Batman v Superman

At some point last night at the Newport Center AMC during Batman v Superman, which my date wanted to enjoy and whom I worry I irritated, and I do worry, I was overtaken, mentally, by a terrifying sense of misanthropy, futility and hopelessness.  I wish I could say what was happening exactly onscreen when this feeling took me but I could only occasionally understand anything anyone was doing in this movie and now I'm quite sure I can't be very specific about that- only that it was over an hour into the thing - near the end of the second hour- I think.

To be clear, the movie opens with little baby Bruce Wayne's parents being killed in front of him- that scene again- with this stylized, extreme close up of a gun placed through a pearl necklace and then firing and then close-up pearls flying everywhere and then "pretty" blood spots on the dead mother's face. That got me started.  I thought, "Right, okay, this is some kind of wish fulfillment and this is the best we've got nowadays.  This is romantic.  This is what passes for romantic; this is what we are being given now as romantic- sick meaningless death.  Do we think it's 'cool'?  It's cool how the director dramatized the action of murder with objects in extreme close-up?  A gun discharging, pearls flying- Are we detached? - as in, we think, 'That's creative.' 'Inventive storytelling.'?  Are we MOVED because something about this symbolism strikes a chord?  (If "we" is me, then no. Well, I said, "That's horrible. That's sick."  - this marks, possibly, the beginning of my date thinking he might have done better to just come to see this movie alone. )

And then there's the set up of the basic premise which we got from the last Superman movie which is that when he fights he's so strong he wrecks cities, making lots of buildings topple just like the twin towers on September 11th, 2001.  Are we, again I ask, expected to be detached?  Are we, somehow, MATURE, that we watch such a thing now aware that it really happens (though not because of Superman! I mean...) and still enjoy it as entertainment, that we purposely sign up for shock and awe that happened in real life repackaged as special effects in Superman's story?  What is this ASSUMPTION, director of Batman v Superman Zach Snyder?  I am trying to parse it.  Is it like, "C'mon, you can admit it.  This is a kind of wish fulfilment."  I am insulted. I am worried for us all.

Then we go to some terrorist cell thing happening in a desert and I think- okay so yes, I am supposed to be mature- this is supposed to be a mature superhero movie- because there's even terrorism just like real life.

Then Batman brands a guy.

Maybe the terrible disdain for mankind overcame me after Capitol Hill got blown up with everyone in it and then, as a plot point, was never revisited. (Me to date who really doesn't want me to talk in the movie anymore: "So they're all dead now?")

I think it wasn't then though- because I think then I went to the bathroom. Not sure.

So I don't know when it was, exactly, in the course of the movie's action, like I said.

But I'm worried that Batman v Superman put a maybe-I'm-finally-dating-someone-who-is-genuinely-kind-and-much-much-less-neurotic-than-myself-but-praise-the-lord-he-is-sweet upward GOOD progression on a rockier course. Fuck this horrible movie.  It makes me feel, damn it, bereft for humanity, and honestly as if humanity is past tense, that something this cynical is being served as entertainment blockbuster fare.  The characters aren't cynical.  The movie is cynical.  The movie thinks I'm a monster.

And then I have to feel like a snob for having this terrible set of thoughts?  I can't blame that on the director I GUESS, but I think I kind of blame that on the director.