Dumb things in Batman v Superman everyone just ignored

This is just the weirdest way to open a superhero movie. It's become a cliché to start a Batman movie with a flashback to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, but Snyder can't help himself. To his credit, the death scene is stylized and looks great. The slow-motion strand of pearls breaking, the casting of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan as the Waynes—all of that was cool. But then? We cut to young Bruce Wayne falling into a cave filled with bats. Introducing the Batcave, okay, still makes sense. But then Bruce starts flying … in a bat tornado … for no real reason. Snyder was trying to somehow mix arthouse sensibilities with a tentpole superhero movie, and in this case, neither element really worked.

We'll try to keep this simple, which is a piece of advice Lex Luthor desperately could've used when he was coming up with his master plan. From the jump, this never really makes sense. He has a hand in the raid where Superman saves Lois to…frame Superman and make it look like he barreled in with a machine gun? Or something? Then he blows up the senate hearing (complete with that ridiculous bit about piss and sweet tea) to make Superman look bad? Even though it's quickly announced who the real bomber was? Then he forces Superman to fight Batman—but why, really? Why does he think a street vigilante will be able to take out an alien god?

Snyder was going for something poignant and human with this twist, which saw Batman refrain from killing Superman when they realize their moms were both named Martha. Snyder planted the seeds with the opening scene recapping the death of the Waynes, as Thomas' dying word is a slo-mo "Martha." Then a few hours later Batman and Superman get into a convoluted fight during which Clark Kent is somehow incapable of just explaining they're being manipulated by Luthor. But the fight comes to an end when Superman yells "They're going to kill Martha," which triggers Bruce's memories of his mother's death. Put simply: These two superheroes, who we have been led to believe are diametrically opposed ideologically, can put aside their differences because their mothers randomly have the same name? C'mon, man. Yes, it's meant to bond them as friends on a human level (they both love their moms!), but it just comes off as deeply silly.

One of the big complaints surrounding Man of Steel was the immense amount of destruction and death Superman caused in his downtown brawl with Zod. So when it comes time to slug it out with Doomsday, Batman v Superman makes it almost laughably clear that the downtown district where this fight takes place is largely abandoned. But… how, exactly? Metropolis is a major city, and any major city with a downtown core (even a financial district) still has a lot of restaurants, shops and nightlife. It seems these lines were included solely to avoid the complains from Man of Steel, and it's bordering on silly. Batman trying to take the fight to the docks made enough sense, because it stands to reason that area would be empty, but part of the city? We're calling shenanigans on that one.

It seems Superman's ultra-powerful super-hearing is also super-selective. Case(s) in point: He can somehow hear Lois is in trouble when she's in the desert (even if he is hovering a few miles off, that's still insane). Then he can hear her falling when Lex pushes her off a building (though he somehow misses the lead-up to the fall, or the entire kidnapping ordeal when Lex's goons grabbed his mother). During the fight with Doomsday, Superman can also hear Lois banging on the slabs underwater when she's drowning after trying to retrieve the Kryptonite spear. Yes, it's well established that Superman has super-hearing—but it's used so randomly and selectively in this movie. Superman can hear things when the story calls for it (e.g. catching Lois), but not when he needs to be blindsided by something (e.g. Martha's kidnapping).

This is a gorgeous scene, and if you don't actually think about it, it's pretty cool. In a quick montage of Superman's good deeds (about the only 30 seconds you actually get to see the guy be a hero in the entire movie), we see Superman helping rescue flood victims from the roof of their house, where they've painted a Superman signal in an effort to get his attention. How'd they end up with a bucket of paint up there to begin with? We see the family up there with only the clothes on their backs, but we're supposed to believe they also grabbed a paint bucket and brush on the way out? It makes for a nice shot, but like a lot of things in this movie, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The buildup to the Batman v Superman portion of Dawn of Justice pretty much happens in parallel, as Batman starts setting the stage for his fight (i.e. stashing his Kryptonite spear, setting his machine gun traps, etc.), while Superman is being blackmailed by Luthor. But how did these two unconnected events happen at exactly the same time? Serendipitous, right? We know Batman obviously wasn't working with Luthor, so how could he have known Superman was being sent into his trap at the very moment he was setting it? On that note, why didn't Superman just get to the point and explain what was going on when he got there? Had he just told Batman, "Hold up, man. Lex Luthor kidnapped my mom. He's trying to blackmail me into fighting you. This is dumb," you'd have to think Batman would've at least been open to hearing it. Instead, Superman is super vague, and Batman strikes.

This brief exchange between Batman and Superman during the Doomsday fight offered one of the movie's few moments of levity, but it actually doesn't make any sense at all. Batman jokes that he thought Wonder Woman was with Superman—but he's been dealing with Diana for pretty much the entire movie. He obviously recognizes her, right? He's even seen her wearing her costume, in that throwback photo designed to set up the Wonder Woman movie. The line makes absolutely no sense in context.