JUSTICE LEAGUE

Justice League (2017)
Rating: 5.5/10 

STARRING: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams, and Diane Lane. Also Featuring J.K. Simmons, Connie Nielsen, Joe Morton, Billy Crudup and Amber Heard, with Ciaran Hinds as the voice of Steppenwolf.

RATED PG-13 for intense action and destruction and some language

            I didn’t think Justice League was terrible, but I can’t think of a whole lot I really liked about it, either.

            Justice League, as you surely know if you’re reading this, is DC’s version of The Avengers, a teaming-up of their biggest names. The Justice League is made up of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg (maybe others, but I don’t know enough about comics to know who they might be). This movie, as you also probably know, was rushed into production, beset with obstacles during production, and, frankly, just came out too soon. We all know what happened. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been tearing apart the box office and the fabric of pop culture with its increasingly regular blockbusters. DC efforts—apart from those written and directed by Christopher Nolan—have not been up to par. With the team-up Avengers films (and Captain America: Civil War) proving wildly popular with audiences, DC rushed to set up their version. First, there was 2013’s Man of Steel. Last year, we had Batman v Superman, which featured a cameo from Wonder Woman. In June of this year, Wonder Woman got her own movie. Movies for Aquaman and The Flash are surely in the works. The Justice League, everyone!

            With Superman (Henry Cavill) dead in the wake of his battle with Doomsday (see: the climax of Batman v Superman), his surviving superfriends Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) have sensed more danger to humanity is imminent. They have begun keeping tabs on enhanced individuals, such as lightning-struck speedster Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), robo-enhanced explosion survivor Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), and gruff water-dweller Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa). With the help of Bruce’s butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons), they have kept an eye on the whereabouts of these individuals in case the need for their help should arise. And arise it does. Mysterious reptilian minions have been creeping about, drawing attention to a series of ancient, all-powerful cubes that were hidden all over the world. When one of the cubes is energized, the evil, ax-wielding Steppenwolf (voice of Ciaran Hinds) comes forth, bringing more swarms of his winged minions. Steppenwolf, as you might have figured, has plans to destroy the world. He's intent on using potential fusion of the cubes' energy to create a field through which all the fury or wrath of his home world can come forth—or something. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. Bottom line, Steppenwolf doesn’t have good things planned for the world/humanity, and this bothers Bruce, Diana, and the others for some reason. So they team up to save the world. But can they?  *dramatic music plays*

That Justice League is meant to be DC’s answer to the uber-successful Avengers is a given. That it was rushed into production and release before DC really had its cinematic footing is well-known. That it was rushed into production also shows. I wouldn’t say Justice League is an aggressively bad movie, but there’s almost nothing in here you haven’t seen done a million times before, and done better. Like I said, the specifics don’t matter. There’s a Bad Guy, with an Evil Army and an Evil Plot, seeking to get his hands on an all-powerful MacGuffin (or MacGuffins, plural), and if he does it’s bad so the Good Guys try to stop him, first in a series of escalating skirmishes, and then in a full on fiery, explosive, shouty, CGI-soaked extravaganza that features a lot of good guys and bad guys slamming into brick or rock walls and falling down only to get right back up again because, you know, strong and stuff. An early flashback to a team-up of Men, Atlantians, and the all-female Amazons is straight from the first 10 minutes of The Lord of the Rings, as is the lingering idea that, you know, men are evil and greedy and not to be trusted. The Bad Guy who comes through a portal is from the first 5 minutes of the 2012 Avengers. The Bad Guy’s Evil Army coming through a larger portal later on is transparently reminiscent of the climax of the same Avengers. The Eastern-European-town-with-innocent-civilians-in-jeopardy concept is borrowed from Avengers: Age of Ultron. The MacGuffins-that-need-to-be-aligned-to-create-energy-portals-that-can-destroy-the-world-or-even-the-universe is from 2013’s Thor: Dark World (which, admittedly, didn’t execute the idea much better). And the powerful sky beams created by the fusion of the powerful MacGuffins is from every movie made in the last 20 years.

