MILD SPOILERS AHEAD
And so, to quote the opening line of the Christina Aguilera cover of Car Wash from the movie Shark Tale...here we go again.
20 months after Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the story of the DC Extended Universe continues with Justice League, which wants to be The Avengers of this franchise but ends up being its X-Men: Apocalypse in that it's a motion picture with a handful of well-realized characters but the movie itself is just a mess heavily hindered by dismal filmmaking. In terms of an exact storyline, Justice League chronicles Bruce Wayne A.K.A. Batman (Ben Affleck) realizing that an alien attack is coming to Earth in the wake of the death of Superman (Henry Cavill). To combat this thread, Bruce is gonna recruit four other superheroes who could help him take down this otherworldly threat.
These four heroes are Amazonian warrior Diane Prince A.K.A. Wonder Woman (Gal Godot), young inexperienced hero Barry Allan A.K.A. The Flash (Ezra Miller) who has the power of super-speed, half-man/half-machine Victor Stone A.K.A. Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Arthur Curry A.K.A. Aquaman (Jason Momoa) who has the ability to control elements related to the ocean. Together, these five will have to learn to work together if they're gonna have a chance of stopping Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), an alien creature who wants to use three mystical Mother Boxes to destroy Earth because (I assume) he's angry about the terrible VFX used to bring him to life and he's gotta channel that anger somewhere.
Justice League limps onto the screen with a weird lack of energy to it that sinks the whole production. I'm especially taken aback by just how poorly filmed the movie is, there's a dire lack of bombastic theatricality to the way shots are framed and action sequences are edited & executed. Moments that should register as big & iconic have all their potential impact sucked dry by Justice League's rote visual stylings. For instance, the first time we see Superman back in his costume (shocking spoiler, Superman is back, I know), this should be a moment that's grand and cheer-worthy, one with a proper sense of build-up to it that makes the pay-off all the sweeter. Instead, this important visual arrives by way of the movie abruptly cutting to this awkward medium shot of the Man Of Steel in his costume that lacks all sense of grandeur. Suddenly, he's just there with no wider shot used to establish where he is, how he got there or instill a sense of majesty to his arrival. Instead, we get the kind of shot you would cut to in the middle of a run of a mill conversation in a TV drama, not in the way to depict Superman coming back from the dead!
And there are so many instances of moments of importance being bungled by slipshod visuals and/or editing in Justice League. But the problems on a visual level don't end there as the whole movie is cast in this overly bright lighting that's anemic for the majority of the superhero costumes. For instance, a moment where Bruce Wayne saunters into a third act scene with a new Batman costume on his body renders the costume laughably pathetic looking thanks to that aforementioned overly bright lighting and a poorly chosen low angle shot. The combination of overly bright lighting with handsome people giving poor performances make this project look like something from a film released by Naughty America, not a massively budgeted superhero movie. But, to be fair to the lighting department, those previously mentioned superhero get-ups likely couldn't have been saved by any form of lighting though as everyone that isn't Wonder Woman is adorned in poor looking clunky outfits. Similarly, abysmal results can be found in the visual effects, the CGI used here is shockingly shoddy, especially the ones used to bring Steppenwolf to life, erase Henry Cavill's mustache and to superimpose live-action actors onto green screen sets into certain environments. Even the sets are a snooze, with Steppenwolf's two-base of operations (a Gotham harbor locale and a nuclear plant in Russa) looking way too similar to each other and the rest of the locales ranging from either forgettable or distractingly cheap-looking. I know I've been subtle about this, but there's just so little polish put into Justice League on a visual level
Even worse, the scripts just as messy as the visuals. The screenplay is credited to Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon and it should be noted, while I'm intentionally ignoring the behind-the-scenes mayhem on this movie and just taking the motion picture on its own terms, those expecting Justice League's story or its dialogue to feel like a weird mish-mash of Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon's distinct sensibilities should know that's not at all what happens here as Justice League really lacks any sort of distinctive touch to it aside from two, maybe three, lines of dialogue that sound vaguely Whedon-esque. A lack of identity isn't the only issue here on a story level the plot itself is haphazardly structured, especially in the way it takes an eternity to get these heroes together and in how it spends a torturously long amount of time on a subplot revolving around the prospect of bringing Superman back from the dead that stops the story proper dead in its track. There's also a heavy presence of humor in the film that yields a handful of funny moments but mostly results in there being a lot of awkwardly executed jokes that miss the mark like a lady ranting on the news about how she's angry about her husband being anally probed by aliens. Too many of the gags here feel like Erik Selvig romping around Stonehedge naked in Thor: The Dark World like they're overtly straining to be funny instead of just instances of humor emerging organically.
