10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 14

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Fourteen: Gotham Roast, Well Done

Welcome to the fourteenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we saw eight ways to read the “Martha” scene (ten, if you read all the way through the post). Today, we return and begin again to save Martha and fend off an abomination.

[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 2:13:06 to 2:24:15.]

"Pew pew pew!"

Time is of the essence in this installment of the film, and as we wind down (I’d guesstimate we have about three more segments of “10@T” to go) it’s kind of astonishing to think about how much the film still manages to pack in. As I’ve said before, I would much rather a film be overfull of substance than of style and would prefer it if a film packed in too much plot rather than protract too little. That being said, it’s a funny little coincidence that this segment begins with a shot of a clock, ticking down from ten minutes – it’s as if the film knew I’d be reviewing it in this manner.

Unlike most films, surprisingly, when the clock says ten minutes, it means ten minutes; there are approximately ten minutes of action between the moment we see this clock and the shot when Lex Luthor’s egg timer dings. (Recall that Lex had given Superman an hour to kill Batman and save Martha, though in the film it’s about half that time. Not that I’d have complained if the film had devoted a whole hour to that subplot, but I understand that there are bums in seats to consider.) It’s apparent that the filmmakers are quite conscious of time; Lex Luthor politely waits for the timer to ding before growing irritated that his orchestrations have not come to pass, and there is a sense cued up in the ensuing sequence that, as Peter Pan might have it, “All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.” (In The Invisibles, Grant Morrison posed the issue of repetition as, “And so we return and begin again.”) The conflict that ensues will echo throughout human history and godly mythology – Superman will once more fight a warrior from Krypton’s past, Batman will find a rejuvenated purpose to his nightly one-man war on crime, and the daughter of Zeus will rejoin mankind to stand shoulder to shoulder with god and man to fight the monsters that threaten both. It’s a conflict that doesn’t just look grandiose; it’s big in a different way because it carries the weight of significance.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The film signals its transition solidly into the third act when Batman assures Superman, “Martha won’t die tonight.” The film began with the death of Martha Wayne, but it begins to end with the salvation of Martha Kent. Crucially for Batman’s evolution over the course of the film, this is posited as a promise and not a threat; he’s spent so much time trash-talking Superman and vowing to make him bleed, but now he’s making guarantees and pledges of loyalty. And to those who wonder if this all could have been avoided had Superman led with “Luthor. He wanted your life for hers,” I’d say that it’s only now that Batman is at a place where he’s both able and willing to listen. After all, Superman had tried to bring this up earlier, only to be met with gunfire and sonic weaponry.

Mother knows best.

I will concede, however, that Batman is being perhaps too overhasty when he introduces himself to Martha Kent as “a friend of your son’s.” It’s a nice moment because it tees up Diane Lane’s perfectly unflappable “I figured,” and it does seem to signal a kinder, gentler Batman. He cracks more jokes from this point on than he had in the rest of the film, almost as if he’s rediscovering himself. Visually, too, he doffs the armored Batsuit and returns to his normal costume, casting off his fight night apparel and returning to basics. There’s even a nice bit of banter restored in the Ultimate Edition when Batman tells Alfred, “I don’t deserve you,” met by Alfred’s wry stiff-upper-lip, “No, sir, you don’t.” Alfred’s banter likewise feels more playful, less biting – we are a long way away from the acerbic “Even you’ve got too old to die young, though not for lack of trying.” Has Alfred found hope that his charge can be redeemed from the long dark (k)night of his soul? With their mentions of exploding penguins and Bruce Wayne’s wealth as Batman’s superpower, the Justice League trailers have implied that Batman will continue to lighten up, which is an interesting lesson to have learned from a Superman who critics have repeatedly decried for his dour countenance, but this is a Superman who shows us the best parts of ourselves.

Having said that, I don’t believe that Batman has learned his lesson just yet, nor do I presume that the film expects us to see things that way, either. Put another way, had Superman lived through the film, I think he and Batman still would have had words of disagreement. For most of the rest of the film, Batman still seems cruel, inflicting a litany of violence against his enemies – guns, explosions, breaking bones, stabbing shoulder cartilage – and Hans Zimmer & Junkie XL equip him with the same pounding orchestral theme (one wonders if that’ll change for Justice League?), all of which provide continuity with the earlier scenes of the film. Likewise, this sequence displays a fighting style that is, to borrow a phrase, straight outta Arkham – the videogames, that is. Batman’s “freeflow” combat approach is a visual treat, outgunning easily a dozen goons, and is anything scarier than Batman lumbering toward the thug impaled on his own knife?

"If man won't kill God, the devil will do it!"

There’s an astonishing contrast at play here – Batman is fighting against a warehouse full of baddies, while Superman lands in a fight with Lex Luthor in which he’s not allowed (or willing) to hit his adversary. This is a bit of a change-up for Superman, who had considered “breaking” Luthor, dropping him off LexCorp tower, or frying him with his heat vision. Perhaps Superman too has come out of the crucible of the kill box a better man, more confident in his quest for justice now that he has an ally in Batman.

