Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice made $27 million last night (i.e., Thursday), and may be on the way to nailing $180 million by Sunday night. (Warner Bros. is projecting a more modest $110 million.) Shitty reviews never seem to matter on opening weekends, but the second weekend always tells the tale. Presumably some in the HE community caught it last night, or have just returned from a Friday evening show back east. (It’s currently 8:45 pm in Manhattan.) Please opine when you have a moment. Have the critics been too rough or generally on target?

From Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review: Ben Affleck portraying Batman is “a curious choice, especially in the light of Hollywoodland (2006), where he excelled in the role of George Reeves, who starred as Superman on TV in the early 1950s, loathed the experience, and died of a gunshot to the head. It was hardly a movie to brighten one’s faith in comic books.

“Since then, Affleck has become a director of steady and satisfying thrillers, including The Town and Argo, so why risk this backward step into the realm of beefcake? Maybe he relished the gleam of the supporting cast—Holly Hunter, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, and Kevin Costner, with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jesse Eisenberg as a jittery Lex Luthor, and Jeremy Irons taking over from Michael Caine as Alfred, the venerable butler-cum-weapons designer to Bruce Wayne.

“It’s quite a lineup, and not one of them goes unwasted. All are sacrificed to the plot—the usual farrago of childhood trauma, lumps of kryptonite, and panic in the streets—or, rather, to the very loud noises that the plot creates.

“The director is Zack Snyder, who was responsible for 300 (2006), Watchmen (2009), Man of Steel and other Chekhovian chamber pieces, and whom I suspect of having worked for NutriBullet before he joined the movie business. When in doubt, he simply slings another ingredient into the mix, be it an irradiated monster, an explosion on government premises, or the sharp smack of masonry on skull.”