Justice League Review(ish)

I have been debating whether or not I would write about Justice League, and I have been in just enough arguments about it that I have to say something.

I really liked Justice League, and quite honestly I don’t get most of the grumbling about it.  One person I know (I won’t use names to protect the “innocent;” let’s call him Jean-Luc Picard) said that it’s worse than every Marvel movie.  This is just plain absurd.  I assume he meant the MCU, so not the Spider-man and X-Men movies (since it’s definitely better than at least Spider-man 3, Amazing Spider-man 2, X-Men Last Stand, Origins: Wolverine, Days of Futures Past, and Apocalypse).  So I figured I’d come up with a quick summation of how it compares to the MCU movies (yes means JL is better, no means the MCU movie is better):

Iron Man (maybe the best of the MCU, so no)

The Incredible Hulk (yes)

Iron Man 2 (absolutely)

Thor (yes)

Captain America (yes)

The Avengers (it’s pretty close, but slightly no; then again I’m not a huge fan of this movie)

Iron Man 3 (yes)

Thor: The Dark World (definitely)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (solid no)

Guardians of the Galaxy (no)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (easily yes)

Ant-Man (probably not)

Captain America: Civil War (definitely not)

Doctor Strange (no, but close)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (heck yes)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (no)

Thor: Ragnarok (since I saw these within a week, I can definitively say yes.  Many will disagree, but here’s my difference: I feel like MCU movies are now “an episode in a show I like” as someone else said, so I felt coming out of it like “eh, ok;” whereas I came out of JL excited)

At the same time I’m really tired of the Marvel vs. DC thing.  Can’t we like both?  So I’d rather talk about it compared to the other DC movies.  My rank of the newer DC movies, starting with the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy because, even though they aren’t technically part of the new universe, they still kicked off the whole thing and are close in tone.

1.      Wonder Woman

2.      The Dark Knight

3.      Justice League

4.      Batman v. Superman

5.      Batman Begins

6.      Man of Steel

7.      The Dark Knight Rises

8.      Suicide Squad

Obviously I rate it pretty highly.  Why did I like it?  I’ll try to make this brief.

First, the casting was perfect.  I really liked each of the characters and thought the actors portrayed them very well.  Probably the weakest was Cyborg, but even then Ray Fisher was very good.  They worked well together, too.  It seemed as though they were enjoying each other.  Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa were great additions.  As we have already seen, Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot continued to be great as Batman and Wonder Woman.

The action was great.  The first Wonder Woman scene was as good as anything in her movie, and she continues to be the biggest surprise to me (I did not follow WW before BvS, but since she has become one of my favorite superheroes.  The flashback scene was fantastic (spoiler alert: with the Green Lantern we did have the whole crew in the movie!).  The fight scene on Themyscira was great.  And the fight scenes with the whole league together was great to see them fighting together.  I even liked the whole Flash not wanting to fight thing.  It was also great to see Aquaman showing how he can even kick butt on land (and smile the whole time).

I loved how Danny Elfman integrated his Batman and Williams’ Superman themes, plus the Wonder Woman theme making it more orchestral.  One of my biggest complaints with the Nolan trilogy was how they got away from heroic music for a more atmospheric tone, and I hated that they extended that into Man of Steel and BvS.  Elfman has not done much great in the past decade, but this was like riding a bike for him.

Speaking of tone, I am glad that they have moved away from taking it too seriously.  My biggest complaint about Man of Steel was that they made Superman dour.  It was completely against character.  Batman, please go dark, Superman, he is supposed to be hopeful.  They trend started with Wonder Woman and was thankfully kept in Justice League.  Some of the comedy was a little off, but overall it was a welcome change.

There are some others, but I’ll stop there.  To deal with a couple of problems:

There’s the distinct tension between what Zack Snyder did and what Joss Whedon did.  It is unfortunate what happened in real life with Snyder and why he had to step down.  Whedon’s stamp was maybe a little too strong (see my comment about comedy falling flat).  That being said, I hope this is the end of Snyder in the DC movies.  He does some things very well (graphics, action) but these movies need more well-rounded directors.

Ok, Steppenwolf was a bit of a throw away.  I have two counters to that.  First, he was not as bad/forgettable as virtually every Marvel villain not named Loki.  Second, in a way I am glad he took a back seat since the focus was rightly on the league and how they came together.

Some people say it was a bit too rushed, and I slightly agree.  When I heard this was to be the shortest DC movie, I was hopeful.  They all have been a bit too long.  Unfortunately, the two hour mandate from the studio was too restrictive.  There seems to be a number of important scenes, mostly character development, that was cut.  I have heard that they are planning to release a much longer “Snyder-cut,” and I am very interested to see that.  Like BvS, I think it will only help make it better.

I know that there are other issues with the movie people have brought up, but I think they aren’t the big or other people have addressed them better.  Regarding the CGI’ed out mustache, I didn’t really notice it.  Overall, I thought the movie was fun, the actors were great, and they looked like they were having fun (ok, maybe not Affleck, but whatever).  I loved seeing the league working together.  I am very hopeful with what the final scene after the credits seems to be setting up.  I really hope Warner Brothers won’t nuke the whole thing because it’s “a bomb.”

My grade: 8/10