Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Warner Bros. | Release Date: March 25, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
31
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 23, 2016
This movie isn’t nearly as terrible as I was expecting, largely due to Snyder’s OCD-level attention to the visual details. And, yes, due to Wonder Woman (played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot), who brings in a badly needed dose of “Dragon Tattoo”-style female energy. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMar 23, 2016
This is a movie that, to its detriment, takes itself very, very seriously for most of its running time. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 23, 2016
Yes, questions regarding violence and mayhem are drowned out by violence and mayhem. Such is the superhero life as directed by Zack Snyder. There is no problem that can't be solved with a cranium-rattling explosion or two. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt MaytumMar 22, 2016
While Batman v Superman has no trouble quickening the pulse, it’s less effective when it comes to making you care. Read full review
60
The GuardianAndrew PulverMar 22, 2016
It’s tough to take all the hardcore emoting seriously, particularly as the emotional heavy lifting is designed to be done by the occasional maudlin line in brief pauses between the explosions. For a film so concerned with its characters’ inner lives, there’s a fundamental disconnect going on here – enough to make you yearn for the lighter touch of the Marvel films. Read full review
60
EmpireNick de SemlyenMar 22, 2016
There are moments that make the whole enterprise worthwhile, and introduces an intriguing new Batman. But it’s also cluttered and narratively wonky; a few jokes wouldn’t have gone amiss, either. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 22, 2016
I get that this mano a supermano story line is a sacred text among comic-book aficionados, but Dawn of Justice doesn’t do the tale any favors. It’s overstuffed, confusing, and seriously crippled by Eisenberg’s over-the-top performance. Read full review
55
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 22, 2016
That face-off between two comics legends becomes but one in a series of big things bashing into other big things, which is what Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer mistake for storytelling. The trio do manage to cough up an acceptable number of ooh-that’s-cool moments, and fans who will be satisfied with those will be satisfied with those, but any other ideas and characters the movie might offer get lost in the rubble. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 23, 2016
It plants a flag for a new corporate entertainment franchise and it will make international containerships of money, so does it matter that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is joyless and incoherent? Probably not. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMar 23, 2016
Of course, the film is critic-proof, but as a longtime comic book (and film) nerd, I can say with some surety that Snyder has crammed too much of a great thing into his film, resulting in a super-slog that has just too much of everything. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMar 23, 2016
A sequel that functions as origin story, apologia, and harbinger of a second expanded universe of overpopulated action bonanzas. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMar 23, 2016
I recommend “Batman v. Superman” to anyone who thought director Zack Snyder showed too much restraint in “300,” who felt “Man of Steel” whisked by too briefly or who wondered how Ben Affleck could be made to seem one of America’s most animated actors while clenching his jaw as tight as a Christmas nutcracker. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 22, 2016
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was supposed to settle a fanboy debate older than Adam West. Instead it raises another: Is being a superhero really this much of a drag? Read full review
50
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMar 22, 2016
The movie's not bad but it doubles down on its least-interesting and potent elements at the expense of those that actually work. In the end, the film is as forgettable as the dime-store philosophy that fuels it. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickMar 22, 2016
While “300" maestro Snyder puts together some very striking scenes — which may be enough for many fanboys — they never really cohere into a whole. He literally throws in the kitchen sink in a film that frantically introduces characters and concepts while never clearly establishing the rules of the DC Comics universe. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMar 22, 2016
This huge, unwieldy movie is busy and overcrowded. Read full review
42
HitfixDrew McWeenyMar 23, 2016
I’m not sure how a filmmaker whose work normally speaks to me as clearly as Snyder’s does could deliver something that feels this confused, this impersonal, and this corporate. It is a confounding mess of a movie, and while there are individual sequences that I enjoyed as isolated moments, it is almost breathtakingly incoherent storytelling. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 23, 2016
Batman V Superman takes a title fight kids of all ages have been speculating about for decades—costumed titan from the cosmos, meet costumed vigilante from the city—and invests it with all the fun of a protracted custody battle. Read full review
42
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanMar 22, 2016
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t a film. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour movie trailer. Better yet, it’s one of those videos that pop up on screens before a ride at Universal Studios, where all the actors speak to you and keep hinting at bigger things to come — you know, like a ride? Basically, it’s everything the SEO-friendly title promises — and more. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRuss FischerMar 22, 2016
Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice is an extraordinarily odd, idiosyncratic movie that presents aggressive, even warlike concepts of Batman and Superman without entirely justifying the eccentric visions. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnMar 22, 2016
Rather than focusing on a cataclysmic showdown between pop culture's most famous men in tights, Zack Snyder's flashy, cacophonous follow-up to 2013's "Man of Steel" is basically one long teaser for the next installment. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 28, 2016
The winner, on points, is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), who crashes the party and leaves them both dumbfounded, not least because she has the wit, and the wherewithal, to confront evil while wearing a conical bustier. Read full review
40
CineVueBen NicholsonMar 24, 2016
Everything looks incredible, but the players are all just ciphers for ideas that Snyder lacks the wherewithal to execute. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 23, 2016
There’s enough going on to keep you watching — and, as I said, to keep fanboys wowed by the scale of the production and pretension. But most people will leave feeling drained and depressed, wondering how a studio can get away with withholding so much. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Mar 22, 2016
It's all angst and no adventure, a lot of fury and little fun. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 22, 2016
Batman v Superman lunges for greatness instead of building toward it: It’s so topheavy with false portent that it buckles under its own weight. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 22, 2016
In Snyder’s formulation, protecting the world from evil isn’t a gift or a calling; it’s a burden. And that feeling is reflected in the movie itself, a burdensome 150-minute slog about two men fighting over who is in the right when both are very clearly in the wrong. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 22, 2016
No major blockbuster in years has been this incoherently structured, this seemingly uninterested in telling a story with clarity and purpose. Read full review
40
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMar 22, 2016
Gorging on bombast and self-importance, swamped by its own mythology, Batman v Superman is loud, sprawling, and distracted. The action jumps around almost as fast as a man can fly, but nowhere near as smoothly. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 22, 2016
The villain here, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, is so intensely annoying that, very early on, you wish Batman and Superman would just patch up their differences and join forces to put the squirrely rascal out of his, and our, misery. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 22, 2016
If there’s any justice, dawning or otherwise, at the multiplex, audiences will reject Zack Snyder’s lumbering, dead-on-arrival superhero mélange, a $250 million tombstone for a genre in dire need of a break. Read full review
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