Let’s start with the good news: It’s better than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
But Justice League — the should-be pinnacle of DC Comics’ come-from-behind rally to match Marvel Studios’ cinematic universe — still doesn’t feel complete, or completely satisfying.
Five films into the DC Extended Universe, or DCEU (even their attempt to mirror Marvel’s MCU acronym feels clunky), which began in 2013 with Man of Steel, there has yet to be a defining moment, like the "puny God" joyful euphoria of The Avengers, to truly resonate with long-time fans of DC’s biggest heroes.
Even the rousing support and across-the-board appeal of Wonder Woman, which was rightfully deserved, couldn’t mask the fact that Wonder Woman, as a movie, completely fell apart narratively in its third act due to a sub-par villain and too much CGI destruction.
And that Achille’s heel — sloppy structure combined with lazy storytelling — bedevils Justice League at every turn.
Take the first 20 minutes, which throws a lot at the audience.
The film kicks off with an awkward cell phone video interview of Superman, followed by a dour funeral march to remind viewers that, yes, Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead. Next, Batman (Ben Affleck, trying really hard to be less scowl-y) captures a low-level criminal on a rooftop, just to use him as bait to draw out a Parademon. Then Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) thwarts a bank bombing meant to decimate several city blocks. Then Batman, as Bruce Wayne, jets to a remote seaside hamlet looking for Aquaman (Jason Momoa), who makes fun of him. Then Barry Allen, aka The Flash (Ezra Miller), is introduced while visiting his father in a Central City prison. Then, before you can catch your breath, the action suddenly hops over to Themyscira, the island of Amazons, and Wonder Woman’s home, for the introduction of Justice League’s big bad — Steppenwolf, an immortal new god hellbent on conquering Earth.
Whew.
If you aren’t familiar with Steppenwolf, his comic origins date back to 1972, but there’s not enough backstory provided in Justice League to make casual comic book fans care. He’s just another computer-generated giant, voiced by an actor (Ciarán Hinds), who literally drops from the sky to cause havoc, much like the problematic Doomsday from Batman v Superman.
At least in The Avengers, fans already knew who Loki was, and for those who didn’t, that film wisely took its time building him up as a threat, and properly explaining why he wanted the Tesseract, a power cube capable of opening a portal to another dimension.
Steppenwolf also wants a power cube, only it's called a Mother Box. There are three of them, actually: One kept safe by the Amazons, a second protected underwater by the Atlanteans and a third buried deep underground near Gotham City. Once the three boxes are joined, annihilation follows.
Justice League’s narrative is so disjointed, and tries to accomplish so many introductions, brief cameos and massive battles, that it rarely slows long enough for fans to bask in the joy of seeing DC’s most iconic heroes finally gathered together.
And maybe that’s the crux of the problem that I have with the bulk of the DCEU thus far. Each film has been marked by an erratic, ADHD-style of filmmaking, which, frankly, is exhausting. It’s like these films are trying to run so far so fast to simply catch up to Marvel, that they’ve forgotten the reason they exist.
The Avengers didn’t enthrall audiences because of the threat posed by Loki and the Tesseract. It was a watershed moment in comic book/superhero cinema because it was fun, unbelievably funny and, as a long-wished-for team-up, it succeeded in making every hero memorable, even Hawkeye.
By comparison, Justice League feels rushed and cobbled, which should not be the case.
Instead of simply doing a slow rollout of each hero, Justice League crams as much exposition as possible into too-short scenes that aren’t allowed to breathe and expand organically. As a result, some characters, particularly Victor “Cyborg” Stone (Ray Fisher), never become more than their surface selves, which in Cyborg’s case is a cool robotic exoskeleton.
Geek note: Cyborg was originally a member of The New Teen Titans in the popular comic series that launched in the 1980s. And he wasn’t even the coolest member of that team’s ranks; DC elevated Cyborg to a founding member of the Justice League in 2011 when the company rebooted some of its most beloved titles.
Major characters — Lois Lane, Jim Gordon, Aquaman’s wife Mera — are hurried on-screen, some with no introduction at all, and then discarded. The film doesn’t pause even to allow fans to savor seeing certain iconic locations, like Bruce Wayne’s revamped Batcave or Central City’s S.T.A.R. Labs, on the big screen for the first time.
It’s well known that director Zack Snyder stepped aside before Justice League was finished due to a terrible family tragedy, and he handpicked Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Avengers) to guide his film to completion.
Whedon gets a screenwriting credit, and his indelible wordplay is evident in some of Justice League’s more light-hearted moments. The Flash, in particular, gets the lion’s share of quotable quips with his nerdy self-deprecation.
The humor serves Justice League well, but the film overall isn’t as funny as Thor: Ragnarok or as subversively cool as Guardians of the Galaxy. And the sometimes interminable fight scenes, another hallmark of the DC universe, lack the giddy spectacle of a comparable Marvel moment (Example, Ant-Man becoming Giant-Man in Captain America: Civil War.)
If it sounds like piling on, it’s not. Justice League has its moments, and it’s arguably the best DC-based movie to date, but that’s not saying much — yet.
There’s one mid-credits scene, and one post-credits scene, that offer something for fans to look forward to. One is just a clever bit between The Flash and Superman, but the post-credits extended scene sets up an interesting challenge to come, both for Batman and the entire Justice League.
Still, it’s hard to find excitement when the only DC movie on the horizon is 2018’s Aquaman (which could be an interesting adventure in a new environment, given that Momoa’s character is barely in the water at all in Justice League), with a sequel for Wonder Woman and a stand-alone Shazam planned for 2019.
And, given the focus on The Flash in Justice League, that may be an issue since the proposed stand-alone Flash film for 2018 was scrapped for a script rewrite, and likely won't be released until 2019 or later.
As a fan, I want DC to be just as good as Marvel at translating its characters from the page to the screen. Justice League is a baby step in the right direction, but there’s still much work to be done.
This article appears in Nov 16-23, 2017.