Ever since Zack Snyder's Man of Steel (MOS), I relished the thought of all the awesome forthcoming DC movies. Though a box office success ($668m), Man of Steel wasn't critically acclaimed and many critics branded it dark, stodgy and joyless, the opposite of everything Superman was meant to incite. There was no secret that Snyder was heavily influenced by Chris Nolan's more grounded take on Batman in his Dark Knight Trilogy and also from his own work on the DC drama - Watchmen, but despite the criticism, there were those who appreciated this pragmatic version of the big blue Boy Scout, and I was one of them. I still am. Zack Snyder had a vision for his film and saw it through, you were either going to hate it or love it, but you'd never forget it, and at that point when there was clearly no blueprint for the DCEU, Man of Steel had unwittingly laid its foundation.
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| Night and Day: Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon |
Its fair to say Justice League was always going to have its problems; coming out too early and too soon, it already had a shaky foundation in the wake of Man of Steel (MOS) and Batman v Superman (BvS), and after the unexpected success of Wonder Woman it was in the unenviable position to keep the ball rolling for DC, unsurprisingly that was a task it would not overcome. Marvel's 'Avengers' Director Joss Whedon was brought in to assist with the movie after Zack Snyder had to step down due to a family tragedy, leaving Whedon to finish the film, the end result - a two toned collage of two film makers whose take on the genre is as different as day is to night. Whedon made extensive re-shoots trying to inject more humour and light into Snyder's incomplete work, a touch-up evident in what felt like incomplete scenes and many of the trailer footage never making it to the final film. When word was out that Justice League would be the shortest DCEU movie yet, with a run-time of just 2 hours (Credits included) there was genuine concern in the fan community; how were they going to deliver a worthy villain, introduce Cyborg, The Flash, Aquaman, (possibly Green Lantern) and be a sequel to Batman v Superman while being fun, interesting and cohesive? Maybe it was going to be a two part movie, surely you'd need more than 2 hours to cover all those bases adequately. Right?
If you're reading this, then its probably not news that League League has been a box office disappointment, and deservedly so. It was a poorly made film; a convoluted, disjointed, passive, banal, patch-up job that embarrassed DC fans all over the world. Were there some good things about the movie? Yes, but the bad sure outweighed the good.
If you're reading this, then its probably not news that League League has been a box office disappointment, and deservedly so. It was a poorly made film; a convoluted, disjointed, passive, banal, patch-up job that embarrassed DC fans all over the world. Were there some good things about the movie? Yes, but the bad sure outweighed the good.
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| Holy BS Batman, Who wrote this script!? |
The Batman we knew (and loved) in Batman V Superman is no where to be found in this movie, everything great about him was apparently tossed out in his reconstruction so much so that Ben Affleck almost looks genuinely sad while playing the part. The dark, sombre intensity he played the character with in BvS is all but gone and this Batman looks bland as he attempts to convey his remorse of Superman's death and his new found hope for humanity. And the attempt to build tension (romantic or otherwise) between Bruce and Diana feels shoehorned and just doesn't work. Gal Gadot however, remained one of the better elements of the movie picking up from where she left off in BvS and her 'successful' Wonder Woman (WW) movie, and to be honest does very little wrong, she barely has a bad scene and has great chemistry with the others, my only complaints being petty oversights like being significantly weaker than Superman and why she couldn't fly.
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| The New Guys |
The Cyborg and The Flash actors did quite well, though very flawed in character development, there were moments in which the essence of these characters were perfectly captured. Ray Fisher's Cyborg starts so well, he's thought provoking and has some level of depth about him before eventually fading into mediocrity like the rest of the movie, and the Cyborg CGI was so bad it was distracting (eventually told myself 'that's what alien metal looks like'). The Flash's blatant use as a conduit for humour is so appallingly overloaded it electrocutes Ezra Miller's performance. Yes Warner Bros, they said your films lacked humour and lightheartedness but that doesn't give you the right to turn The Flash to a red blur of slapstick, does it?
