Full disclosure: If
I’m being honest, I could take or leave the first big Marvel
team-up “The Avengers;” I enjoyed it at the time, but has since
receded from my memory. I can’t recall a single plot element or
joke that made me laugh. I’d rather watch any of the other Marvel
films. I’d rather watch “Wonder Woman.” I’m dumbfounded that
people rank it so high in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Released
several months after the outstanding aforementioned “Wonder Woman”
and practically days after the surprisingly fun retro-chic “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Justice League” easily feels disappointing in
comparison but is nowhere near the trainwreck some have described.
Have they never seen “Batman & Robin?” The thing that hurts
“Justice League” the most is that “average” comic book films
feel so slight and underwhelming when there are so many great ones
already in existence. Having said that, there’s no reason someone
can’t have an enjoyable experience with “Justice League” though
it does feel much more like a product than the Marvel films do. The
movie doesn’t feel depressing, overly long, or as self-serious as
the previous DC outings and while some of the humor feels forced I’ll
take what I can get when it comes to an already overcrowded
marketplace full of caped crusaders.
One has to admire
the courage it took to kill off Superman in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Of course, no one will be surprised if the Man of
Steel returns somehow. Superman has always been the weak link in this
universe mostly because the filmmakers could never quite figure out
how to make such a dated character feel relevant, even in such a
shit-show of a world we currently live in. We already know Diana Prince/Wonder
Woman (Gal Gadot) is great and she’s great here as well, teaming up
with grizzly Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) who wasn’t as
terrible as most strangely hoped last time around. Then there are the
newbies who we got flash of (pun intended) in “BvS.” There’s
Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, injecting some fun but
slightly awkward humor into the proceedings, Game of Thrones’ Jason
Momoa, perfectly cast as a beastly Aquaman/Arthur Curry, and probably
the least interesting being Ray Fisher’s Cyborg/Victor Stone.
And now the real
disappointment and I’m not alone here. Does anyone care much about
“Justice League’s” generic CGI villain Steppenwolf (voiced by
Ciarán Hinds)? I’d much prefer to see a human performance. Of
course, why would we need five of the world’s most super humans to
defeat someone like, say, The Joker? You need a big, bad villain
whose goal is total destruction of the human race and/or planet. I
get it, it’s just not all that interesting.
It must be said that
director Zack Synder still sort of feels like the thing that makes
these films so uneventful. He has made some very good movies, most
notably “Dawn of the Dead” and “Watchman,” so he’s not
incapable. But “Wonder Woman” gave us a fresh perspective and a
new eye. We need some new voices in the DC world. “Justice League”
has suffered from rewrites and such and even “Avengers” helmer
Joss Whedon was brought in to fix things up. Even the God himself
couldn’t make this a perfect work of art. Bottom line: the film is
fine, it’s entertaining, and it has finally reunited Danny Elfman
and Batman. You could do a lot worse. GRADE: B
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