Before 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' was released in theaters, it was revealed that an R-rated director's cut would be released when the film came to home video. Since then, the theatrical cut has divided fans and critics on whether it was a good film. Now the extended 'Ultimate Edition' has been released, and for some, the extra scenes really helped flesh out some plot points that were found to be confusing. As someone who had already enjoyed the film from its theatrical cut, I have to agree that the 'Ultimate Edition' does indeed help the film flow better. Personally though, I was able to follow along during the theatrical cut, even if we were just getting the gist of things.
While there were some scenes that were really just extensions of what was already in the film, there were two aspects of the 'Ultimate' cut that I thought expanded the overall story for the better.
The first is the Superman incident in Africa. We're actually shown what happened, and the specifics as to why Superman is blamed for the terrorists' deaths. I won't spoil the specifics, but there's a lot in this scene that would have been better left in the theatrical cut.
The second thing that the 'Ultimate' cut really approves on is the build-up and motivation for Superman's animosity towards Batman. You get the basic idea in the theatrical cut, but here, we're given a good parallel to Batman's own feelings toward Superman, specifically 'what gives this person the right to do what he does?' This is actually something I pointed out in my original review that Clark is projecting the feelings some have about Superman onto Batman.
Besides that, the 'Ultimate' cut is a bit more violent than the theatrical one, which was the main reason for its R-rating. I just thought it would be extended fight scenes and that it wouldn't be that noticeable, but it was, from gun-splatter coming from gun-shots to Batman slamming a thug's head so hard into a wall that he leaves a pretty big blood smear as he slides down to the floor. That part kind of reopened my uneasiness about how brutal this Batman could be. I still stick to my reasoning that Bruce isn't setting out to kill anyone directly, thinking once again of the Arkham games. That big blood streak doesn't help things though, and I'm glad that it wasn't in the theatrical version.
A couple more sidenotes:
* While it wasn't stated specifically before in the theatrical cut, Jimmy Olsen is indeed the undercover photographer CIA agent in the Africa scene, and he does gets shot. Before, I just thought, 'hey, maybe they just decided to call him Jimmy since he was paired with Lois.' Well, I'd like to give people some hope. Considering he was a CIA agent, it's possible that maybe he's not really THE Jimmy Olsen. When agents go undercover, sometimes they'll go under a false identity, or use someone else's credentials to get access to some place. I know this would kind of be a cop out, but hey, Marvel's teasing a REAL Mandarin coming to the MCU after the version from Iron Man 3 got a lot of criticism. Will we see the real Jimmy arrive in the DCEU? Who knows?
* In one of the extra scenes, someone is watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show talking about Superman renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Okay, 1) While the movie features a lot of news commentators, they're from current shows. At the time of both cuts' releases, Jon Stewart had retired from the Daily Show at the end of Summer 2015. 2) Superman makes no declaration in this film. 3) They obviously just used that clip from a 2011 show talking about where in the comics, Superman had decided to renounce his U.S. citizenship (a storyline that really didn't go anywhere because DC rebooted with the New 52 soon afterwards). My point is, using this Jon Stewart clip just really took me out of the movie for a moment.
Overall, it seems that the 'Ultimate' cut is winning people over who didn't like the original version. Which brings me to my next topic: studio involvement affecting a film's quality. There have been two recent examples of this: Sony using 'Amazing Spider-Man 2' to try and launch their own Spider-Man cinematic universe, which backfired and ultimately led to Spider-Man coming to the MCU; Fox hating Josh Trank's cut of 'Fant4stic' and demanding reshoots (although when you get down to it, that film was going to fail no matter what cut). It seems 'Batman v Superman' is another victim though, because having to cut it down to a 2 hour 30 minute film affected the quality for some.
I honestly believe that some of what was cut could have stayed in the film, specifically more details on the Africa incident and Clark's motivations for going after Batman. The violence would still be scaled back and the scenes that had extensions could still be shortened. Plus, Jena Malone's scenes really had no bearing on the overall film (and unfortunately, she did not play Barbara Gordon). If anything, the film could have clocked in at 2 hours 45 minutes (the same length of 'The Dark Knight Rises') and may have gotten an overall better reception (aside from the people who already had their mind up to hate this movie no matter what).
While I enjoy that the 'Ultimate Cut' enhances the film's viewing experiences, my personal feelings for the film are no different from the theatrical version. I stand by my original score of 9.5/10
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