Batman v Superman: No Justice

Let me preface this by saying I'm a HUGE fan of BvS:DoJ the Ultimate Edition. The movie still has its problems, but this version fixes the vast majority of the criticism the professional critics threw at the theatrical cut.
While I was able to enjoy the hack job they put in theaters, once they released the Ultimate Edition, I never looked back.

That said, I HATED all the Bat-murder. So when I heard someone had edited (almost) all of Batffleck's killing out of the film, I was interested. When I heard they had ALSO cut the Death of Superman, Doomsday, ALL Justice League set up, AND Wonder Woman, well I was skeptical at best.
As such, I was very hesitant going into this movie. I honestly did not see how it would work, perticularly the third act. I honestly doubted that the titular fight, and subsequent warehouse rescue would be a substantial enough climax.

Boy was I WRONG. And happily so.
If WB wanted to cut back on Snyder's operatic film, THIS is the film they should have went with.

Is it perfect? No. Does it work? REALLY well. In fact, with a handful of pic-ups to smooth things out, and THIS cut could have been a box office AND critical smash!
THIS is the film people expected when they first announced BvS. Hell, this is the movie people were promised with the first trailer, minus WW.

Now, as I said, it's not perfect. There are a handful of edits I disagreed with, but that's largely subjective.
I really only "noticed" the cuts in a handful of places, namely:
1. The end of the party at Luthor's, when Clark goes to the Day of the Dead fire, and Bruce retrieves his hard drive. Felt a bit choppy without Bruce finding it missing and chasing Diana. I imagine the insert of him attaching the drive, reversed, could have smoothed this out a touch.

2. Bruce opening the "You let your family die" paper out of nowhere. While I agree it didn't make sense that ALL of the notes and returned cheques would have never been brought to his attention, or the police's for that matter, before that instant, but you need more than just a shot of Bruce opening the paper without context. Not sure of it would actually be possible to do something with the footage available, while still cutting the fact that no one brought the rest of the notes to anyone's attention.

3. Batman leaping off the Batwing. What the hell? Why one Earth would you cut that shot? Not only was it bad ass, but him suddenly crashing through the window when we last saw him inside the cockpit was jarring without it.

4. The third act. This is where it suffers most noticeably. Now I DID mentioned that the action scenes were more than enough for a satisfactory climax, that doesn't mean the whole third act fully works. Namely the transition from the titular fight, to the warehouse rescue.
It would have been nice to see Batman's promise 'Martha won't die tonight' fit in there, but without mentioning the scout ship and et al, this is all but impossible. I don't know if you could do some clever editing and mixing dialogue from throughout the film, to add in that Superman's too weak? This may just be one of the unfixable consequences of working from a premade film.
Similarly, while repurposing the tub scene works to help flush out the denouement, it is not quite enough to fully tie together the dramatically truncated finale. Again, considering how much was excised from the film, this is understandable. That the third act holds as well as it does is quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

That brings me to one last overall criticism: the general lack of Superman. While he definitely is in the film, and I understand why a lot of the so called "navel gazing" was cut, he just kind of disappears from the film after the bombing, only to return just in time to save Lois. I don't think the "my world" stuff needed to be cut, nor did his self reflection with Jonathan.
Similarly, after the big gladiator match, he's again left with nothing to do, while Batman saves the day. Again, I know this one's due to the removal of Doomsday, etc, but it's still noticeable when watching the film.


