Non-Spoiler Review
They didn't screw it up. There are probably going to be aesthetic complaints, because the cool thing to do on the internet these days is mock Zack Snyder & sneer at Ben Affleck. But Synder does a really good job from everything I've seen, considering the source material he has to work with, and Ben Affleck has turned out to be a pretty good movie maker, if not the blockbuster star type he was in the 90s. He makes a much better Bruce Wayne than Christian Bale, who looked a little too creepy to be credible as a harmless playboy. I thought he was a better Batman than the first four movies, though Bale was better, and they came up with a compromise on the voice issues. Come to think of it, that same compromise should probably have occurred to Bale-Batman. Batman spends a lot of time doing detective work and training, and making anti-Superman movies, but the scenes where he does more typical Batman stuff are excellent (it also helps that we don't see him brooding and puzzled by the bad guys or playing catch-up - the scope of the problem of taking down Superman is sufficient challenge to allow them to make Batman hyper-competent without ruining the stakes). Jeremy Irons' Alfred is less a butler and more of a support staffer, manning the computer while Batman is on mission, and wearing coveralls while tinkering with the Batmobile and the bat suit. He never waits on Bruce like a servant. It appears that there might have been a Robin too, with what might have been a hint about his fate. Or maybe it was another kind of reference. I've given my opinions about Henry Cavill's Superman elsewhere, and this movie carries on his story, as he deals with the reactions of the world to his introduction, ranging from criticism, to idolatry to dependency.

I don't really get the complaints about the death toll in Metropolis and the "Superman's now a mass murderer" grumblings, but the movie seems to be attempting to address those notions and even concede them some validity. While most people seem to see Superman as a hero after the fighting in Metropolis, others, including government officials hold him somewhat responsible. "Man of Steel" shows pretty clearly that Zod & company came looking for Clark. He didn't bring them to Metropolis or do anything to incite their attention, other than existing and being the child of his biological father. Also, he's no more an illegal alien than any other foreign born child adopted by native-born American parents. Maybe they didn't fill out the paperwork, but there is no law covering extraterrestrial people, or forbidding their adoption or immigration. One thing that many contemporary genre authors don't seem to get is that if it isn't explicitly outlawed in the US, it's fair game. The Constitution reserves all rights to the people that are not explicitly granted to the government, and forbids ex post facto laws. It drives me up a wall when a contemporary-setting sci-fi or urban fantasy character's straight-arrow cop female-partner-unresolved-sexual-tension-sharing-future-love-interest cites the law and her badge to try bossing him around in spheres of activity of which her so-precious law does not even acknowledge the existence. Also when people complain about vigilantes violating criminals' civil rights. Only the government and its agents and officials can violate civil rights, since civil rights are specifically rights granted by human law. People have the civil right to be protected from abuse or harm or what have you from their fellow citizens. They don't have the same rights of privacy from one another than they have from cops. Anyone who sees a crime taking place in public can intervene, whether they are walking down the street in regular clothes, or hanging from the wall of nearby building in a bat-suit. Arguably, they have a duty to intervene, to protect the civil rights of their fellow citizens. Likewise, some of the negative feedback about Superman is a little forced, including several plots to frame him for murders, using bombs and guns.

One thing the film does pretty well is set up parallels between the two heroes, to show how they individually arrive at their respective suspicions of one another, but also giving you reason to believe the inevitable reconciliation and team-up are legitimate decisions, rather than abrupt changes of mind.

They have a completely new take on Lex Luthor, which might annoy some people, and I have heard a lot of complaining about the casting of Jesse Eisenberg, but the over-the-top behavior/rabid scenery-chewing of Gene Hackman's and Kevin Spacey's take is actually a little more palatable coming from a millennial man-child. From what I saw of Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum(bloom? )'s version was already more mature than either of his large-screen future selves. If he has a kind of twitchy manner, that comes across as a cross between psychotic & autistic, well, it makes him seem more like a Batman villain like Joker or Riddler, which fits with his being the antagonist for the Dark Knight as well. His motivation is kind of thin, but the psychotic explanation covers it pretty well.

As suggested elsewhere on the internet, other DC heroes show up in this, though mostly Wonder Woman. Aquaman and Flash (and a third, apparently cybernetic/frankenstein character) appear in videos viewed by the on-screen character, and don't interact with anyone or contribute to the plot. Wonder Woman's role is minor, and she has a foreign accent, but that kind of fits with her implied backstory. She holds her own in the action scenes, wielding sword and shield in addition to the deflecting bracers & lasso (although she never tries to give anyone commands with it) I remembered from the TV show. Gal Gadot is a bit scrawny for the usual actresses playing her (Adrienne Palicki & Linda Carter) when slinking around jet set locations in fancy clothes, but in costume she came across as plausibly tough and strong.

There were some flaws, namely spending a little too much time getting to the big fights at the end, and some of Batman's fight choreography being a little puzzling, even though we saw him practicing the moves earlier. Batman also has a number of inexplicable dreams including one of what appears to be Flash, before he has apparently ever seen the Flash, and another that looks like it could have been expanded to an equally intriguing post-apocalyptic drama, where he has become the obligatory desert-bunker dwelling, trenchcoat-wearing gunfighter such stories require. While these dreams seem to more interested in setting up some sort of DC equivalent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they do help to illustrate Batman's mindset and sense of paranoia to explain why he'd be so quick to prejudge Superman. Superman in turn has his own odd dream that doesn't make much sense as a product of his subconscious, but rather implies something supernatural at work.

Regardless of the provenance of these dreams, however, as I said, they do help with the characterization. It seems like there is a bunch of stuff in the movie you don't think is important at the time, but by the end, you realize that it had significance. One such example is Lois Lane's introduction, that seems like the usual brief, easily-won adventure or action sequence that opens up most such movies, but turns out to have all sorts of details and plot points set up.

I liked it very much. I thought it was better than Avengers 2. If DC is going to do their own version of that franchise, I think this suffices for their iteration of Batman's introduction, and they can give Aquaman, Flash and Wonder Woman their own films without more Batman stuff. And since those are not as overdone as Superman's and Batman's origins, the filmmakers can indulge the obsessive need all directors by Snyder share to show superhero origins on screen (honestly, I've all the depictions of Thomas & Martha Wayne's death I ever need to - can the next version of Batman skip that, please? ). The movie more than succeeded on its own merits, and the set-ups for the rest of their shared universe were not distracting or diverting. If there was any fan-wank stuff, it was well-hidden, or else was the sort of mainstream things that were accessible to viewers of the major media depictions of the three lead heroes, like me.