Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition is it worth it?

So in March I left the cinema at first in awe of one of the most anticipated Superhero movies ever Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. At first, I was overloaded by the great parts of this movie that I was blind to its faults, but with reviews and a re-watch, I realised that Batman V Superman really did leave a lot to be desired and explained.

But don’t despair here comes the Batman V Superman Ultimate edition with an extra 30 minutes of footage that for some inexplicable reason was left out of the theatrical version so the debate began and is still being waged on whether it is worth buying this Blu-ray edition.

Well, I watched the ultimate edition to see whether it solved many of the theatrical editions shortcomings. However, I needed to watch it as a new standalone movie then compare it to the original so I wasn’t biassed to any of the failings I have already seen.

Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition opens up to a visually dramatic and emotive interpretation to the murder of the Waynes, this scene is beautifully crafted with slow motion and a subtle yet responsive score that still makes you feel for Bruce Wayne. This scene insights emotion that sets this interpretation of the Wayne murder away from the others in movie history.

Then we are treated to an alternate view of the climax to Man of Steel with that inspires a sense of chaos and fear as from this perspective we almost get an idea how the people of metropolis would have felt, what is happening? How many aliens are there? Who is fighting whom? All of these are perfect examples of the ingenious emotive screen work by Zack Snyder, much of  the best visual scenes are directly from iconic comic books.

This movie of men, messiah and monsters isn’t driven by action but by story, emotion, philosophy and past sins of in-universe characters.

Henry Cavil’s Superman is portrayed as a tortured lonely soul who feels that regardless of what he does good or bad the people of earth will never except him. Ben Affleck is a war-hardened Robinless Batman who considers discourse forlorn and is near to forgetting why he became Batman and is at odds with the father like Alfred, who is played brilliantly by Jeremy Irons as a wise, worried patience tested mentor, who can do nothing to stop the man he’s cared for, loved for decades change into the thing he started out to stop.

Lois Lane is actually portrayed as an overly curious investigative reporter in this movie similar to in Man of Steel, she starts to piece together one part of Lex Luthor’s dastardly plan. This Lex may be unique compared to previous incarnations but is flawlessly depicted by Jessie Eisenberg as father fearing, god hating, high functioning genius psychopath who manages to craft the near perfect plan to push the Jaded Broken Batman over the top to catch the attention of the principled god-like superman whom Luthor hates due to the abuse he received as a child.

Last but certainly not least Wonder Woman, an exotic yet extremely dangerous warrior who is marvellously played by Gal Gadot who simply steals every scene she is in. This film makes you really feel for Superman, who is prepared to do anything to protect the world which majoritively doesn’t trust him till it needs him, and Batman who his completely outplayed by Lex Luthor and manipulated to do things he normally wouldn’t do.

I personally was very happy with the Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition I would give this movie a solid 8/10 compared to the clenched 6.9/10 for the theatrical version.

Now the important bit does it mend the issues of the theatrical version? To answer this, I’ll go through the issues of the theatrical and say if it has changed/ ratified with the Ultimate Edition. I’ll try my best to be spoiler-free.

Wait They blame Superman for the Africa incident, last time I checked he doesn’t use guns. Yes, this was a big issue of the Theatrical version since all we saw was some mercs shoot some terrorists and Superman save Lois and suddenly he's on trial seems really odd. Well in the Ultimate they flesh out the Africa scene and show that they properly frame Superman.

Wait Why does Clark dislike Batman? Again in the theatrical version, they only show Clark see a newsreel and some paper clippings, wherein the Ultimate they show Clark doing some actual investigative journalism that makes Superman dislike the Batman.

Wait Lex did what now? There is little explanation of Lex’s plans except some insane rhetoric to Lois Lane atop the helipad in the theatrical version, where the ultimate version actually shows Lex’s plans progress and fills in some blanks.

Wait that was Batman V Superman Fight? Yes, one the biggest complaints about the film I have heard is that the Batman V Superman fight is too short, in the ultimate version they add a new scene to that fight.

Unfortunately, there are some issues with the movie that it isn’t fixed with the Ultimate Edition. The Batman V Superman fight is just too short in a film called Batman V Superman and to only have their fight be 8 minutes long in a 3-hour film is wrong. How Doomsday was created was an issue for some as in the source material he was an ancient creature that landed on earth millennia ago, the only recourse I can offer is that some believe that Lex created a copy as the ship AI said it was “forbidden by the council of krypton to recreate the abomination with no name”.

There is one issue that is constantly circulated and in my opinion can be overlooked, is the MARTHA issue. This issue has so little to do with their mums having the same name. By asking Batman (his potential killer) to save his human mother Superman humanises himself in batman’s eyes suddenly Superman isn’t this Godlike demon who wants the earth destroyed but a helpless and selfless son who can’t save his mother, just like Bruce was when his mother died.

Batman lets Superman live and saves Martha as penance for his deeds and restores him to the old Batman that doesn’t kill unless absolutely necessary. This is shown by him sparing Lex and not even branding him.

To surmise is the Ultimate edition worth it? Well that depends, if you left the theatrical version confused feeling like you missed something then yeah it is it makes the plot make more sense and allows the subplots to mean something, if you already feel as though you knew most of the additional information and understood the plot then probably not worth the money and best wait till it is cheaper.

However, there is no doubt in my mind that The Ultimate Edition is a considerably better film than the theatrical version. but you may be asking if it has so many flaws why have you given it the same rating a suicide squad? well the flaws in Batman V Superman are based on the amount of action and the mismarketing around it. Where the action wasn't the main element of this movie, the story was and the acting and writing was sound and the plot in the ultimate edition was very well crafted. To be realistic for more action to be injected there would have to be a rewrite since all non-action scenes are needed to complete the complicated yet compelling story and the movie is already 3 hours long.

I can't begin to fathom the depths of the stupidity that made Warner Bros cut 30 minutes of footage and 2 characters from the movie, This was not a conventional superhero movie it was driven by story, drama and heartfelt emotion but the theatrical version was edited to make the story jumbled and hard to decipher thus removing you from the immersion and emotion of the film. I just hope that Warner Bros doesn't continue this trend of mucking around with the films and the mismarketing that twice now has caused fans to be disappointed.