With the R-rated Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice coming July 19 to Blu-ray and June 28 to VOD platforms, it was only a matter of time before the extra footage leaked online.
Right now you can watch every bit of additional footage from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on YouTube. Who knows how long the leaked footage from the Ultimate Edition will stay up, so get in there while you can.
Some of the highlights include (spoilers ahead):
- Superman’s slightly gorier death scene
- Two cops watching a football game
- Superman cooking an egg without a shirt on
- Alfred chopping wood
- Martha Kent waving at the Batplane like a child
- A dude getting shanked because Batman caught him, which still makes no sense
- Jena Malone looking at a computer screen
- Lex Luthor “clarifying” his motivation by rambling on about the nature of sin
If you were counting on the Ultimate Edition somehow salvaging the Titanic of superhero film disasters, prepare to be disappointed. Much of the leaked Dawn of Justice footage perpetuates Batman v Superman ’s absolute worst feature: its preference for figurative language.
So much of the conflict in Batman v Superman feels vague and detached from real stakes because the script slathers everything with pretentious, metaphoric preening. Lex Luthor doesn’t have a concrete plan, he has a figurative one, full of Biblical allusions and self-aware villainy. Superman and Batman don’t talk about the things that matter to them in practical terms, but instead about their abstract philosophical objections. It feels like a failed attempt to imbue these characters with superhuman problems, but instead it distances us from them. They don’t talk like humans, they talk like a 7th grader rewriting Plato’s Republic.
The leaked footage may be even more aggressively obnoxious at this. Some choice lines:
- “You’re digging up snakes, Lo. It’s kind of dangerous.”
- “Look at us, this is how it all caves in. Civilization on the wane, manners out the window.”
- “I don’t hate the sinner, I hate the sin. And yours, my friend, is existing.”
All that said, the leaked footage from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition does have more violence. And isn’t that what superhero movies are all about?
