It seems as though the original direction of the DCEU was decided upon in an effort to differentiate themselves from their competition and in doing so they went a little overboard, in my opinion. My initial exposure to all these characters was through the Adam West Batman television series, the Christopher Reeve Superman films, Tim Burton's Batman films, and those wonderful animated series from the 1990's. I wish the powers that be, in charge of the DCEU, would study these aforementioned source materials for their tone and character depictions, maybe not to a "T" but as an example of how to execute these characters properly. It boggles my mind how DC can have such wonderful animated movies (mostly) and at the same time have such mixed live action films.
Getting back to Justice League, I feel the film corrected some problems while at the same time repeating particular mistakes. At the end of the movie though, the positives were at the forefront of my mind and I was happy leaving the theater.
So, allow me to expound!
THE PLOT
An ancient cosmic conquerer named Steppenwolf has returned to Earth upon the death of Superman. Steppenwolf had been to Earth once before ages ago and was repelled by a great alliance of the powers of Earth. The Atlanteans, the Amazons, humans, and many others united to save the planet. Now the descendants of these heroes and new heroes must unite to stop Steppenwolf's second coming. But even together will they be enough, especially without Superman there to help them?
WHAT I LIKED
SPOILERS AHEAD
Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg. My favorite part of this movie was without a doubt Superman. The movie really takes off and gathers energy when Superman Returns. He was smiling! He was confident, hopeful, and just fun to be with. Honestly I wanted more Superman out of this film. Supes' dialog was delightful and felt like something the Superman I knew would say. My favorite scene in the entire movie though is when Flash is running around him at top speed and Superman looks at him. Sounds stupid when I write it but on screen it is chilling and oh so cool. I like Henry Cavill as Superman and they finally allow him play the Superman he should've been playing all along.
Wonder Woman remains the shining aspect of the DCEU as she carried most of the movie for me. During the early engagements against Steppenwolf it becomes apparent that he outclasses nearly all the heroes in terms of sheer power. This in turn leads to Wonder Woman being the central force taking on Steppenwolf and it is so cool seeing her portrayed as the "muscle" on the team. And Gal Gadot brings her signature style once again to the character. To that effect I really enjoyed Steppenwolf's initial appearance opposing the Amazons, another of my favorite sequences in the film.
And Cyborg too, wonderfully portrayed by actor Ray Fisher, was one of the best characters in the film. Fisher delivers a convincing performance as a man filled with emotional turmoil. His insertion into the film feels the most natural and organic of all the new characters added in the movie. Without Cyborg the film would not work. I was initially worried about Cyborg's CGI and design. I was very happy upon seeing the finished CGI on Cyborg. I swear they even used a few real make-up prostheses on Fisher's face, which was surprising and a welcome sight.
And the cameo appearances! There are a lot of them and I won't spoil them. But I will say stay to the end of the credits to see all of them. It was such a joy getting to see all of these characters.
INDIFFERENT
Aquaman. I didn't dislike him nor did I overly like him as we were all expecting to from the trailers. The trailers really gave away Aquaman's epic moments, almost all of them in fact to the point where I was just checking them off my list instead of being surprised and excited by them. And while this is a pretty drastic change in depiction for the character, it didn't feel earned but rather forced. It was like the filmmakers were saying "hey, he's different and cool now and played Jason Momoa! You like him now!" instead of actually giving us something beyond the cosmetic appeal to latch onto. It felt as if they were trying too hard with him. I'm sure it will feel better in Aquaman's solo film, a movie I now wish would've come before Justice League. I didn't feel Aquaman received enough attention here to leave any real sort of impression or impact. Overall he felt a little superfluous and unnecessary to the movie.
NITPICKS
Bat-Fleck. Talk about disappointing. Ben Affleck played Batman with so much intensity and conviction in BVSDOJ. Here he barely has a heartbeat. I have to wonder if the reception to BVSDOJ broke Ben Afflect's spirit, his own metaphorical "Knightfall." Here it seems like his heart just wasn't in it. His portrayal felt empty and his dialog just didn't work for me, especially his attempts at humor.
Flash also fell flat for me. He was more annoying than anything else and lacked the speedster joy so wonderfully captured in other "non-DC" films (I still think Dash in THE INCREDIBLES is my favorite speedster film depiction). Just the humor in general felt very forced as did the Flash in general. I know the writers of the movie can do action and serious drama but I don't believe they can do humor at all.
Six movies in one. The sin that keeps on sinning. One of my major beefs with BVSDOJ and Suicide Squad was the jammed packed scripts that do so much yet contribute so little. The narrative aspect of Justice League feels very akin to BVSDOJ in this way. It's like they've once again taken six different movies and jammed them together into one movie, and a shorter two hour movie at that. They taking entire comic book story arcs and doing them in five minutes and moving onto the next comic book story arc you've loved for years only to hash it out in ten minutes or less.
Picking on the Nitpicks. There a lot of little things in this movie that don't quite sit right. For instance, the characters seem pretty casual about Superman and Batman's secret identities, calling them out in front of hosts of onlookers and outing themselves completely in front of strangers. Then there was how easily Batman bursts the "Mother Box bubble" and took down the tower at the end. And the Parademons fear-seeking abilities but their perplexing inabilities to sense the fear of all those people in that Russian town right under their noses. Again these are all the very definition of nitpicks and, by themselves, these aren't that big of a deal and I can let them go. But together they add up to a lot. Just seems like another unpolished piece of the writing phase.
THE VERDICT
Justice League gets certain aspects right this time around while still committing many of the same sins as BVSDOJ and Suicide Squad. They're moving more in the right direction this time around by it's a slower progression than I would've thought. Still though, there is pure joy in seeing Superman do his thing in this film. Wonder Woman remains one of DC's best characters and Cyborg enters the stage with a great performance and character foundation. Also the cameos and easter eggs where so much fun seeing, you definitely want to stay through to the end. I felt the positives were very strong in this film and the negatives, well, sadly some of them are still there. Justice League does start moving the DCEU in the right direction, to what degree I'll leave open to you.
Overall Ranking: 6 out of 10
For my thoughts on the rest of the DCEU films click on the links below! And of course tell me your thoughts as well! Let's discuss!
Later this year we'll add Justice League to the list!
For my favorite DC characters check out the post below too!
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