Final thoughts and reflections:

Looking back on this film, through the lenses of this re-edit, gets me thinking of the possibilities.
Two in perticular, having to do with two of the DCEU's biggest blunders: the Martha moment, and the entire Justice League movie.
I realized that the Martha moment could DRAMATICALLY improved with a single insert earlier in the film.
At Luthor's party, Clark overhears Bruce talking to Alfred on his earpiece. In the original film, we're meant to assume this is what tips Clark to Bruce's secret, or at the very least make shim suspicious. Between that and his own exchange with Bruce, it makes perfect sense to show Clark looking into Bruce a bit more after that.
Now, I know some criticized Clark asking "who's that?" when Bruce pulls up at Lex's party, but it's not that strange. Remember, Clark had been living a fairly nomadic lifestyle before the Black Zero event. Before that he lived in Smallville. My point is there's no reason Bruce Wayne would have been on Clark's radar BEFORE the Black Zero event, and Bruce has not exactly been in the limelight since then.
Clark doesn't necessarily know Bruce's backstory, and if he had heard, after the above encounter, it still would make sense for him to look deeper.

Long story short, a single insert after they meet at the party, showing Clark looking into Bruce, and seeing news stories from the Wayne murders. It would be easy enough to repurpose one of the shots of Clark at a computer looking into the Bat, to be this instead.
Suddenly the Martha moment has the tiniest bit more logic, and doesn't fall flat on its face. Now it makes SENSE why he's not just saying 'save my mother' or similar. In his final moments, he's not just calling outro his mother by name for no reason, he's consciously make a last desperate effort to get through, to connect, to Bruce before its too late.

As for Justice League, while that came from thinking about BvS: No Justice in continuity.
That is, I like how it works narratively, focusing the film, and not rushing the universe.
But what to do with all that left over footage???

What I'm wondering is if you could use the Death of Superman, Knightmare, Wonder Woman, JL setup, etc, to create a new version of Justice League.
There are some obvious challenges such as Luthor being out of jail and with hair again, etc, but it does present a fascinating creative challenge.
Perhaps some of it happens as filling in the blanks. That is we're learning that Lex was setting these things in motion during BvS, we just didn't see it at the time? So flash backs showing him getting access to the ship, and Zod, etc. Not sure how you'd then get to Doomsday, etc, in away that works with the continuity of BvS No Justice, but I'm sure it could be done.
After seeing how successfully this fan edit worked, I truly believe it would be possible.

Now, that's not to say that cramming the Death of Superman onto the front end of Justice League is best way to handle DoS, or JL, but working with what we've got, who knows.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, WB should have made THIS version of BvS, THEN done the Death of Superman story in a Trinity film (seriously, they could have split BvS in 2 and done exactly that with a No Justice style cut, and then making a full 1st and 2nd act to go with the rest) THEN Justice League.

Oh well, I enjoyed BVS UE, I enjoyed BvS NJ, I'm going to dream of a DoS Trinity and or JL film now.

Awesome Watch! Reese has done a masterful job in making this a Leaner Meaner cut.It shifts the focus back to the title of the film.I enjoyed the film all over again with a different perspective (I still like the Original even with all it's flaws) but for someone who has seen this film several times it is nice to watch the best parts of Mr. Snyder's work. The final act does lack a bit -Due to no fault of the editor, just lack of source material,but I love the "Fix" Reese put in for the "Martha Scene" .The Soundtrack he edited together is A+ and He has done a great job of streamlining or all together removing the unnecessary and gratuitous elements which seem to cram too much into the original film.I think that many of us are going through the old "Don't know what Ya got till it's gone" blues with Zack Snyder's vision all but over in the DCEU and watching this Fan Edit brings back my appreciation for what he was trying to do.Hopefully Reese will have the patience and time to attempt tackling Justice League and bring his talents to try and streamline that mess!Overall,I give this FanEdit an B+ for the finished work (Again points missing only due to the final act lacking source material) An A+ for editing,Sound and Color-grading. A real fun must watch for anyone who Loves and appreciates these two Icons of Comicdom! Great Job!

reeseevans took what is in my opinion one of the worst superhero movies ever made and made it watchable.

He boiled down the concept to what was sold in the title, a Batman vs Superman sorta kinda sequel to Man of Steel (which I very much enjoyed btw) and introduces Batman to this new era of Warner attempting to imitate Marvel with their shared movie universe.

