Batman: Path to Justice

Malthus always creates a professional quality edit. Other than a couple moments where audio from a cut scene bleeds over, you can hardly recognize that there was any cutting at all; especially with the 132min running time!

The story of BVS refocused as a "solo" Batman movie works surprisingly well! The first two acts are very strong. Opening on Bruce Wayne the way BVS does already sets him up as the lead character, but then cutting all Superman/Clark scenes and reframing the Congressional hearing as a response to Superman's fight with Zod instead of the attack in Nairomi really works to establish the main story as a response to the destruction caused in Man of Steel.

Superman ends up getting just a little bit more screentime than Wonder Woman, and, for comparison's sake, has about as much screentime in this edit as Dr. Strange does in Spider-Man: No Way Home. So in that sense it really does work as a Batman solo movie... until the 3rd act. The third act is just so cluttered in the original, it's hard to focus it on Batman. Though the removal of the Lois Lane bullet subplot helps trim the Superman elements quite effectively, the fact that Lex Luthor is still the primary antagonist makes the story still feel innately Superman's. I'm not sure much can be done to work around this, unfortunately.

Now, if I were to suggest one change, it would be to restructure the ending to have the final scene before the credits be Batman visiting Lex at Arkham (something I did in my own BVS edit). Book ending the film with Batman would help cement this as a Batman story first and foremost.

If you're a fan of Affleck's Batman, I would recommend checking out this edit! I don't feel it replaces Dawn of Justice in any future DCEU watches, but it's a cool alternate take on the story that really lets Affleck shine!

A Batman-centric fanedit of BvS has always been tantalizing to me, since Batman is clearly the character that Zack Snyder feels more comfortable with. Unfortunately, I was really left wanting with this edit.

I don’t know if it was lack of previewing or what, but there was a lot of non-Batman related scenes that should have been removed (the hearings on Nairomi, the jolly rancher scene, arguably congress blowing up), as well as payoffs that make no sense because the set-up was removed (Lois recognizes KGBeast for no reason, Lex references “sand in the desert” despite Nairomi being cut, KGBeast saying “everytime we say goodbye” even though the song was cut out, & Lois says “[Clark] came back” when I have no way of knowing he left to begin with).

As for only doing the bare-minimum in setting up non-Batman characters, that creates an experience with little to no narrative thrust from scene to scene. After we’re introduced to Clark, we immediately jump to Bruce in the underground fight club, then we jump to Lex talking with Senator Finch in his father’s study (who are talking about someone completely divorced from Batman, btw), & then back to Bruce’s dream.

I’m sorry, but if you’re going to keep so much non-Batman related stuff, you at least need the scene from the film’s theatrical cut of Clark learning about Batman in his apartment, so the Superman stuff doesn’t come out of the blue.

All of that combined with not fixing other flaws from the original film (Diana getting the Justice League email & “Martha”) means I cannot recommend this edit to anyone, sadly.

... but a standalone "Batman" movie it is not. "Bah humbug!"

As a fanedit Batman: Path to Justice is nearly impeccable. As a movie it's the best thing in the DC catalogue.

With regard to technical skill this movie is essentially flawless. I didn't read the change list and I don't know the original movies expertly, but I didn't notice any flaws in the audio or video. Narratively there are things that work and things that don't, but those are largely built into the original content, and generally personal preference, so difficult to avoid. I think this works really well as a movie and is definitively the best thing I've watched and enjoyed of modern DC movies.

****SPOILERS****
If I were being a pissy devils advocate, not that it needs it WHATSOEVER, but for some reason I feel like if you wanted to really try and make this a Batman-centric movie, you could maaayyyyyyybe cut the Doomsday plot, edit out a lot more Lex, scrapped Wonder Woman and the judge/DA/whatever lady plots, and somehow (magically?) focussed more on the "vs Superman" plot as the crux of the film. I say that as an asshole blabbering, not as any informed thing that knows how to do it, so take me with a grain of salt. Plus in hindsight you'd be cutting two strong female characters from an otherwise raging boner fest, Let me say it again, this edit was fun as hell.

****MORE SPOILERS****
And I could go on about how Lex of the movie should have been Lex we're introduced to in the final montage (or not Jesse Eisenberg), or how Batman's superhuman strength makes for primo extended battle sequences but doesn't really make a lick of sense in regard to the character (I love that one brawl towards the end with all the dudes in the warehouse), and a million other choosey little things but these obviously have nothing to do with this edit, which is amazing. I do love that black Superman coffin too, good job DC.

The end.

Thank you very much asterixsmeagol for encouraging this release, and especially to Malthus for the incredibly precise work and for sharing!!

Really good edit. I'm giving this one a high reccomendation.