Justice League

Justice League

Directed by Zack Snyder

Written by Zack Snyder, Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon

Based on Characters by Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Gardner Fox, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, William Moulton Marston and Jack Kirby

Having finished the film just about an hour ago at the time of writing this one phrase sums up my opinion pretty concisely: you are better than this. I mean this for everyone. Zack Snyder is better than this. Ben Affleck is better than this. Gal Gadot is better than this. Joss Whedon is better than this. Warner Bros is better than this. You are better than this. I am better than this (well maybe not, I spend my days writing about my opinions on movies after all).

Zack Snyder, for all of the stinkers in his filmography, has some genuinely decent flicks and has shown some talent. 300 is stylistic and silly and I still have fun watching it and Watchmen is as faithful an adaptation of it's source material as can be made in a feature length film (Rorschach was the best part of that film and is great). Ben Affleck, who to be fair has a lot of stinkers too, is a great actor who surprised me with how great a Batman he can play despite the many shortcomings of the films he's played the character in. Gal Gadot is the perfect Wonder Woman. Joss Whedon made the Avengers. My question for the filmmakers is this: why, since you have so many talented people working on this movie, is the resulting product so bad?

Some spoilers ahead, but you can guess almost every single plot point if you've ever seen a single movie ever so none of this will surprise you. In short don't watch it, it's bad.

The story picks up where Batman vs Superman left off, Superman is dead, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is in prison, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) have a list of people they want for a super team. A big bad guy named Steppenwolf (Claran Hinds) starts beaming around and collecting these weird cube things, the first on Themyscira protected by the Amazons, the second in Atlantis protected by the Atlanteans, and the third is somewhere on Earth protected by... someone (Note: I know there are people protecting it but one of the characters steals it off screen without any trouble)? The Amazons alert the world and Batman begins building up the team as Steppenwolf plans to destroy the planet. They recruit Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Superman (Henry Cavill) in the twist that surprised absolutely no one.

The story is dumb. I understand this is the case with many superhero flicks but I can accept that if it's entertaining. This, however, by and large isn't. A big problem I have is that when Diana tells Bruce about the origin of the cubes and Steppenwolf, she describes how the entire world, along with several off-world warriors, came together thousands of years ago to stop him and take the cubes, a technology that destroys the world but also transforms that planet into Steppenwolf's homeworld... somehow? So all these warriors come together to fight, including the Amazons, who I thought it was established could not leave Themyscira and return (also the battle wasn't even hinted at in Wonder Woman). They also explicitly show a member of the Green Lantern Corps fighting but nowhere else in the movie do they mention the Green Lanterns, wouldn't the return of this world destroyer be enough to get the Green Lanterns to send some guys over? The gods themselves even step in to fight but aren't heard from again, my question from the last sentence applies here.

So this supervillain who almost destroyed the entire world is going to be taken on by a single Amazonian, a guy who runs fast, a cyborg, a single Atlantian, and a rich kid with issues? Sure, whatever.

The way the team assembles is also dumb. Aquaman and Cyborg are hesitant to join the team, which is fine, but the way they join up is stupid. Aquaman just shows up to Atlantis when it gets attacked and is told by Mera, the Queen of Atlantis, that he is supposed to fight Steppenwolf because he is the late Queen Atlanta's son. Why is that? Aren't you Queen, the child of the same person he is? Shouldn't you be fighting the bad guy too? Not only that, if everyone had to band together to defeat Steppenwolf the first time why are you sending ONE guy. Cyborg doesn't fare much better. He is believed dead at the beginning of the film and the ONLY reason he even learns about how Wonder Woman and Bats want to recruit him is because he has some BS script power. He literally just sat down and suddenly the plot convenience powers he has show the two superheroes talking about him and then it shows their secret identities. That's literally what happens. I can't tell if the Flash's recruitment is more or less stupid. You've seen it in the trailer, Batman asks him to join the team and he says yes then follows that up with "I don't have many friends." He joins the Justice League because he doesn't have any friends. That's literally the only reason he joins the team, he learns about the bad guy after the fact. I'm not joking.

I can't tell if I like the acting or not. I have trouble deciding whether the actors are just bad in many scenes or if the script and directing led them to it. Gal Gadot escapes unscathed and Cyborg is pretty cool, BS plot convenience powers aside, but the other characters bug the hell out of me with the exception of Superman. Leave it to this muddled mess of a movie to finally get Superman right. He smiles, he cracks jokes, and he actually saves innocent people; welcome back Supes, we missed you.

I'm sure Ezra Miller is a fine actor, I've only seen him in the DC movies as the Flash, but he annoyed me to no end. He serves as the main comic relief character which basically means he makes a majority of the cringe-worth jokes and one-liners. Jesus, this guy is less of a badass superhero and more of an annoying child. I can understand having a funny character but to do so they actually need to be funny.

