Okay, where to begin? It's not awful but it damn sure isn't good.
It's start off pretty decently. We get another brief Batman origin. It's fine and thankfully didn't take up a lot of screentime. What really hooked me initially was watching the battle of Metropolis from Bruce Wayne's perspective. Very thrilling scene. Affleck really sells the feeling of a 9/11 and you understand(initially) why he seems to have a problem with Superman. We spend most of the first half or so with Affleck's Wayne doing detective work with Jeremy Irons's Alfred and this stuff is by far the best material of the movie. It's really the only thing that 100 percent works. We've never really seen that in a Batman film to this extent and Irons and Affleck have a wonderful back and forth with good chemistry through the whole film.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Superman's world. Cavill is not a bad Superman at all but he's given much more lackluster material this time around. He and Lois as a couple are not that convincing. You never feel they're a real couple. We are told it but you do not feel it. Early on we get a scene that...invalidates Superman for the entire film. Lois is in Africa and there's a terrorist guy holding Lois and instead of Superman using his speed to snap Lois away or something, Superman plunges the guy through a wall. Killing him instantly. Then just a couple of scenes later, Clark is watching a news report about Batman branding criminals. Clark just killed a man. But Batman "branding" someone is...too far? WHAT?
We then spend a sizable part of the film with various characters, government officials and celebrity cameos debating whether or not Superman is a good guy or not. It's not bad but it's not special either. And it doesn't help that everytime Superman saved anybody or did anything he had a look on his face like someone just asked him to work overtime at work. There's no joy to this character. He seems angry all the time.
While all of this is going on..Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne are spending all their time trying to get Kryptonite. Jesse Eisenberg's Luthor is terrible in every way. I love Eisenberg in most films he's in but here, he's just annoying beyond belief. I just wanted him to stop talking in almost every scene he's in. Just intolerable. Lex Luthor is a failure on every level. I hope there's a backlash against him and they say his dad that he kept referring to is the real Lex and this Lex...Lex jr. just goes away.
There's a suicide bomb at a hearing for Superman's "actions" and that was the only time in the film, Superman works as a character. The look on his face when he's the only survivor of the bomb. And then he and Lois have a conversation about it and I really felt for him. Then he talks about him being "a farmer's dream" which makes no sense because his father seemingly wanted him to have jack ***** to do with saving people and exposing his secret so that makes their whole conversation meaningless.
There's an meh scene with Superman and Pa Kent where we learn collateral damage runs in his family.
Speaking of hallucinations, let's talk about Batman's "dreams". They're stupid. I'm a DC fan, I can see that we're looking at parademons but it's not presented well at all. When things like that happen in Marvel films, I always hear none in the know audience members excitingly asking "who's that"? Here it was like, "wtf is going on?"
The Justice League setup is sloppy and lackluster. I don't know what the hell is going on with the Flash but his costume(or speed force time travel suit or whatever) is awful. "You were right about him!" Just came out of nowhere. Aquaman looks...okay. I'm strangely intrigued by the Cyborg scene. I had no idea they cast Joe Morton as his dad. That actually looks like a decent film. It won't happen, but it looks decent.
Lex kidnaps Martha Kent to get Superman to fight Batman. Batman is already ready to beat on Superman because Lex has been sending him "you're a failure" notes that look like they were written by Joker. I thought, please don't let Superman rush over there and start pummeling Batman without attempting to talk to him. That would've been it for me. Thankfully, Superman goes in trying to talk to him but...it's not enough. Batman smacks him around so much that it seemingly makes Superman mad and then they're both going at it without holding back. But the fight isn't all that great. It mainly consists of Batman firing/shooting something at Superman, Superman smacking it away, Batman firing Kryptonite at him, Superman gets weak, Batman pummels him, rinse repeat. That is NOT that exciting. It should be but it isn't. The fight is invalidated by Superman just giving in to being annoyed and going full force at Batman. It's ludicrous.
The fight is stopped when Batman discovers he and Superman's mom's have the same name. Someone at WB must've been dying to USE that for something for awhile. Suddenly, Batman forgets all his animosity towards Superman just like that with no reservations(because the movie has no time to let Batman get to that place, the plot necessitates he get over it RIGHT NOW. Bull*****.). It's like we're missing a scene where he and Superman talk about it. I know Martha was in danger but we NEEDED SOMETHING. Batman saves Martha Kent(in an admittedly cool fight scene) and Superman confronts Luthor who has turned Zod into an incredibly *****ty looking cgi monster...I mean, umm..Doomsday.
From there, the film starts feeling like a video game but an admittedly fun one. Superman and Wonder Woman fight Doomsday while Batman...swings around. I haven't mentioned Wonder Woman until now because she left no impression on me whatsoever. In her extremely limited screentime, she searches for a photo of her from WWI that proves she's immortal and then at the end she helps fight Doomsday. She has maybe 7 lines total. Gal Gadot's test will come next year when her movie comes out but right now, I'm unimpressed. Superman and Doomsday kill each other and it's an unearned death of Superman.
Then we have a completely ridiculous montage of the world mourning Superman that rings hollow because up until this point in the movie, every character just questioned Superman's merits and morals and nobody celebrated him as an hero except the poor and the downtrodden. Earlier in the movie(which takes place 18 months after Man of Steel) we have a giant Superman statue...in a city where people constantly question Superman's honor? NONSENSICAL. Then to close we have hamfisted nonsense about Batman "failing him(superman" in life....YOU NEVER LIKED HIM! YOU LIKED HIM FOR 5 MINUTES! WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT?!) and then talking to Wonder Woman about finding the "people like her". Ugh.
Overall, I didn't hate it. There were some really cool moments and sequences. Everything between Bruce and Alfred was wonderful. Affleck is a surprisingly decent BAtman. But most everything else either doesn't work at all or is just okay. I'm disappointed. I've seen far worse superhero films but I mean, Man of Steel has it's problems, but it's a far better film. This, at times, felt like a series of scenes that were just edited after each other instead of an film that has a flowing story with scene that connect.
Average at best and I'm now legitimately worried about Justice League.