When Superman died in the comics it was always inevitable he'd come back; that's simply how comics work. However, at least then DC managed to keep up the pretence he was actually gone for a few months. Batman V Superman can't even make it to the end credits without flagrantly undoing it, with nary a decoy in sight; in the final shot the earth Lois threw on Clark Kent's coffin begins to rise and it's like nothing's happened. It's idiotic on just about every conceivable level. From an internal logic standpoint, there's no way for Clark to come back to life; the Sun's rays can't reach him in that coffin and if you want to argue he's faking, wanting to make the whole world think he's dead, that's just a patent misunderstanding of Superman. For Batman V Superman as a standalone movie it weakens everything its third act was sloppily building to. And for the wider DC world it halts the one intriguing dangling thread this movie offered up and moves to the resurrection step of the wider story too early. But, worse than all of that, it's a direct lift of the final shot of X-Men: The Last Stand, which saw a depowered Magneto inexplicably get his powers back and move a metal chess piece a little bit, prompting endless post-movie debate of whether it actually happened or was just a trick of the light. Funnily enough, it's one of that movie's lone good ideas, allowing a film that was ostensibly wrapping up a trilogy still look forward to the future in a semi-organic way. But that's not what Batman V Superman is doing, so in addition to being painfully derivative, it doesn't even have the right effect. I've said it before and I know I'll say it again: what a mess. What did you make of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice? Think it's ending was a complete failure or actually something brilliant? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments.
