Before I begin, it’s worth stating that this trailer has in no way altered my expectations for the film. I’m still looking forward to it, and I still believe it’ll be thoroughly entertaining. There, that should appease any sweaty keyboard warriors primed to attack me with ‘Jesus Christ, give it a chance!’ comments. With that out the way, I can get started.
This trailer is arse.
To the detriment of my physical and mental health, I stayed up until 5:00 AM (yes, I live in the UK), suffering about ten minutes of the Jimmy Kimmel show, just so I could watch the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice official trailer. But by the time it finished – despite not being able to see my own face – I’m positive my expression resembled that of someone who had just inhaled a devastatingly sulphuric fart.
‘What the hell is this stinky business?’ I thought to myself. Everything we’d seen up until this point – including the teaser they released the day before – had been brilliantly executed, promising an intriguing, emotionally-driven rivalry between Batman and Superman. But that doesn’t come across at all in this trailer. What we get is a jumpy collection of action shots that look like they’ve been edited together by someone with Parkinson’s.
Then we see an annoyingly hyperactive Jessie Eisenberg go all Victor Frankenstein and turn General Zod’s corpse into Doomsday, who turns out to be the main threat (so much for keeping that a surprise). At that point it becomes clear that this is going to be less a reimagining of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and more a case of the Justice League fighting a CGI bogey monster.
And the music is shit. I didn’t know violins could hyperventilate, but evidently they can. They back an equally abysmal ending to this debacle, where Wonder Woman turns up to save the day, reminding us all of the apparent uselessness of twenty-first century men; even the ones who can shoot lasers out of their eyes or call upon billions of dollars worth of weaponry. Superman asks, “Is she with you?” and Batman replies, “I thought she was with you”. It’s meant to be funny. It isn’t. This trailer needs a reboot.