Justice League ** ½ / *****
Directed by: Zack Snyder.
Written by: Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon and Zack Snyder based on characters created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and William Moulton Marston and Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.
Starring:Ben Affleck (Bruce Wayne / Batman), Henry Cavill (Kal-El / Clark Kent / Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Gal Gadot (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman), Ezra Miller (Barry Allen / The Flash), Jason Momoa (Arthur Curry / Aquaman), Ray Fisher (Victor Stone / Cyborg), Jeremy Irons (Alfred Pennyworth), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), Connie Nielsen (Hippolyta), J. K. Simmons (James Gordon), Ciarán Hinds (Steppenwolf), Joe Morton (Silas Stone), Amber Heard (Mera), Billy Crudup (Henry Allen).
Justice League is a big, entertaining mess of a film from beginning to end. It would be easy to find fault with much – perhaps even most of it – and rip it to shreds in a review. The movie has a lot of problems – the two biggest ones are probably that it forgets to tell a coherent story for most of its runtime and the second is that the villain is awful in almost every conceivable way imaginable – and yet, oddly enough, I kind of liked the movie. It is a step up from last year’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad – the second and third film in the DCU, but a massive step down from this year’s Wonder Woman – one of the best comic movies in years. The movie doesn’t really work in any conventional sense, and yet it’s all kind of fun – and actually, for the first time, has me thinking that perhaps DC can pull all this crap together someday into a decent series. It ain’t there yet – but it’s getting better.
The film takes place in the aftermath of Batman v. Superman – with Superman still dead, Wonder Woman still hiding, and Batman wondering what he needs to do to protect humanity. What he wants is to assemble a team – a justice league if you will – of people with special powers. That includes Wonder Woman of course – but he’s also got his eye on teenager Barry Allen aka the Flash who can run really fast, Arthur Curry aka Aquaman, who swims a lot, and can speak to fish, and Victor Stone aka Cyborg who is, well, a cyborg. Batman needs this team together – and pronto – because an ancient villain has return to earth. This is Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hings) – who invaded earth thousands of years ago with the help of three boxes (please don’t ask) – and is back again. Last time, he only lost because everyone on earth banded together to fight him. Now, with Superman dead, everyone on earth is demoralized. All Steppenwolf has to do is assemble the boxes, and he’s won.
I said earlier, it would be easy to rip Justice League to shreds in a review – and it would be. A lot about this film doesn’t really work. Out of the three new additions to the team – only Ezra Miller’s Flash is an unabashed success – I’d watch a movie of just him right now, as Miller brings something that has been missing from the previous Zack Snyder superhero films – unabashed joy. He’s a riot. Jason Momoa’s Aquaman is, um, interesting, I guess. He isn’t the Aquaman I grew up – but everyone mocks the Aquaman I grew up with, so maybe that’s why they’ve turned him into an Entourage extra in this film (seriously, I kept expecting him to ask Flash “Do you even lift, bro?”). I may be persuaded to like Ray Fisher’s Cyborg at some point – but they really need to decide what the hell this guy can do – because in this film, he’s seems to be able to do anything the screenplay needs him to do at even given time, even if it’s never been mentioned that he can do that before. Also, if there’s something this series of movies did NOT need it was more damn brooding – and Cyborg (who I mainly know from Teen Titans, where’s he a lovable goofball hanging out with Beast Boy) is nothing if not brooding. This is Affleck’s second time as Batman (okay, third – he did have a scene in Suicide Squad) – and I still cannot tell if he’s bored, or just has the most flat, one note reading of Batman imaginable. Gal Gadot kills it again as Wonder Woman – making me want a sequel to that film as soon as possible.
We know the film was cobbled together now by two different directors – that Zack Snyder shot the film, and delivered a rough cut, before having to step away because of a family tragedy – and being replaced by Joss Whedon, who came in, reshot a bunch of stuff, and took over post-production. The film certainly does have a cobbled together feel to it – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This series needed to the lighten the hell up, and Whedon’s trademark banter fits the mold for this film just fine. The film still has too much slow motion – a Snyder trademark – but at least there it makes sense to a certain extent here.
I could go on pointing out flaws here – seriously, Steppenwolf is awful – but I have to admit one thing about Justice League: it’s kind of fun. Yeah, it’s goofy fun – and the fun is fleeting (this is a parking lot movie, in that you’ll forget it as soon as you leave the theater and hit the parking lot) – but it’s still fun. Batman v. Superman was a long, dull, slog of a film – no fun at all. Suicide Squad wasn’t much fun, unless it featured Margot Robbie bouncing off the walls as Harley Quinn. This movie is lighter and a hell of a lot more fun than it really should be. Is it a good movie? Not really. But it’s a step in the right direction for this huge, lumbering franchise.
