Right off the bat, I have to confess that I was not expecting this movie to be any good. Liz and I didn’t see it in theaters, we had no interest in seeing it in theaters, and my viewing of it on Blu-ray was purely out of curiosity to see if it was as bad as I thought it would be…
…it was that bad.
THE BLURB:
Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity, and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists newfound ally Diana Prince to face an even greater threat. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to recruit a team to stand against this newly-awakened enemy. Despite the formation of an unprecedented league of heroes in Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash, it may be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
WHAT WORKED:
Oof. This section is hard…which I realize isn’t a nice thing to say about a movie, but it’s true.
It’s not the worst movie this DC group has made; that honor belongs to Suicide Squad. I won’t go into how much, or little, that says about JL. Not yet.
I still love Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. She’s impeccably cast. And you know what? So is Jason Momoa as Aquaman. They look and feel the part, and the DC universe is sliiiightly better for them.
Deciding to attempt humor, which almost exclusively came from Barry/The Flash, was a good choice. The attempt. Perhaps they’re realizing that dark and gritty can’t be everything.
WHAT DIDN’T:
Unfortunately for the execs and creatives behind this franchise, that’s all this movie had going for it.
The humor attempt didn’t work. This movie is not funny. They’ve pushed dark, brooding and depressed for SO LONG that humor is a glove that does not fit. Instead, the humor is mostly painful.
WHY IN GODS NAME IS DIANA ATTRACTED TO BEN FUCKING AFFLECK/GROWLY McBATMANFACE WHEN JASON MOMOA IS STANDING RIGHT THERE NEXT TO HER??? Like, guys…how incredibly, incredibly tone-deaf do you have to be to not see that Aquaman is a more viable sex desire than Benafleck? My wife backs me up on this. It was baffling, utterly baffling.
The effects. My god, the effects. So bad. I read something that said this was–at least at the time–the fourth-most expensive movie made of all time. JFC WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??? How…how is that possible? The movie looks like crap, and that’s honestly not just me taking a crap on DC because of their inept history: this movie does not look good. It does not look expensive. Just compare it to Thor: Ragnarok. Honestly. There is no vision behind this movie, no aesthetic, no statement to be made.
And, we know at least partly why. Snyder had to step away mid-way through post-production (I think?) to attend to some serious family issues, and Joss Whedon took over the rest of that process, AND some major re-shoots. The film was obviously a mess even before its director left–who, for all his faults, CAN execute a pretty picture–and Joss had to try and straddle the line of finishing someone else’s movie with his own, very different, storytelling aesthetic.
It was a shit show. Watching it made me think of Marvel, which can’t be helped given the age of comic book movies we’re in right now, and how DC is impossibly squandering it all. It made me think of how much good will they’ve built up with their audience because of how carefully they crafted their characters to make them feel alive and charming and, well, frankly…love-able. DC never did that. DC went with ‘pretty’ first. They never worked on character with the skill Marvel did. Ever. I don’t think they knew how; I certainly know Snyder didn’t. That’s never been his strong suit.
The result is a movie that flopped because it was way too expensive, and it was filled with characters that nobody cares about. At least characters that I didn’t care about (except for you, Diana…I can’t believe they tried to pair you with Bruce Wayne). And it serves to reinforce in me that storytelling is always, ALWAYS about the characters. They’re the only reason we care.
Justice League is a couple ticks better than Suicide Squad, and probably one *tiny* tick better than Batman vs. Superman because we at least have Wonder Woman and Aquaman to spend a little time with…but it’s still colossally bad…and even worse…boring.
2 out of 10 – I stand by my plea for DC to fire *everyone* and start over…even though it’s probably too late now