As for how the script, and the film as a whole, handle the individual characters, well....Ben Affleck's Batman is still not at all compelling, especially since he spends much of the second act being a jerk to his fellow superheroes and is otherwise just a generic individual who looks bored being stuck in that awful-looking Batsuit. Ray Fisher's Cyborg is more forgettable than bad, though he gets an awkwardly botched character arc and also manages to receive some of the films worst CGI. And then there's Jason Momoa, who is outright awful as Aquaman thanks to constantly stilted line deliveries and the scripts deciding the personality of this version of Aquaman should begin and end with him being an obnoxious frat bro. As I'm writing this, I also just realized that Aquaman never once gets to his aquatic-based powers in the movies lackluster climax, which really shows how poorly Justice League handles the assorted members of its ensemble cast. Then there's our big bad, Steppenwolf, who's a flat-out terrible, every line from his mouth is just a sample of tired bad guy one-liners. He's not entertainingly evil, he has no real thematic connection to the heroes or story and he's repulsive on a character design level in all the wrong ways.
But don't worry, Gal Godot is still awesome as Wonder Woman, she gets a great reintroductory sequence where she goes in to fight off some religiously fanatical bank robbers that may be the high point of any action sequence in Justice League. I also love the sweet moments of compassion that she expresses to her fellow superheroes, such as when she reminds Cyborg that they're all here to help him if he gets overwhelmed while searching for Steppenwolf and it's a moment of endearing pure kindness that Gal Godot plays perfectly On the downside, it's dreadfully clear that the script doesn't have much for Wonder Woman to do in terms of a cohesive character arc and general plot points to handle. Ezra Miller as The Flash is handily the best of the superhero bunch though, this guy (who was showing off he had serious chops all the way back in Perks of Being A Wallflower five years ago) does a great job of portraying a younger everyman in the middle of a bunch of experienced heroes and warriors and gets to supply the best comedic moments of the project. Also successful is Henry Cavill as Superman, not much screentime for this guy but finally his take on Superman is interesting and fun to watch.
Best of all, Miller and Cavill get to share the screen just by themselves in a super fun mid-credits scene that left a big smile on my face. Alas, that was one of the few times I had any real visible reaction, good or bad, to Justice League. Mostly I was just bored by the lazy camerawork, editing and cinematography as well as the fact that the characters are by and large boring and even frequently unlikable. And then there's the messy story, which is low on fun action scenes and heavy on bafflingly ineptly handled plot details like constant cutbacks to a random Russian family that lives close to Steppenwolf's base (that element reminded me of how The Amazing Spider-Man 2 kept cutting back two random airplanes during its own terrible climax). Even worse is a moment how Steppenwolf just shows up briefly and grabs an uber-important Mother Box he needs to rule the world and both the characters and the movie treat this event as an afterthought.
Where is the weight in this movie? How am I supposed to take either the villains or heroes seriously when crucial plot points like this just whiz by without any real impact? There's a way to do a tonally lighter superhero movie (which Justice League so obviously wants to be) without sacrificing emotional or character-based stakes. A big speech, containing meta-lines about "darkness being over" or something like that, delivered by Lois Lane (played again by a colossally wasted Amy Adams) that closes out the whole movie epitomizes the entire production for me. This speech plays out over visuals depicting individual character beats meant to tie into larger important moments from these characters comic book origins, while Lois's final line of this speech that closes out the entire movie is also a big Superman-related reference...but that's all they are, references. Just acknowledgements of things that exist in comic book form. Justice League as a movie has been so inert that nothing I saw on-screen here resonated in the slightest. Just referencing elements from the comic books is not enough to make a good movie and Justice League, despite having some well-realized characters to its name, is a poorly filmed mess rather than even just a fun movie.
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