10 Years Later, Zack Snyder’s Divisive Superhero Epic Has a Batman Scene That Aged Like Fine Wine

When Zack Snyder made Man of Steel, the darker and more brooding tone, the character’s emotional instability, and the titular homage to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight all seemed to indicate that Snyder actually wanted to make a Batman movie more than a Superman movie. He finally got the chance with his 2016 follow-up, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a movie that finally pitted the two eponymous heroes against each other for a showdown that people apparently really wanted to see. His take on Superman (Henry Cavill) remained fairly surface-level (what if there were a guy who was better and stronger than everyone?), but — credit where it’s due — he had a relatively solid take on his interpretation of Batman.

Batman v Superman was ultimately quite divisive, sitting at a 28 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 63 percent from regular users, and it led to both the generally reviled Justice League movie and Snyder’s self-indulgent multi-hour re-edit of Justice League that is actually a little better. But for all of the arguments that people online may want to have about Snyder’s superhero filmmaking career, Batman v Superman did feature one genuinely great action sequence featuring the Caped Crusader that nobody has really matched before or since… at least in live-action.

Batman Takes On a Warehouse of Goons in ’Batman v Superman's Best Scene

Late-ish in Batman v Superman, after the two superheroes have had their little battle and bonded over the fact that their mothers are both named “Martha” (it’s hard to simply describe the plot of the movie without sounding like your making fun of it), Batman (Ben Affleck) goes off to rescue Superman’s mom (Diane Lane) from Lex Luthor’s heavily armed goons. What follows has pretty much anything that any Bat-fan would want to see out of Ol’ Tall-Ears, beginning with a nice little moment between Batman and Alfred (Jeremy Irons) as you see how well their partnership works when they’re doing normal crimefighting stuff and not arguing about whether or not Superman is evil.

Once in the warehouse, the scene takes clear inspiration from the Arkham Asylum series of video games by having Batman alternate between brutal beatings and stealthy takedowns. It’s a well-choreographed illustration of how one guy in an armored Bat-suit can take on a dozen or so bad guys with assault rifles, and it feels very true to how you’d expect a guy like Batman (especially a beefy, mean Batman like this one) to fight. It’s all built around Batman using his physical strength and tactical mind to overcome an obstacle, with a handful of gadgets thrown in for good measure, which makes it pretty much the ideal Batman fight scene.

The cherry on top is that it ends with Batman saving Martha and explaining that he’s a friend of her son’s, with her responding that she figured that was the case since they both have capes. It’s a cute moment that calls back to the people who like their Batman a little softer than Snyder’s interpretation and a little acknowledgment that — in this world, at this point — he and Superman are the only famous superheroes. It’s also a small nod in the direction of the other thing that people wanted to see besides them fighting, which is them being friends (a thing they are notably more famous for doing).

There have been better Batman stories told in movies, but very few of them have managed to succinctly and accurately define the character as well as this one scene.