Within the first several minutes of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” the camera follows Bruce Wayne as he careens his SUV through Metropolis city streets during the catastrophic battle between Superman and General Zod that served as the climax to 2013’s “Man of Steel.” The streets are nearly empty, which is strange considering the cataclysmic events taking place. Eventually, he rounds a corner and is forced to halt by a throng of onlookers. As he stops, a couple of firemen walk up behind his car. The camera switches to a front view as Wayne gets out of the car, which is now surrounded by more throngs of people, boxing him in.

Where did these people come from? They weren’t in the streets just seconds before. They certainly were not running along behind him, considering how fast he was driving. They aren’t the people in front of him, because he stopped before driving in among them.

It’s a rookie mistake. Zack Snyder wanted Bruce Wayne to be surrounded by people, so they will fill the screen from every angle, so…people are there. This is one of two central problems with BvS. There may have been a plot here, it might even have been a good one, but it is lost as Snyder doesn’t shoot movies with plots. He creates artistically designed vignettes, and then strings them together and calls it a film. If you have arresting characters and interesting dialogue, this works. Unfortunately, BvS has average characters and completely inane dialogue.

There’s a good movie here, but it is buried under Snyder’s auteur sensibility that wants to stage every scene in some grand manner—whether it makes sense or not. It also doesn’t help the entire movie takes place at night. Can DC superheroes not operate in daylight? Are they all closet vampires, or something? It’s depressing; especially when it lasts over two hours.

The second major problem with BvS is Lex Luthor. Excuse me, Alexander Luthor, Jr. The “real” Luthor’s son. It’s a shame. Lex Luthor is to Superman as Joker is to Batman. He is the iconic nemesis to the Big Blue Boy Scout. And he’s replaced here by a sniveling madman who is basically Joker without the makeup. Maybe the point was to mix both Batman and Superman’s main villains into one character?

Sorry. Didn’t work. Eisenberg’s Luthor is pitiful, not predatory. He’s not even terribly frightening, which is why they had to release the big bad of Doomsday at the end. It only serves to exacerbate the overall mediocrity of the movie.

And that, perhaps, is the biggest problem with BvS. It’s just an OK movie. It has enough big action sequences to thrill the audience, but they’re empty set pieces, just like the rest of the film. I hope WB/DC can step up their game with the individual movies, or Justice League is going to fall quite flat.