...All this and more is answered in my ever more controversial series comparing Cap America Civil War with Batman V Superman Lol
I'm going to be upfront about this, I think Lex Luthor is pretty brilliant in this movie, however I also believe that Jessie Eisenberg's at times "hyper" performance, as much as I enjoyed it, may have ultimately been too distracting for audiences to see past.
IMO Lex Luthor from BvS is the best written comic villain, since the Comedian in Watchmen and The Joker in The Dark Knight. However, the performance itself by Jessie Eisenberg, may have distracted audiences from the brilliance of the writing. I think Jessie himself did a magnificant job, but going into the performance he had too much of an uphill struggle to get over all the hate and ill will against him even before people had entered the theatres. Added to that, so many people judged him off adaptations of Lex Luthor that they were familiar with from popular TV shows like Smallville and the fantastic animated shows like Justice League. There we saw a calm, in control, stoic strategist, rather than a manic, spoilt, boy genius, so irritating it could make your skin crawl.
However if we watch closely even in the animated series and especially in the comics, Lex has always been insane. This is not just the domain of the Joker. If anything Joker is a very sane man playing as if he is insane when he's actually a brilliant criminal, whereas Lex is a very insane genius, playing as if he's an upstanding business man. As you'll see from the JL clip below Lex can be pretty unhinged.
I won't say much more because it is all there in this video. However I do want to outline what I saw when watching BvS and why I think Eisenberg's performance is so misunderstood. Jessie is playing a semi-autistic, sociopath with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. What does that all mean in terms of his motivations in the movie and why does this make him so manic? (This is explained in the video)
But why does he hate Superman?
However, I will touch on his motivations for hating Superman here, as I think this is the biggest bone of contention people have with the movie and I'd like to discuss it with those interested even if they have not got the time to see the Video. :) He basically hates and wants to kill Superman for three reasons connected to the co-morbid psychopathologies he suffers from:
1. He doesn't want a greater being than himself existing in the world., To him the fact that he is the smartest individual in the world means he ought to be most powerful, and it is paradoxical that the vast knowledge and wealth he posses, still pales in comparrison to the powers of Superman. He also wants to be perceived as humanities ultimate savior because he is a narcissist, that is why he wants to tarnish Superman's image, as this masiah like figure.
2. He sees Superman as a symbol representing God. God to him has to be corruptible if he exists because that is the only way to explain all the pain in the world, specifically the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. He therefore wants to frame Superman, so he can prove to the world God is a fraud
3. He's A SOCIOPATH. This is a reason in and of itself. Ask some of the most notorious serial killer why they murdered 18 women, usually you get nothing like a satisfactory answer. No sob story about how their Uncle was abusive or their Mother made them wear pink tights, more often than not it's just a personality disorder they were born with or developed at a very young age. Lex when put in this light doesn't even need any direct motive. The guys completely messed up in the head even though at the same time he is also a genius.
A lot of people who I hear complain about Lex in the movie think he contradicts himself. They say if Lex wanted to protect humanity from the threat of superman because he is so powerful, then why does he create and release Doomsday on the world a potentially far more powerful and uncontrollable being than even Supe's. What they don't seem to get is that all his talk about protecting the world from Superman is a smoke screen. His intention from the very beginning is to murder The Man Of Steel. That's the whole point of the senator saying: "You can call me whatever you like. Take a bucket of piss and call it Granny's peach tea. Take a weapon of assassination and call it deterrence. You won't fool a fly or me. I'm not gonna drink it."." . She's already on to Lex Luthor. She can already sense there's something marcarbre about Lex's intentions to import Kryptonite.
Enjoy The Video: