Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

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A new league of heroes have assembled. They’re a little late to the party but we are happy to let them in all the same.

There are a some familiar faces and new ones we’re looking forward to getting to know better, and they’ve brought something to the party; Justice – a dish best served now.

An old and forgotten foe of this world Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) has stirred, and more than Gotham City and Metropolis will be effected if he is allowed to combine the Mother Boxes; the great destroyer and creator of worlds.

Sensing this imminent otherworldly danger, Bruce Wayne (aka Batman aka Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (aka Wonder Woman aka Gal Godot) decide it’s time to play their ace and form a team made up of people with extraordinary abilities.

Like any group of strangers thrust together without practice or compatibility testing, things don’t go immediately as planned. This leads the team to consider an alternative if they want the slightest chance of beating their enemy.

But will raising the dead be enough to raise hell against earth’s latest villain?

I am not going to waste time talking about the generic villainous I’m undefeatable and can lay waste to everything with the help of my never ending stream of un-dead henchmen because I want to control the whole universe Mwhahaha! plot and will just move on to other things.

First and foremost I like that Justice League didn’t annoy me. Yes it wasn’t the most interesting movie in the world – but it didn’t make me mad the way Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad did, so that was a nice change.

Let’s call an iPhone an iPhone and admit that the main purpose of this movie was to introduce audiences to the latest DC Squad members: Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Flash (Ezra Miller). On this front the movie did well.

There was no wasting time getting the band together, and we were told just enough about their pre-League lives to give context before getting down to business. Across the board character individuality was well thought out; the way the editing and the score shifted depending on which hero was the primary focus of the scene.

Also shout out to the 120minute running time! – We know how I hate an unnecessarily long movie and the fact that Justice League clocked in at two hours meant that it never got the chance to lag and make us aware of how inattentive we were.

Sure the main plot isn’t worth discussing, but watching it was unavoidable. In context to this, I naturally found myself more draw to the team dynamics than the evil they were fighting.

There were a lot of jokes littered throughout the movie and it was pretty awkward to sit in a silent cinema as one by one they fell flatter than an oxygenated can of coke. Admittedly Barry Allen delivered a few punny home runs, but that that was born of his character type; the lovable socially awkward one – and not directly related to the failed one liners.

Listen. I may not the biggest fan of Ben Affleck’s Batman, but the emasculation of his character was pretty savage.

In a way it was nice to show that he’s human, but when squared up against an Amazon a Speedster and a Cyborg, never ending wealth isn’t enough to buy you a seat at the cool kids table. (Again: How was he able to defeat Superman?) As such he came across as more of a spare part than a hero despite him and his grappling hook of a thousand uses.

This movie was the start of more to come from D.C Comics who have a lot of catching up to do to with competitor; the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie did a good job of introducing to us the pinnacle members of the Justice League team and organically hinting at the possibility of more superheroes being indoctrinated should all go well.

Going forward I think someone else needs to take the lead in directing and possibly writing too, because characters aside, when it came to the bigger picture there was never a moment of excitement, anticipation, worry or even gas.

I literally felt nothing watching this movie, I wasn’t bored but I wasn’t invested either.

As I said in a tweet, my initial reaction was: I’m not mad at it. Which still holds true a few days later. However feeling nothing about a movie is probably in a twisted way worse than hating it.

It faired better than I expected and my expectations weren’t all that high to begin with, but come on DC – five movies in and we’re still waiting for you to step it up. You’re at the table, now it’s time to get in the game.

Heads up: There are two extra scenes; one comes before the scrolling credits and the main one comes after.

P.S
It has to be said that I am now very much looking forward to Aquaman, though I can’t quite put my finger on why…

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