Review: Justice League

All in.

In the wake of Superman's (Henry Cavill) death, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) has to form a team of gifted individuals alongside Diana (Gal Gadot) when a creature from another planet, Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) returns to Earth looking for "mother boxes" and plans to destroy everything. They call in The Flash,(Ezra Miller) Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) for help, but of course it's not simple.

It's a shame this film is currently getting Tomb Raider'd at the box office, but maybe this is what Warner Bros needs to push the DCEU in the right direction. Yes, Justice League is a far better film than its official predecessor; Batman v Superman.  But knowing all this box office drama in advance did change the way I looked at this film. I'll get to that in a second.

I went in expecting to have a bit of fun, and I did. When Justice League is good, it's very good. Its strength of course is our core heroes. I loved their chemistry together. Affleck and Gadot proved again they play their characters well, even if you could tell Affleck didn't want to be there. But I never want to see a male director handle Wonder Woman again. Just look at the way the camera lingers on her in this compared to when Patty Jenkins shot her. Here we get almost an up the skirt shot and a character landing on her boobs. Thanks, dudes. Superman was also leagues better here than he was in his other two outings, even with the terrible dialogue they gave him and Lois together. Let's talk about our newbies. As some of you probably saw on Twitter, I'm nowhere near being on the "Jason Momoa is hot" train. He still isn't, but I actually ended up liking him in this role quite a bit. It turns out, drunk Aquabro is a good way for this character to go. Ezra Miller stole every scene he was in, and he didn't disappoint. I was the most excited to see him as I'm a big fan of his work. I was pleasantly surprised with the way they handled Cyborg. I expected them to mostly ignore him and this film actually worked really well as an origin story for him, which can't be said about Flash and Aquaman

And that brings me to looking at this film differently. Full disclosure, I do not buy that reviewers are bias towards Marvel movies. I don't think there's any type of conspiracy out there and I realize some fans come up with a new one every week, but I can't help but look at this film and feel cheated. Flash and Aquaman needed their own films first. I felt like there were more questions than answers there. And now seeing the box office results, I'm not sure if we'll even get a Flash solo movie. There's no way in hell we get a Cyborg one. Aquaman is already in the can and I can only hope that they improve on the atrocious Atlantis CGI and give Amber Heard some better direction.  I know it's a tired thing to bitch about DCEU not taking their time to build their universe, but it's a valid complaint. 

Ultimately, I ended up feeling the same way I felt about Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I loved parts of the film but it's too messy overall to soar. Steppenwolf is a lame villain. And to be honest, that's usually fine with me. Not every comic book movie has a good villain, but if the story around them is strong, it's easy to accept. The coolest thing about Steppenwolf is a flashback sequence that involves a Green Lantern. Otherwise he's just a pile of CGI that you would never know is played by Hinds. The film also falls into Transformers CGI Hell. It's just a bunch of gloomy shit that is moving too quickly. CGI is easier to accept when you can tell what's happening on screen. The entire third act looked awful and was rushed. Then to top that all of, they didn't even give us a money shot of the entire League fighting together. 

WB, for the love of God just let Matt Reeves do what he wants with The Batman. Let Patty Jenkins do what she wants with Wonder Woman 2. Regroup and get your shit together. Your characters work. You don't need to re-cast anybody, you just need to find a good story and keep Zack Snyder away from it.

Recommeded: Yes

Grade: C+

Memorable Quote: "I hope this way is East." - The Flash (Ezra Miller)