultimate Edition of the movie that does not include the theatrical version or any of the blu-ray extras, so even if you double-dip for that one, you probably want to hold on to this version unless you are only interested in the movie and just want the Ultimate Edition of the movie. The 4k version just has the movie itself and a commentary track that Snyder made just for the 4k restoration as the only extra. In his commentary, he does spoil his version of Justice League (identifying Martian Manhunter, for example) and generally discusses his vision for where the movies would have gone had he stayed on. The movie looks and sounds great (especially the restored IMAX scenes) in 4k UHD, and is, in my opinion, worth the double-dip.Overall, the movie is very good. Dark, but good, and it makes a lot of sense. I do think it could have used a better setup through a stand-alone Batman movie first to establish this version of Batman, and what turned him into the more jaded version of the character. I also think this movie would have benefitted from DC releasing the stand-alone Wonder Woman movie first to set her backstory. However, I do think that her extended cameo in this movie worked and was one of the reasons that the Wonder Woman movie did so well at the box office because viewers liked the taste of the character in this movie. But, despite the reputation it has as a bad movie, it is not. Affleck did a great job as an older, more jaded Batman, and I liked the idea of Batman trying to figure out how to stop an unstoppable alien. By now, however, the movie has been out long enough that people have their opinion of it. If you have not seen it, I would definitely give it a chance because it is not nearly as bad as some would have you believe.

When Man of Steel released 3 years ago I was looking forward to the new age of Superman movies, now made for a modern audience but without straying away from the source material too much. And while I enjoyed that movie greatly, I was happy to learn that this one will eventually lead to the current DC movie universe which will also give us the very first Justice League movie.BvS is only the 2nd movie in this universe. While the movie stands by itself for the most part, it really does follow up on the events of Man of Steel. The premise of the movie: The world is still debating themselves over if whether Superman is the hero they never asked for, or just a magnet for death and destruction. Batman, the self- proclaimed Gotham City vigilante, is building his own hatred towards Superman and the consequences of his actions, and starts planning a way to eliminate him which also includes seeking for other possible "meta- humans" around the world. Meanwhile young billionaire Lex Luthor finds himself plotting an overly complex plan for dominance which eventually involves pitting both 'heroes' to fight each other. Who will win?Before going to see the movie initially there were two things that I had in mind and these were really my only two prejudgments: 1) Neither of them should die because eventually they have to be in the Justice League, which leads me to 2) There will probably be some Spielberg- like excuse to have them not kill each other.With only that in mind, I saw the whole flick and I must say I was actually very entertained from start to finish. The movie does throws you off for the first half of it as it seems to throw random happenings at you, but then as you learn more about everyone's intentions to what they do everything starts clicking. The action scenes are very well made and it really makes Ben Affleck a great choice for Batman despite earlier mixed reactions. Henry Cavil remains a great Superman as well, and for the first time, we get to see Wonder Woman in all her live action film glory, which I must say Gal Gadot killed as well. I really like the political approach to the whole conflict, which is consistent with what Man of Steel built and it totally reflects how today's world would react to such events. I liked this version of Lex Luthor.. it was just so brilliantly portrayed. It was just an emotional joyride.As far as flaws I can say a few things: The theater version does cut out a lot of plot details that are very important specially right at the middle of the conflict, which we get to see in the Ultimate Edition. This is a rather unfortunate decision that has probably contributed to the divisive reception to the film. Also, there are parts of the plot that seemed a bit forced at times. Such as pitting the Gotham and Metropolis people, their meet up with Diana Prince, and the release of Doomsday. Again, the extended cut does help put better context to all of these, maybe if only a little bit more. Considering the intention of the movie and all the universes being mashed up together probably what people were expecting was a more "Marvel" approach of character build up. But we only really got one movie before this one and we will get those in the upcoming years. But, I will give DC the benefit of the doubt and see how they will put everything together. They still have time and they are entitled to do things at their own pace.Overall yes, BvS is a good flick and it makes justice to the DC Universe. It is not perfect, but it is certainly not deserving of the massive hate campaign it's been getting. The Ultimate edition in particular, is the version you need to watch so you get the full vision of the director.