Instead of a "look we are bringing the Justice League up next" this movie works as a standalone film with a reasonable runtime in which Bats and Supes disagree for the most part and Lex Luthor plays the man behind the strings that ultimately makes them see eye to eye.

No "Doomsday". no shoehorned in Wonder Woman, no bat nightmares that make no sense including no prematurely introduced Flash, no gratuitous Aquaman. All great things.

Unfortunately, yet another 2.0 audio track is offerec; so my usual A/V quality penalty points apply.

The Audio and Video editing are 100% seamless, so full scores there.

Finally, also unfortunately; it is Martha who resolves the main conflict. A major issue I have with this film which I hoped would be worked around; therefore enjoyment point deducted.

Overall, a huge improvement; specially over the theatrical release.

So I was not a fan of Batman v Superman, both the original and the "Ultimate" edition. Both were bloated, excessively busy, and often incoherent. So I was pretty interested in watching this version. Overall, it's a definite improvement as a sequel to Man of Steel, and as a film about Batman and Superman.

First and foremost, all sequel-bait is gone. No visit from the Flash, no email about the other metahumans, and no warning from Lex Luthor about Darkseid or any of that. Even Wonder Woman completely gone (you'll only spot her in the background at Lex's party). Though that does make seeing her name in the opening credits a little strange.

Also, Lex Luthor is much less cartoony, mostly just by cutting out eighty percent of his stutters and verbal tics. He's much more tolerable when he can get through a sentence without going "Ah!" or "Oop!"

This version is less than two hours long, and most of that comes from removing the entire Doomsday fight and Superman's death, which itself lasted about half an hour. The final action scene is Batman saving Martha, and while that's a bit anticlimactic, it's a much better finale than Superman's death.

The main disadvantage is that this film isn't watchable as a DCEU film. While it's a good Man of Steel sequel, since it actually focuses on the Man of Steel, it's completely self-contained, and after Wonder Woman has come out, it definitely isn't canon to the DCEU. However, it succeeds where it counts, as I didn't even miss most of the scenes of the main characters sulking and monologuing their way through the story.

Overall, I would recommend as a completely stripped-down version of the film I was hoping to see. Only what's important to the title conflict remains, and I was satisfied enough with that.

As the ratings to the right of this review spell out, I really can't simply comment on the work as a whole, rather I need to break it down into the key categories that go into making a truly great fan edit. In terms of technical quality, this edit is inarguably tremendous. 1080 quality is every bit as good as my official digital copy. The edits - both visual and audio - are spot on, with no real jerkiness or quick cuts. This could easily be a professionally edited work, and that's tremendous.

Ultimately I found myself having two issues with the film. Firstly, I'm not a fan of changing the endpoints of a film, conceptually. That this version of the film will never be able to naturally flow into Justice League or any other future film is a bit disappointing, and while I understand the intention thematically (of reducing the film to purely the battle between Batman and Superman), there are other considerations that I feel were ignored (Superman's character arc that ultimately leads to his death, for instance).

However, I understand most of those reservations are personal preferences and arguably a bit finicky on my part, so I went into the film trying to be open minded and, for the sake of the review, being more positive towards the intent and concept behind this edit. Despite that, I did find I didn't enjoy the movie quite as much as I expected I would. The pacing and structure of the film is actually quite strong - better than the original certainly - however by leaving out many of the additional storylines of BVS, the movie feels very...heavy. I wouldn't say it's confusing, but having the vast majority of the movie dedicated to Luthor's machinations ultimately left me feeling kind of overwhelmed and exhausted by the movie. In my opinion, BVS needed less of the complex and multifaceted intrigue, not more.

Overall, it's still a VERY good edit. I would definitely recommend it, and I wouldn't be shocked at all if you come away loving it far more than I did. I just wouldn't go as far as saying this is my preferred version of the movie, or head and shoulders above the original cut.