Oh, and the bickering, ego-clashing of good-looking individuals in cool costumes who all have powers? I think I’ve seen that in a movie before, too.

Sorry if this review feels lazy. The movie Justice League feels lazy. The movie isn’t terrible. It just reminds you why the ever-more-frequent superhero movies of recent years are only good up to a point. We’ve. Seen. It. Done. By. Now. I never thought either of Marvel’s Avengers films were incredible, but this is little more than Avengers-lite, with a shorter running time, a more generic villain, a lazier climax, and characters who are less original and largely undefined (remember, the Avengers came out only after Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Loki, and even Hawkeye and Nick Fury had been introduced in other movies). Speaking of, it says a lot that the two brightest spots in this movie are Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa, who play the two most interesting characters who haven’t had their own movies yet. Miller’s chatty geek is slightly overdone, but he delivers laughs most of the time, and has a nice little character arc moment in his first battle when he nervously saves one man with his super-speed and then realizes, hey, that wasn’t too hard, why not save more? And when the burly Momoa jocularly shouts “my man” after Cyborg catches him mid-air during the climactic battle with Steppenwolf’s minions, the moment has such energy and excitement it reminds you what the rest of the movie is lacking.

Like I said, the movie’s not godawful. It’s certainly more minute-by-minute entertaining than the ponderous, brooding, two-and-a-half-hour slog Batman v Superman, and it’s not nearly as devastatingly silly as Suicide Squad. Justice League moves pretty briskly at a shade under two hours, and, despite being formulaic, the first two-thirds aren’t bad. It’s always entertaining to learn about new people with cool abilities, to see them team up, and to see the opening skirmishes. This movie also addresses the previously-unspoken DC Universe question of “why did Wonder Woman get so wound up about WWI (as seen in Wonder Woman) only to seemingly not lift a finger to stop Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Vietnam, or anything else in the next 100 years”. But the by-the-numbers third act that involves the final team-up, the final pep-talk, a few internet-ready group shots, and the slam-bang-whizz finale pretty quickly quench one's hope.

In a way I feel bad, because I feel like the movie was doomed from the start, being asked to carry such a heavy burden. Like I said, Miller and Momoa are bright spots, Fisher does what he can with an under-explained character, and Irons, Diane Lane, and even Connie Nielsen (as Wonder Woman’s mom Queen Hippolyta, back on Themyscira) are on hand and trying hard. But Affleck seems bored, Gadot’s performance is almost all reactionary, Cavill, when he appears (spoiler? I mean—surely you figured), is awkward, and J.K. Simmons, the new Commissioner Gorden, is wasted in a tiny role. And you just have to feel bad for Amy Adams, who deserves so much better than this shlock, being borderline-embarrassed working her tail off in some of this movie’s sappiest, least-interesting scenes.

In Summary

            Justice League isn’t the worst superhero movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not even the worst DC move I’ve seen in the last couple of years. I have a hard time even saying it was bad. There’s just nothing here – except for a few fun character moments with The Flash and Aquaman – that I haven’t seen done better, and recently. Comparisons to The Avengers are inevitable, and they aren’t flattering. Hey, it’s not super long, and there’s a post-credits scene that, depending on who you ask, is the best part of the movie, but the build-up is cliché, most of the characters are underwritten, certain parts are kinda silly (*cough* Atlantis *cough*), and the big blow-it-all-up-real-good CGI climax is lazy and uninspired. This review won’t stop many people (or anyone?) from going to see Justice League because they love their heroes. It’s just a shame this movie wasn’t released later, and better developed, once all its characters were defined in their own movies. So, now I wanna see The Flash starring Ezra Miller, and Aquaman starring Jason Momoa. Just sayin’. 

 JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017)

Directed by Zack Snyder

Screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon
Story by Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder
Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger
Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston
Justice League of America created by Gardner Fox
Fourth World created by Jack Kirby

Length: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Rated PG-13