Lex, however, remains delightfully unchanged. He’s still playing his word games (“White rabbit” / “Right, wabbit?”), and in the Ultimate Edition he gets a beat where his plans are made explicit, even suggesting that his earlier argument about existential metaphysics might have been all bogus: “I don’t know how to lose . . . I don’t hate the sinner. I hate the sin, and yours, my friend, is existing. I cannot let you win.” Here it sounds to me like Lex is admitting that he’d concocted his scheme because – pure and simple – he hates Superman for existing. He posits himself as a god against whose laws Superman had sinned. Yet at the same time, Lex acknowledges that he’s hardly in a divine position: “If man won’t kill God, the devil will do it!” Any classical scholar worth his salt (as Lex professes to be) would admire John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which depicts the fallen angel Lucifer as the tragic hero of the poem. Is Lex putting himself in Lucifer’s place as the devil rebelling against a tyrannical God, or is Lex referring to a devil of his own creation?

“Ancient Kryptonian deformity, blood of my blood, born to destroy you – your Doomsday.” It’s a snappy way to include the unlikely moniker of the monster who killed Superman in 1992, maintaining the lofty speech patterns I’ve much appreciated from Lex while winking at the source material. Lex’s plot over the film has escalated: a shootout in the desert, a bombing at the Capitol, the orchestration of Fight Night, and now the creation of a monster, all in service of defaming and destroying Superman. Likewise, we’ll see the design of Doomsday evolve in the film, from his gestation to his spike-riddled form by the film’s end. This film too has shifted and morphed until it achieves its final state and its final statement on the relationship of humanity to its heroes – but that’s a story for another time. For now, Doomsday represents the extreme lengths to which Lex will go to destroy Superman; we had seen earlier that “Everywhere Superman goes, Luthor wants death,” up to and including the moment that he creates a literal avatar of death to kill Superman (and spoiler warning, it works).

"No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to deliver me from Daddy's fists and abominations."

Earlier in the film Lex had delivered one of his most chilling lines: “No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to deliver me from Daddy’s fists and abominations.” And in this segment of the film, Superman does the most amazing thing, and it’s one of my favorite shots of the film – as a man in the sky, he intervenes to deliver Lex Luthor from his own abomination. Upon emerging from his genetic cocoon, Doomsday roars and moves to strike down his creator with a mighty fist, but faster than light Superman interposes himself between the monster and its creator. Key to the film’s conclusion will be the notion that Superman saves us not just from external forces, but from our own worst selves; he’ll redeem Batman – or more importantly spur him on to his own redemption – but even this moment won’t be enough to thaw Luthor’s heart.

Next time, it’s Trinity time as Snyder revels in his source material. Get your annotating pens ready.

Observations and Annotations

• Another film in which ten minutes means ten minutes is, intriguingly enough, Batman (1989), in which Joker’s ascent up the cathedral tower takes ten minutes in real-time and in the film.
• This chunk of the film does some interesting things with music. First up, there’s the usage of the “Must there be a Superman?” theme as Superman flies away from the kill box to find Luthor. It would seem to be an affirmative answer to the question posed in that montage, but it also suggests that if there is to be a Superman, he must have allies. Furthermore, though, the somber tone of the track does feel like a preemptive elegy for Superman, who’s about to fall.
• Next up, Lois Lane picks up the kryptonite spear, and we hear what’s been referred to as the “Krypton mystery” theme. It’s most notably heard in Man of Steel when Jor-El recovers the codex and just before the baby’s rocket blasts toward earth. Here, it’s like a little piece of Krypton still exists (I mean, it does) and carries that sense of alien mystique.
• Finally, and somewhat more irreverently, Knyazev quotes Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” to Martha Kent as a way of menacing her, sarcastically warning her that the song promised “we die a little.” Knyazev had heard this song while masquerading as a janitor just before kidnapping Lois Lane.
• Back to the spear, though, Lois promptly chucks it into the harbor. This decision seems maddening in hindsight, given that the spear is essential to stopping Doomsday, but Lois had no way of knowing that. On a mythological level, the spear sets up a “lady in the lake” moment in which Lois will emerge from the water to give Superman the means to destroy his enemy. It’ll be far from the last aspect of Arthurian lore invoked by Batman v Superman…
• And speaking of Arthur, I had half expected Aquaman to show up with the spear, but that might be one Justice Leaguer too many.
• Lex refers to Doomsday as “blood of my blood,” referencing how he had used his blood to reanimate the corpse of General Zod. Strikingly, it’s blood from his hand; he had earlier called Superman to task by demanding that the people of the world see “the blood on your hands.” Chalk another one up on the big hypocrisy board.
• Of course, Zod is just as much blood of Superman’s blood, given their shared Kryptonian ancestry. The film does some clever things to remind us that this creature is at least partially Zod: Doomsday’s superpowers are reckless and untrained, just like Zod’s were upon arrival on earth. Doomsday then proceeds to beat Superman with his own monument, upon which is presumably inscribed the names of those killed in Zod’s attack on Metropolis in Man of Steel.
• There’s a neat little visual where Doomsday looks at the statue of Superman and then at Superman himself, appearing almost disappointed by the smaller adversary. I’m not sure if Doomsday is lucid enough to comprehend the distinction, or if he’s engaged in this infantile moment of object permanence, but it’s a moment when the film foreshadows the notion that Superman’s true monument is not the statues we erect but the continuation of his legacy of heroism.
• Maybe I’m reading too much into this (perish the thought!), but when Doomsday stands in front of the LexCorp neon sign, I was reminded of Lex’s observation that he was not “the Lex in front of the Corp” as his father had told investors. With Doomsday as the erstwhile son of Lex Luthor, we get another Lex in front of the Corp here.