Yes! I still managed to see this movie on the 3rd day it premiered in Indonesia. With still so many people in line watching it, I felt quite lucky to be able to buy it last minute in the theater near my home. Reason why I highlighted about the 3rd day was because on the 1st and 2nd day of the premier, I was still in Bali having my vacation with my wife @yennymakanmulu (which she will tell you all about it in her own blog with same name) and I thought I would not have the chance to watch it until the weekend or later.
This movie was 2.5 hours long, so there were plenty to talk about. However, it's going to be challenging to write about this movie without giving spoilers. It's really annoying when people loooove to brag about watching movies earlier than anyone else AND telling about the surprise, the twist, or even worst, the ending. Anyway, I will try my best to do so, to avoid the wrath of people around me.... :)
Movie started with the brief scene of young Bruce Wayne's history and later became Batman and moved on to the older Bruce Wayne (played by Ben Affleck) getting worried and upset about the impact of major fight between Superman and General Zod (from "Man of Steel"). He managed to save a little girl and also helped 1 of his employees, Wallace, whose legs were severed due to heavy concrete dropped on them. We could see that Bruce Wayne was not approving of Superman's method as there were heavy casualties.
18 months later, Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams) went to interview a terrorist in a secretive place, but the interview was sabotaged and Superman (Henry Cavill) had to come and rescue Lois.
With the various actions done by Superman, a lot of people were not really approving the methods. There were scenes where public opinions were divisive. Some adored him like God, while others were worried that Superman could do anything without anyone controlling him. One of such person was the influential Senator June (played by Holly Hunter) who believed in putting restraints on Superman. We were also introduced to Lex Luthor (played by Jesse Eisenberg) who believed that the world must be prepared in the event it must control Superman. It was described that he knew the impact of kryptonite (green rocks from Krypton planet) on Superman. With the help of another senator, Lex managed to get his hand on the largest kryptonite found in Indian ocean imported into US and the access to the ship that General Zod used when he came to earth.
The next various scenes would describe how Batman become more and more disapproving of Superman's activities, while Superman was not too agreeing to Batman's vigilante actions. There were also heated conversation between Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne about each alternate identities' methods of helping people. We were also introduced to Diana Prince (played by Gal Gadot) as the mysterious lady in a fundraiser activity held by Lex Luthor who appeared to have special agenda.
I do not want to give more details after this, as it would ruin the plots in the movie, but suffice to say the first half of the movie would make us understand why later on there had to be the fight between Batman and Superman.
I would say that the wait was really worthwhile coz the fight between these two superheroes were colossal. The fighting was incredible and spectacular as I would hope so. Both really showed their strengths and their weaknesses during this fight.
The main villain of this movie apart from Lex Luthor was Doomsday. People who read Superman comics or know enough from other sources would know who this character was and what he could do. Other noteworthy characters would definitely be Bruce's butler - Alfred (played I think greatly by Jeremy Irons) and Daily Planet's editor, Perry White (played by Laurence Fishburne).
I had enjoyable moment during the 2nd half of the movie as it was full of crazy fighting scenes, very cool special effects, and great sound effects (as I watched it in a theater with Dolby Atmos system). Not to say the 1st half is bad, but I was too much hoping for full action, so when there weren't that many, made me feel that the pace was a little bit slow to my preference. I personally was satisfied with how the film's plots were created. You could say that this movie is a little bit of Man of Steel's sequel, little bit of Batman's reboot, and little bit of prequel to Justice League movies (hence the title "Dawn of Justice").
I have read in some news especially from US that the critics are not liking this movie. For me, I would surely do not care about their opinions cause a lot of times, their opinions are like sh*t. As long as I had a great moment watching the movie, I would say the movie is worthy enough to be given the chance to see. I believe that in Indonesia, most people would want to watch it for the sake of bragging and curiosity, plus of course to enjoy cool action movie. So there is no need for me to encourage you to watch this movie, as you would surely watch it anyway, or would have watched it by the time this post is published...
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out 5 stars
Note:
Justice League is the term in DC comic books where some superheroes form an alliance to fight off very deadly & large villain(s). Very famous members of this Justice League are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, plus some others like Cyborg, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary and few others. I read somewhere that the Justice League movie is coming in 2017. Well I could not wait for that to come out. It would be a breath of fresh air in the flooding of Marvel's adaptation 2-3 times a year.
