JUSTICE LEAGUE:
A FUN BUT AWKWARDLY
EXECUTED INSTALLMENT OF THE DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE THAT DOESN’T QUITE DO THE
FRANCHISE “JUSTICE”!
By Nico
Beland
Movie
Review: ** ½ out of 4
WARNER
BROS. PICTURES
(From
left to right) The Flash, Superman, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Aquaman
in DC’s Justice League
After a series of blunders and the
unexpected critical success of Wonder
Woman earlier on this year, we finally reach the movie the DC Extended Universe was building up to,
Justice League. Marvel has already proved that superhero team-ups can be done well
with their Avengers movies so it
makes sense for DC to try and do the
same since they own some of the most beloved and iconic superhero characters of
all time.
Now I really, REALLY wanted to give
this movie a chance because I love most of these characters. I may not have
read all their comics but through other movies, cartoons, and even live-action
TV shows every member of the Justice
League have their own special places in my heart.
Wonder
Woman gave me a glimmer of hope that the DC Extended Universe was starting to get on the right track and I
was open to see the Justice League
movie despite Cyborg, Aquaman, and Flash movies not yet existing. Unfortunately,
director, Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead
(2004), 300, Watchmen) didn’t take notes while watching Wonder Woman and we have yet another disjointed and awkward
installment of the franchise.
I understand Snyder was having rough
times with this film due to family issues that interfered and hopefully this
doesn’t stop him from making movies. Fortunately, this movie is better than
most of the other DC films in the
franchise, has a much lighter tone compared to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, and there are attempts at being silly and funny
which makes sense because they brought in Avengers
director, Joss Whedon to finish the movie while Snyder was out (What a friend?)
but because they both have different directing styles it feels cluttered in its
execution.
After the “Death of Superman” we
find Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck-The
Town, Argo, Gone Girl) enlisting the help of his new friend and ally, Diana
Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot-Fast &
Furious franchise, Date Night, Triple 9) to face an even greater enemy.
An alien military officer known as Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds-Excalibur, Road to Perdition, There Will
Be Blood) has been unleashed and plots to conquer and rebuild the world
with the combined powers of the Mother Boxes (Think of them as 3 Tesseracts or
Allsparks) for his lord and master, Darkseid.
Bruce and Diana recruit a team of
heroes consisting of Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller-Royal Pains, The Perks of
Being a Wallflower, Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them), Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa-Baywatch: Hawaii, Game of Thrones, Wolves),
and Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher-The
Astronaut Wives Club) to combat Steppenwolf’s wrath, however they might
need to resurrect their fallen hero, Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill-The Tudors, Stardust, The Man from
U.N.C.L.E.) to even stand a chance in this battle (PS that’s not a spoiler
because they already ruined it in the marketing and in Batman v. Superman).
The film also stars Amy Adams (Enchanted, The Fighter, American Hustle)
as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons (The Lion King,
Die Hard with a Vengeance, Margin Call) as Alfred Pennywise, Diane
Lane (Chaplin, Inside Out, Trumbo) as
Martha Kent, Connie Nielsen (Rushmore,
Gladiator, The Good Wife) as Hippolyta, and J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man trilogy, Whiplash,
Zootopia) as Commissioner James
Gordon.
Overall, Justice League is a mixed-bag of a superhero movie, while it has
plenty of good things in it like the cast, a good chunk of the humor, much more
color compared to Snyder’s other work, and plenty of chaotic action, the pacing
and different directing styles of Snyder and Whedon really make the film go
downhill. Don’t worry this isn’t even close to being one of the worst comic
book films of all time, trust me this is Christopher Nolan Dark Knight compared to Batman
& Robin or Superman IV: The Quest
for Peace.
However as much as I enjoyed a good
chunk of this film there was a lot that left me disappointed. For starters, the
character development sucks hard with the exceptions of Batman and Wonder Woman
because they already had a movie that established their characters (or in
Wonder Woman’s case two) and since we haven’t seen a Flash, Aquaman, or Cyborg
movie yet, that leaves two hurdles the film needs to jump over, establish the
new characters so the audience can grow attached to them and give all the
heroes screen-time, and because of the awkward set-up of the DC Extended Universe and mediocre
directing, I don’t think Justice League
does that very well.
Also, the villain is extremely
forgettable which adds more to the problems with the DC Extended Universe timeline, Steppenwolf has never appeared in an
earlier DC film and it feels like he
just got shoehorned into the movie with very little explanation outside of a
backstory told by Wonder Woman at the beginning of the film. The villain in the
first Avengers movie was Loki who was
already established in the Marvel franchise
and unlike DC’s franchise they gave
the characters and worlds time to develop before their big team-up film, I’ll
remember Loki far more than Steppenwolf, Hell, I’ll go on record and say I’ll
probably forget about Steppenwolf in a few days he left so little impact, never
thought I’d say this but Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor actually would have been an
improvement here because at least he was already established in the universe.
Do I regret seeing it? No, I’m glad
I saw it, Justice League isn’t a
terrible movie or even that bad of a movie but there is something about it that
gets on my nerves. This was supposed to be DC’s
big Avengers-like team-up movie which
should have been amazing and if you can’t get it right the first time and the
finished product comes off as “Meh!” then clearly something is wrong.
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