Film Review: ‘Justice League’ – Not the raging dumpster fire you’re expecting
Before I went to go see Justice League, I had read about half of an article that had aggregated all of the critic reactions so far, and let’s just say, I lowered my expectations accordingly. Not helping the situation was my own experience with the rebooted DC Cinematic Universe, which included a completely underwhelmed and downright disappointed reaction to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, along with an enthusiastic response to Wonder Woman. DC seemed to have started to learn its lesson – that their films can’t all be dark and brooding a la The Dark Knight, and that in order to go toe-to-toe with Marvel’s success, they’d have to change-up their tactics to to inject some fun into the proceedings. And despite the addition of Joss Whedon a writing credit, I still went to the theater to see Justice League fearing the worst. After all, it takes a certain amount of skill to pull-off bringing five superheroes into the same movie without the benefit of standalone franchises for three of them. For all I knew, this was going to be a raging dumpster fire of a movie ,which could manage to destroy the good graces DC has earned most recently with Wonder Woman. So, was it the craptastic steaming pile I was expecting?
Nope. Not even close.
While Zack Snyder’s Justice League is certainly NOT without its flaws – and I’ll get into those – I actually had fun watching several parts of it, and it gave me hope that it could steer the DC-verse in a direction that could reinspire a population of moviegoers that may be suffering from a case of superhero fatigue. But let’s start with the bad and end with the good, shall we?
The basic premise of the film converges the aftermaths of both Batman v Superman and Wonder Woman, where Batman (Ben Affleck) is already in the process of digitally creeping on other would-be superheroes in the aftermath of Superman’s death. Now bear with me while I explain the next part. So, ever since Superman’s death, a supervillain named Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarán Hinds) is re-emerging to reunite these three Mother Boxes that had previously been separated by those the defeated him thousands (?) of years ago. The protectors of these boxes included the Amazons (solid choice), Atlanteans (good hands), and Man (well, shit). Once the boxes seem to be reawakened, Steppenwolf and his vampire bug Parademon army invade all of the places where the boxes are protected, so that they can bring these ultra-powerful boxes to form The Unity – which will …. like… really let Steppenwolf fuck shit up. Long story short, Earth would be toast, Steppenwolf bad.
If that sounds convoluted, it’s because it is. But whatever. The goal is to not let Steppenwolf unify the boxes, so Batman works with Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to bring the rest of the league together, which includes Aquaman, a perfectly cast Jason Momoa; The Flash, the young, wide-eyed and neurotic comic relief played by Ezra Miller; and Cyborg, a tragic superhero reluctantly saved from an accident via the very powers contained in the boxes, played by Ray Fisher. After some initial stonewalling from Aquaman and Cyborg, they eventually join after Steppenwolf kidnaps some poor scientists from S.T.A.R Labs who have had direct contact with the box’s powers, one of whom happens to be Cyborg’s dad, Silas Stone (Joe Morton, reprising his role as the black scientist who messed around with technology he probably shouldn’t have). Eventually, the gang realizes that they’d stand a much better chance of defeating Steppenwolf if they used the box’s powers to resurrect – you guessed it – Superman (Henry Cavill). Oh, yeah, and spoiler alert. Never mind. If you didn’t see that coming, you kind of deserve the spoiler. And he’s in the marketing materials, so the joke’s on you.
So, onto the problems. First of all, the villain doesn’t provide any real sense of danger, maybe because the CGI is so bad he looks like a video game villain from ten years ago. In an age where we can make Michael Douglas look 30 years younger and resurrect Admiral Tarkin from the dead with special effects, is this really the best we can do? Ciarán Hinds (who I’ve loved ever since he played Julius Caesar on HBO’s underrated Rome) brings the vocal goods, but the lacking visual effects distract from an otherwise solid performance. Shame.
Secondly, Aquaman is woefully underdeveloped, and it’s unfortunate considering I’m sure many Game of Thrones fans were eager to see Momoa do something truly cool with the character like he did with Khal Drogo. But the character isn’t made interesting in any way save for maybe one cool scene with water stoppage, and an impressive ability to finish off a bottle of whisky. Having said that, Jason Momoa is able to command an incredible amount of presence just in his intimidating stare-down, so in that sense, he still does a good job of working with what the writers gave him.
Thirdly, Amy Adams is way too good to waste in this way. She is literally the wet blanket of the film, and it’s not really her fault, because I suppose she’s doing her best with what she’s got. And I know she’s supposed to be sad and emotional because Superman is gone, but even the most emo characters get moments of levity, and she is not one of them.
Fourthly, if you couldn’t already tell from my initial description, the plot is kind of a hot mess. Anyways!
Moving on to the good stuff. The addition of Joss Whedon has definitely put the film into the positive with a very necessary dose of fun. Ezra Miller is the most frequent source of these laughs as the young, jittery Barry Allen, who possesses lightning fast speed that rivals Superman’s. In a group of superheroes that seem totally un-handicapped, it’s nice to have at least one who suffers from a case of superhero performance anxiety. Additionally, the backstory with him and his wrongfully (?) incarcerated father (Billy Crudup) actually works, and plays into the young idealism that Miller has infused his character with. Another backstory with a good amount of emotional heft is that of Victor Stone, aka Cyborg, who’s just a teenager who is now forced to live with the unwelcome otherworldly changes happening to him thanks to dear old dad “saving” him after an accident with Mother Box alien stuff. Ray Fisher could have made his character a solemn bore, but brings such an electric intensity to the role that he more than capably fits into the Justice League fold.
Secondly, some of the action sequences are actually pretty entertaining to watch, which is really saying something considering even your most superior Marvel film can descend into ridiculous, overwrought, asphalt-cracking, building-crumbling assaults on the senses. And that’s not to say that this doesn’t happen in this film, but there are a couple of truly standout sequences that were original, skillfully coordinated, and outright hoot to watch.
Thirdly, the cast of superheroes is given much more breathing room to fill their characters with life and relatability than the previous films allowed. Even Batman cracks a few jokes which stick the landing. Speaking of which, besides the fact that Batman takes the lead on bringing the Justice League together, he takes a back seat here to make way for the fresher batch of heroes for us to get to know. Which is good, because he can be such a sad sack that he can really make a film where he’s the focus become a drag. It kind of sucks, too, because with the right writers at the helm, Ben Affleck can have some seriously good comic timing, in my opinion. Anyways, while Batman may be one of the more popular DC heroes, there’s a wink and a nod to the fact that what makes him cool is that he has gobs of money and insanely awesome toys. Now can we stop pretending he would even stand a chance against Superman? I digress.
On the whole, giving room for other heroes to thrive, conducting some seriously solid action sequences, and having some actual fun with the franchise has allowed Justice League to rise from the ashes of lesser DC films to a place where there is now hope in the DC-verse to bring woot-worthy heroes back to the cinema in a time where we need it most. If you go in with the appropriate expectations, you may just come out with the semblance of a sly smirk on your face.
