Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Blu-ray (English Subtitles) - Ultimate Superhero Movie for Home Theater & Collectors

Batman vs. Superman was in part a sequel to Man of Steel and in part, a setup for The Justice League movie, introducing the new DCEU versions of Batman (played by Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), and via short cameos the new Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). It also brought back Amy Adams in her role as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and brought in Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.I won't go into too much of the storyline so as not to spoil it for the few who may not have seen the movie, but it essentially dovetails off the end of Man of Steel in which Metropolis was destroyed in the climactic fight between Superman and Zod. We see that battle from the perspective of Bruce Wayne who is trying to get to Wayne Financial to get his employees out of the building. This sets up his distrust of Superman, and then there is an 18-month time jump and Batman is becoming more violent which gets him on Superman's radar, and with Lex orchestrating things in the background, the two end up in battle, until they have to team up.The movie gets ragged on a lot, undeservedly so, in my opinion. It is clearly setting up a larger story and has to be seen as a piece in a multi-movie arc. While I do think it would have been better for DC to follow the Marvel format of setting up the characters in individual movies before bringing them together, so there would not have been so many logic jumps as this movie took, the plot does make sense (especially after you see it a couple of times), and the darker tone that Snyder used for the movie (really all the movies in his "Snyderverse" worked well. And, of course, when Joss Whedon attempted to shoehorn his brand of humor that worked in the MCU into the DCEU, it totally fell flat and was universally rejected.For those who get the blu-ray set, there are two blu-ray discs. One with the theatrical cut of the movie and the bonus features, and one with the Ultimate Edition of the movie that adds about 30 additional minutes to the run time. Some of the scenes are kind of useless, but others really flesh out how much Lex had put the events of the movie into motion. The extras included several behind-the-scenes and making-of features, character profiles for Wonder Woman and Batman, and shorter ones on the characters of Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. All, in all, there is about two hours' worth of extras, so those who like watching the bonus material will be satisfied.Also of note, there is a 4k version of the Ultimate Edition of the movie that does not include the theatrical version or any of the blu-ray extras, so even if you double-dip for that one, you probably want to hold on to this version unless you are only interested in the movie and just want the Ultimate Edition of the movie. The 4k version just has the movie itself and a commentary track that Snyder made just for the 4k restoration as the only extra. In his commentary, he does spoil his version of Justice League (identifying Martian Manhunter, for example) and generally discusses his vision for where the movies would have gone had he stayed on. The movie looks and sounds great (especially the restored IMAX scenes) in 4k UHD, and is, in my opinion, worth the double-dip.Overall, the movie is very good. Dark, but good, and it makes a lot of sense. I do think it could have used a better setup through a stand-alone Batman movie first to establish this version of Batman, and what turned him into the more jaded version of the character. I also think this movie would have benefitted from DC releasing the stand-alone Wonder Woman movie first to set her backstory. However, I do think that her extended cameo in this movie worked and was one of the reasons that the Wonder Woman movie did so well at the box office because viewers liked the taste of the character in this movie. But, despite the reputation it has as a bad movie, it is not. Affleck did a great job as an older, more jaded Batman, and I liked the idea of Batman trying to figure out how to stop an unstoppable alien. By now, however, the movie has been out long enough that people have their opinion of it. If you have not seen it, I would definitely give it a chance because it is not nearly as bad as some would have you believe.