Justice League (2017)
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Justice League Movie Review
Justice League is a 2017 superhero fil directed by Zack Snyder and starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot among others. It is a very flawed, but pretty solid team movie.
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“What are your superpowers again?
I’m rich“
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As DCEU’s fifth film and the culmination of all previous ones, Justice League obviously still came out too early and once again it would have been a better choice to see most of these characters in their own solo films first as this way they are pretty underdeveloped.
The film is extremely simplistic for better and for worse. On the one hand, it is so simple that it doesn’t have any surprises to it which is quite troublesome and it plays too much like a regular comic-book or a simple video game storyline. But on the other hand, that led to a much better crafted and much more entertaining film than usual for the DCEU.
Let’s talk about the characters. I liked seeing the Amazons once again and especially seeing the Atlanteans was a lot of fun and those underwater sequences stole the show. Alfred is still boring, Martha serves her purpose and Lois Lane is somewhat dull here. Amy Adams is underutilized way too much.
As for Steppenwolf, he is a pretty bad villain. He was competent and menacing enough, but he looked ridiculous with bad CGI on his face and no motion to the face whatsoever. The lips also did not move too well. The character is your typical superhero bad guy who wants to conquer the world.
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Batman is pretty good once again and I like Ben Affleck in the role even though I did not expect it. He had too many comedic moments here which doesn’t suit the character, but otherwise he was quite good. Superman obviously came back from the dead which was typical, but at least he was memorable and him unleashing power and beating up the rest of the team was one of the action highlights.
Wonder Woman is not as good as she was in her own movie, but she still did get a lot to do here and Gal Gadot is still quite charming in the role. As for the new characters, the highlight is Flash who is quite funny at times and should have been used much more. Ezra Miller was so well cast in this role. Cyborg has an interesting backstory, but is very underutilized unfortunately and overall forgettable. And Aquaman is your typical Jason Momoa character with some fun moments, but overall he’s forgettable.
Justice League has a very short runtime and it definitely needed more build up, but still we got here a couple of calmer moments and not every scene was an action scene which I appreciated. The scenes with the team members talking were the funniest and most impactful with some great lines of dialogue.
The film is definitely very comedic and too much like a Marvel film, but because it was at times quite funny, it worked and it brought a lot of charm and playfulness to the whole affair. The acting is mostly very good and I have to say that most of the action scenes are excellent and a lot of fun.
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However, some are pretty bad and they reminded me too much of games. Couple that with very unfortunately visuals and you get a video game look here which is ridiculous for such a high budget. They poured so much money into this film and what we got is a video game movie with too many saturated colors in its third act (which is again bombastic and annoying in typical DCEU fashion) and too much use of CGI and a bad one at that. It truly was baffling to witness.
Justice League is baffling when it comes to its special effects. They poured enormous money into this production and the end result looks like a video game with too many saturated colors and an over-reliance on (bad) CGI. But it’s still a pretty solid team movie which is overly simplistic, but that also led to a much more entertaining than usual film. The villain is poor, but most of the action is a lot of fun, the humor is quite solid and in terms of characters Wonder Woman, Batman and especially Ezra Miller’s Flash stole the show.
My Rating – 3.5
The Snyder Cut
After four years of immense fan interest and speculation, Warner Bros. finally caved in and allowed Zack Snyder to make the director’s cut of the original film that was tarnished by Joss Whedon after Snyder’s family tragedy. He made the movie more like Marvel with too many jokes and an overly lightweight approach. Now, Snyder brings back this franchise to its refreshingly darker and grandiose roots.
While I was one of the few who did like the first ‘Justice League’ movie, there is no denying that this cut is infinitely better, though it has its own set of problems and some shared ones as well. The movie is four hours long, which is just too much to take in one sitting for most people, but at least it is incredibly entertaining, especially in its action sequences.
The characters are infinitely improved here. Their development is still not the greatest, but at least it is better than it had been before. It was crazy seeing such a blood-thirsty warrior version of Wonder Woman, one that was distinctly different to the pacifist version introduced by Patty Jenkins, but overall she was badass and her action scenes were terrific. The scenes with her sisters were also reliably strong.
Aquaman was rather underutilized here, though he did get some cool moments here and there. Cyborg was so much better than before with a clearly explained, well realized backstory. He also looks cool and is a welcome addition to the team during the battles. The Flash is also terrific, the VFX during his scenes are some of the best of the bunch and the slow-mo moments were hugely entertaining and visually appealing.
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Superman was at his most memorable when in evil mode, which I liked so much that I would like to see more of this dark version of the character. Other than that, he needed more screen time. Batman got a solid arc overall, but in terms of action, he definitely got the short end of the stick. Other characters are solid, but not crucial to the plot, though I genuinely loved what they did with Steppenwolf. Before, he was horribly designed with terrible CGI. Now, he looks so much better and more polished. And he’s just a badass, menacing villain who does have a typical goal for these movies, but his fight scenes were among the best as watching him beat up everybody with ease was very cool.
The effects were much better this time around, the score is amazing and incredibly grandiose while the neo-mythological treatment of these famous characters did wonders to elevate an otherwise overly simple, standard plot for such a long runtime. The movie is epic, there is no denying that, but the acting should have been better and the runtime was ultimately too excessive, except for those die-hard fans.