Another big problem I have with the comic relief is one of the characters who delivers it: Batman. Are you serious? Batman as comic relief? Who decided this was a good idea? Batman is a stoic, humorless vigilante; if there are any funny moments with him it comes while he is still stoic and badass. In Batman vs Superman Batman had a bodycount numbering about a dozen; he stabbed people, exploded one guy, branded criminals knowing they would be killed later in prison and crashed into a car with a bunch of guys. This is the guy who delivers funny moments? Whatever. Affleck can be a very good, even great, Batman but he isn't given anything decent to work with. One of the lone bright spots is his suit in the final battle, I choose to believe that it was inspired by the awesome armor from the video game Batman: Arkham Knight.

Probably the worst character in the whole film is Steppenwolf. This is the most boring, bland and forgettable villain I think I've seen in all of film with the possible exception of the metal thing from the first Thor movie. He is literally just a very tall, grey, and muscular dude who wants to destroy the world because... movie? He gives all of the "I will destroy the world" speeches you'd expect and is just a black hole that sucks in any possible interest or entertainment and destroys it. He sucks and he looks stupid too, just look at the picture below to see what I mean.

They also don't use the supporting cast at all aside from Jeremy Irons as Alfred. He's great, I like him as Alfred just as I did in Batman vs Superman. Amy Adams is basically used just as a way to recruit Superman into the team, she doesn't do anything else. Five-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams is relegated to a McGuffin that makes Superman join the team. They cast J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, one of the most beloved Batman supporting characters, and they give him a single scene. I hate to repeat myself but they cast J.K. Simmons, an Academy Award winner, as a character who has a single scene. He has a bigger role as Lenny Turtletaub in Bojack Horseman. 

The fight scenes are a mess. One of the most important elements of a superhero action film is just bad. The very first fight scene is between Batman and the guy who played Agent Tensch from the Netflix show Mindhunter (go watch that show it's really good) and I'm not convinced that any part of that scene wasn't CGI, at one point Batman flips through the air and it looks so hilariously bad I had to stifle a laugh. The scale of the fight Steppenwolf has on Themyscira is cool but it looks so fake I couldn't get invested and the same goes with the flashback fight when the world unites against him and his army. The first scene where the League fights him in the sewers under Gotham and Metropolis is better, and it's cool to see everyone fight together, but it's still obviously CGI and I still couldn't really get invested. I'm a big advocate of practical effects as often as possible and this film seems to disregard that notion. I understand you can't show superman smashing people through buildings and things like that practically, but I would like you to watch the hallway fight scene from episode two of Netflix's Daredevil season one if you haven't already. It's all practical effects plus a little visual trickery. Everything feels visceral and real and drew me in much more than anything in this movie.

A big positive I was surprised with was the Speed Force. It's essentially what the Flash can tap into that makes him go fast; lightning flashes through the air and the entire world stops dead in time, it looks cool and they use it a lot.

The final fight scene is much of the same but it succeeds in just being so fun I found myself actually enjoying it. It's a total CGI mess but the characters were so into it and was such a fun ride I could excuse it. There is an unintentionally funny moment where Batman is speeding through the streets of this isolated Russian town where Steppenwolf just decided to make his home base and is blasting noise to attract all of the monsters that make up his army. Batman sees these things following him and he says "they're all following me" but in the shot they show like twenty of these things. There are thousands of these monsters and Batman seems to think that twenty is the whole army. It's funny in how stupid it is. When Superman shows up all tension drains from the scene because he doesn't even sweat as he handily beats the crud out of Steppenwolf. I know this is what would happen because Supes is so overpowered but Steppenwolf barely even puts up a fight.

The music is forgettable except in a handful of very small instances, and I mean SMALL instances. There's one time when Batman is accompanied by a few seconds of the Danny Elfman theme from the 1989 Batman movie, when Wonder Woman first shows up they play her theme from her movie for a few seconds, the Superman theme from the 1978 film plays for a few seconds when Supes shows up for the final fight scene, and an awful cover of The Beatles' "Come Together" that plays over the credits.

This film is a mess from start to finish. Some things aren't so bad, even good, but that doesn't stop this trainwreck from being what it is. I'm leaving out most of my smaller problems with certain scenes and characters but I've hit all of the major ones. I cannot, in good faith, recommend this to anyone. If you want a decent superhero flick go watch Thor: Ragnarok. It's fun, it's funny, and it doesn't trash one of my favorite superheroes in the process. As I said before, you are better than this. Every single person involved in this movie is better than this, and if Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman didn't convince me that this movie franchise needs to die Justice League has finally done it.