Congratulations, world. It has been seventy-some-odd years since the release of the first comic book featuring Superman, and we finally have ourselves a big-picture embodiment of the Justice League. For starters, I have to say that, for quite some time, I have been wishing to be excited about it. I really wanted this movie to go well, I really did. After all the incoherent CGI-driven mumbo jumbo DC has been spewing for quite some time (with the exception of the Dark Knight Trilogy), they really needed a win with this one. Seriously, think about all the god-awful DC movies out there. Superman Returns, Green Lantern, Watchmen, Man of Steel, Suicide Squad, Batman v. Superman...the list is becoming increasingly depressing. With the exception of Wonder Woman, I haven't thoroughly enjoyed a movie based on a DC comic since The Dark Knight. That's right. I hope you hear me, The Dark Knight Rises. I share this with you because it is very easy to dislike a movie before seeing it based on expectations, and I am often guilty of it. However, even though my expectations were low, I went into this movie truly desiring to enjoy it. My effort was there, but I'm starting to think not even DC wants us to like their movies. Because, yet again, after months of me saying, "That movie is gonna suck," I can finally say, "See? I told you so."
Where do I begin with this movie? For starters, I hated nearly all the characters. Nearly. Gal Gadot stole the film with every scene she was in, did a fantastic job, and was frankly more impressive than any of her counter-parts. I also surprisingly enjoyed Aquaman, who is far cooler than these versions of Superman or Batman will ever be. I also thought it was cool to see Khal Drogo in a different atmosphere than the Dothraki. J.K. Simmons is also in this movie, but has about one line, so don't get excited that they cast him as Commissioner Gordon.
Other than those characters, everyone was dreadful. I hated Henry Cavill in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, and this was no different. The only thing impressive about this English (Super)man is how insecure all the male audience members feel when he spends about half of his screen time with his shirt off. And even then, Khal Drogo--er, I mean, Aquaman--is still equally impressive in the beefcake department, so even that becomes diminished. All that's left for Cavill is his acting range of a crumpet. And, no, I don't like Ben Affleck. He did better than anticipated in Batman v. Superman, but the "he didn't actually suck all that bad" mentality only carried over for about ten minutes in this movie. I'll never look at him and think, "Batman" or, "Bruce Wayne." I know it's mainstream to hate on Affleck, but maybe more people would like him if he weren't terrible. And while we're on the subject of Batman, can I say that Alfred is all wrong in these movies? I know they can't all be on Michal Cain levels of Alfred-dom, but I don't even know what's going on anymore. Besides, Alfred was grade-A useless in this movie and was diminished to a discount Jarvis, so what's the difference.
On a side note, I also really don't like Amy Adams. In anything. Arrival was terrible and you know it. On a positive note, however, she's barely in this movie, and contributes absolutely nothing to the plot outside of some lip action for Superman and an end-of-movie narration sequence. So at least they found a good use for her. Although I would like to note that she was billed higher than Gal Gadot for this movie. HIGHER. Yep: Lois Lane got paid more to do nothing than Wonder Woman got paid to be the biggest badass of the bunch. Way to go.
Well, we're down the rabbit hole. I must say that I almost didn't have enough time to hate all those other characters because I was so busy hating everything about The Flash and the performance of Ezra Miller. The best way I can describe this character is an ill-advised failure of an attempt to bring a Tony Stark feel to the Justice League. All I have to say to that is, "How dare you try and mimic Robert Downey Jr." Instead of bringing a witty and charismatically humorous spin to a super hero movie, every line uttered by The Flash is so juvenile and annoying that I found myself literally telling him to "shut up" in the theater. Everything he said and did was so mindless, annoying, and poorly timed that it felt like the Jr. High class clown everyone is hoping the teacher will send to the principal's office. Furthermore, I was informed that lovers of The Flash TV show will be outraged with his character, because his backstory is butchered. I haven't seen the show, so I can't provide my own insight, but you've been warned. To top it all off, his action sequences were boring and he was barely helpful to anything.
Not to worry: My hatred of the characters is only the surface. It is possible (although difficult) for good movies to have bad characters, but this is not one of those movies. Piss-poor characters aside, the plot of this movie simply made no sense. Not only was I somewhat unaware of what was going on some of the time, but I didn't even care that I didn't know. And I'm OK with that. And I'm not OK that I'm OK with that! But I will tell you this: an action movie can only be as good as its villain, and this villain was unnecessarily complicated and wildly undeveloped. I don't even remember his name. Furthermore, the motivation behind anything was barely brushed over and served no apparent purpose to anything. All super hero villains are kind of blending together for me (particularly in the Marvel Universe), but with a franchise that has notoriously good villains (before Suicide Squad ruined most of them), this attempt was a swing and a miss. I do understand that antagonist character development is not always the focal point for super hero movies; but I'm sorry, a supervillain's motivation and so-called "plan" needs more development than a five-minute cliff notes version of whatever is supposed to be going on. Otherwise we're just ghost hunting.
Another important element to note about this movie is that directors were changed halfway through, and if you know that going in, it doesn't make the movie any better, but you can at least have a further understanding as to why it's a bit of a mess. I wanted to say that one of the only redeeming qualities of this movie outside of Wonder Woman and Aquaman would be the beast mode action sequences, but even those were such a slow-motion incoherent slug fest that nobody can ever be sure what is going on. I can remember an instance or two where I thought, "OK. That was cool." And I'm pretty sure you can guess which characters caused this reaction. However, even if Zack Snyder had directed the entire movie, I can't honestly say I think it would have been better. He's not quite at Michael Bay levels of nonsensical action sequences, but the unnecessary and absurd slow motion fight scenes and explosions aren't doing anybody any good.
So, yet again, we have a big-budget super hero movie that has done anything but meet expectations. The only solution for DC I can think of at this point is to let Marvel take over their movies. Trust me, I'm joking, but only a little. The latest super hero mumbo jumbo earns a (generous) 40%, causing me to want to send this movie to the Pawn Shop. But, if we're being realistic, I know you're going to see this movie. So just do yourself a favor and wait to stream this thing on
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If there's really nothing better.
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