I've said it before, but I feel a bit of a disconnect with these DC movies because I'm not a hardcore DC fan. So I have no scruples about specific characterizations or honoring classic comics. As movies, I have found Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman (the extended cut, because it's much improved), Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman to be fabulously entertaining, if sometimes darker and heavier than I'd prefer (though Wonder Woman might be one of my favorite movies this year, period). I don't know that they're really "good" movies, but that's mostly subjective anyway. Zack Snyder has his issues as a filmmaker, and here we see him trying again; what I'm not sure about is the extent to which Joss Whedon remade parts of this film. You can certainly see his touch (by which I mean his ham-handed machinations).
And, as in other cases, I found Justice League to be fabulously entertaining. Batman and Wonder Woman (Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot) are trying to gather strength in the wake of Superman's (Henry Cavill) death. A new threat appears in Steppenwolf, leading an army of bug-men from portals that open above mystical power boxes. These "Mother Boxes", once combined, will apparently destroy Earth, something Steppenwolf has had experience doing, and he ruthlessly attacks Atlantis and Themyscira to collect the boxes hidden there. While he hunts for the third, the team slowly assembles, including self-loathing Cyborg (Ray Fisher), self-doubting Flash (Ezra Miller, as the film's comic relief), and hunky Aquaman (Jason Momoa). Even with their combined strength, they are determined to get more help, so they revive Superman (he's back, thank heaven) to aid them.
What's most interesting to me with this movie is that, at least to my mind, it tried really hard to make things feel like a comic book. A lot of the visuals have intensified colors, dynamic angles, and sometimes laughably poor special effects -- poor, that is, from a realistic perspective. But when you have Atlanteans and Amazons and aliens and cyborgs and metahumans battling oversized bug-people, how realistic can the effects be, really? Some moments unfortunately look like they were lifted directly from Snyder's other films, especially 300, for better or worse. I don't find any of that off-putting.
What I do find off-putting here is the screenplay. The first half of the film is laboriously episodic, almost as if the filmmakers are establishing exactly where commercial breaks will go when this starts airing on television. We lurch from character to character with little sequential logic, learning vague bits of their backstories and getting some grim foreshadowing before we jump to someone else somewhere else. I'm not sure exactly how the filmmakers could have done it better, what with 3 new protagonists to familiarize and get us to root for, plus all their respective secondary characters. And I'm not saying it's bad, just distracting.
Similarly, it feels at times like the writers were battling for control over the film. We have incredibly tense, dramatic moments with the Amazons or with the revived Superman and Lois, but then we have some really funny punchlines the likes of which we haven't seen in this franchise. It's as if the producers and writers decided to take people's complaints about Batman v Superman and try to do the exact opposite with this movie. We have comedy, we have a super simple plotline, we have only one villain, we have much more action and less moody-broody-ness. This is a prime example of how audience reaction can dictate franchise content; I will refrain from monologuing about artistic integrity. What I will mention is that, while the humor ends up a bit predictable and sometimes groan-inducing, there are some gems here. In one scene, Aquaman begins to emotionally discuss his feelings about the team before realizing he's sitting on Wonder Woman's truth-telling rope. In another, the Flash saves a Russian family and, trying to say "goodbye" to them, says "Dostoyevsky!"
Other than those issues -- which are more about preference than anything -- I fully enjoyed Justice League. Well, those, and the fact that the villain was pretty awful. Though voiced by the lovely Ciaran Hinds, Steppenwolf is a totally CGI character, and frankly, it's not great CGI. It's like Polar Express-level animation, which just doesn't fit. Add to that the character's single-minded ambitions and rhino-like fighting style, and you've got a flat megalomaniac who is apparently powerless without his killing axe. I was so much more invested in the almost-fight between the revived Superman and the rest of the Justice League than in any scene with Steppenwolf.
Be sure to stick around during and after the credits, folks. The mid-credits scene is very funny, and the post-credits scene made me angry, but you already know I don't like Jesse Eisenberg.
IMDb: Justice League
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