In Batman v Superman, Lux Luthor, (Jesse Eisenberg), pits the two superheroes together for the sake of …chaos?

Without having watched the latest installment, Man of Steel (2013), I’m already at a loss for the motives in this movie. Batman’s threat of Superman’s power and Superman’s threat of Batman’s vigilante-ness isn’t ever clearly defined, at least not without mirroring each other’s lack of substance. B v S attempts to have included scenes that contributed to any kind of understanding, but they are substituted with something that might have looked cooler. Audiences are left wondering what the superheroes fought about, and that wondering makes the storyline and its resolution less significant.

It’s very obvious that there’s supposed to be some kind of political message but I, however,cannot find it. At least for the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, the trailers have done all the work explaining what they’re fighting about, and even if you walk into the theaters born yesterday, I doubt the dialogue would in any way hinder understanding of the opposing characters (and teams). It should have been easier to accomplish that with only two characters, Batman and Superman, instead of a whole team, right? But still, it seems as though Marvel will be more successful at giving the audience motives for each individual (of which there are 13, including never-before-seen Black Panther).

BvS doesn’t even give any insight to the somewhat new character, Diana Prince. If I had read the comics and been heavily invested I would have known she is a 5,000 year old Amazonian princess, but in the movie, Wonder Woman is quickly covered and then it’s time to move back to Batman’s strife. There’re, tops, two scenes for her exposition before she comes in as a Deus ex Machina for the final battle. She was mysterious indeed, but never really addressed as she could have been.

The only thing that redeems such a surface driven action movie is its soundtrack, from Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) and Junkie XL (Mad Max: Fury Road). It doesn’t redeem it completely, but it does make it more enjoyable. While the fight scenes are okay, it’s the heavy guitars and rhythms that bring a little excitement to the grim scope and somewhat carry the movie for two and a half hours — which was way too long to have covered so little.