Review Detail

It didn’t feel right jumping straight into this edit before having seen DoJ part 1, so now that I’ve done that, I can safely say that this edit is more of the same as the first, which is both good & bad.

It’s good in that there’s a lot of excellent streamlining of the film to be more digestible. At 2 hours & 10 minutes, the movie’s essentially two parts, before the fight, & the fight and aftermath. Lex’s mania is toned down, the intro with Bruce’s narration is much tighter, there’s genius use of Superman’s interview with the children from the JL Whedon Cut, Clark doesn’t threaten to “break” Luthor, and this edit hands down has the best solution to “Save Martha” moment ever.

Even cuts I wasn’t sold on at the time I watched the edit (removing Batman’s from the scene where we realized he branded that guy, removing the line about Pa Kent when Clark’s calling his mom) feel better in retrospect (highlighting Batman as a mysterious & more viscous vigilante, & putting more focus on Clark wishing that saving the world was simpler).

That said, much like DoJ Part 1, there are still cuts that rob the film of breathing room. These range from robbing the film of set up/payoff (you keep Superman saying he doesn't view Earth as “my world” as well as end the film on Lex’s painting, but you remove their corresponding scene/line from earlier/later in the film. Also, if you’re toning down the amount of people Batman kills, it might be better to put more attention on when he kills KGBeast, since he’s the exception to the rule) to the varying levels of confusing (Who’s the “she” that Clark was trying to interview? Bruce just has a stained glass window of a Superman-themed angel in his parent’s cemetery? Where did that random car from the batmobile chase come from?)

Also like DoJ Part 1 there were scenes left in that probably could’ve been cut out. Keeping the scene where Clark says he doesn’t view Earth as “his world” feels out of place with the boy scout image that’s been the goal of both this & the previous edit. Other scenes seem to kill the pacing the bit (Martha being kidnapped & the scene with the nukes, either because the cutting the first scene would make a more shocking reveal, & the second scene ultimately doesn’t affect Superman or Doomsday) or would do better with ending earlier or having alternate scenes in their place (ending Luthor’s first talk with Superman with “and now God bends to my will,” or replacing Martha getting kidnapped with Lois finding out Wallace didn’t kill himself).

As a final note, this isn’t really a fanediting problem, but more a question on viewing order. While I’ve not yet seen DoJ Pt.3, Wonder Woman, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to watch that movie second & then this edit as the third film. Theoretically, the audience would then have images of Superman & Wonder Woman built up in their minds, & then our two fleshed out characters come to round out our third character in Batman, which would then be used as buildup to Justice League.

In any case, this is a great edit of BvS, and more than worthy as Fanedit of the Month & the best of Wakeupkeo’s work that I’ve seen so far.