Aquaman never really registered his presence either and the opportunities for him to shine were sadly neglected, he has little scenes in which to show his prowess in water and is portrayed more as a surf bum than the (would-be) King of Atlantis. His underwater fight scene with Steppenwolf was sub-bar and his scene with Mera basically shoehorned his origin story into less than a minute, and only raised more questions; Is Atlanna dead yet? if yes, who's ruling Atlantis now, Orm? is that the Trident of Neptune he's holding? If it is, why is it so lame? Lets just hope James Wan turns it around with Aquaman's debut film. There is hope though, that in the hands of the right people their solo films may be worth watching.
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| World Ender? more like Fun Ender |
With the exception of General Zodd, DC like their contemporary comic book studio have struggled to produce worthwhile villains. Lex Luthor, Doomsday, Enchantress and Ares have been nothing but poor caricatures of their comic book versions. With Steppenwolf came a chance to perhaps, set them on the straight and narrow again, sadly he is as forgettable as the whole movie. Revamped and re-imagined as a long forgotten ancient threat, the exiled Steppenwolf, ominously dubbed 'The Ender of Worlds' returns to Earth, a planet where he was embarrassingly defeated 5,000 years ago. After communicating with Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman, (the bell has been rung dingdingdingding!!!) he is encouraged to re-invade the planet after Superman's death makes mankind reek of fear - something him and his parademons can apparently sense (who wrote this Sh!t?), but even with a sinister moniker and a horde of Parademons, Steppenwolf never gets past being just an imminent threat, his foreboding as an extinction level event never really materializes in any sense. He doesn't feel like a harbinger of Darkseid or of a bigger threat at all, and his poetic-like monologues only serve to make him a mad junkie zealot who's only fix is self redemption.
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| Superman wanted to die again and rightly so |
Justice League couldn't even do us the courtesy of delivering a decent Ex Machina. Superman's resurrection was so uninspiring. After the dirt on the coffin tease at the end of BvS I expected more. Superman is brought back using a Motherbox and then whisked away by Lois Lane, leaving the audience picking their fingernails until Big Blue shows up to save the day, which never makes the final battle feel dire or hopeless at any point. And as far as plot holes go, where does Kal-El get that shiny new suit from, what happened to that massive hole (where Doomsday stabs him through), either Mama Kent or Lois have become proficient at stitching alien textile or the suit healed itself? Oversights like these, if handled properly might have helped added some much needed cohesion to the story. Also, the failure to properly establish the Kryptonian Scout Ship in the Artic as Superman's future base (The Fortress of Solitude) or even use it as a part of the resurrection plot felt like a huge missed opportunity.
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| With just 5 films on its roster, the DCEU is relatively young |
All hope is not lost though, as its obvious that something drastic has to be done which may involve a tearing down and rebuilding process, which doesn't mean we'll be throwing the good apples out with the bad. The DCEU has been established and unless we want to wait maybe 10 years for a reboot we'll just have to stick it through. There will be some collateral damage, some of the universes' actors may leave the franchise tired of the berating reviews the movies are getting (Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons). The Studio now has the herculean task of attracting dynamic filmmakers to a weakening brand while resisting the temptation to shackle their creative control, obviously getting people who respect the source material and adhere to it as much as possible while also telling amazing stories the way they want - what if David Ayer had little more than 6 weeks to come up with a script rather than rushing one to meet the studio's commitment, maybe better or worse we'll never know.
There's sure to be a lot of finger pointing at Warner Bros. as to why Justice League, the most marketable Superhero team in comics got such an immemorable movie. Like Suicide Squad before it, the movie was plagued with production problems and reshoots, and its really no surprise it came out horribly. With all that has been said and despite the disappointments I still believe that there's hope for the DCEU, we'll just have to get through the night before the dawn.
Reject Rating: 4/10
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