Justice League
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon
Starring: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Henry Cavill, Ciarán Hinds, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Joe Morton, Connie Nielsen, Billy Crudup, J.K. Simmons, Amber Heard
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Nov 2017
Written by: Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon
Starring: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Henry Cavill, Ciarán Hinds, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Joe Morton, Connie Nielsen, Billy Crudup, J.K. Simmons, Amber Heard
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Nov 2017
Superman is dead. That’s not a spoiler; Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has been out for awhile and it's the foundation for the trailers. But yes, with Superman six feet under, Earth’s moral compass is also gone. According to the DC Comics staff doing their best to somehow keep up with Marvel and their Avengers, no guiding Kryptonian light means no reason to do the right thing anymore. In an early montage bookended by enormous banners mourning Superman hanging from the Tower Bridge and whatever you call skyscrapers in Metropolis, we see skinheads terrorizing Muslim-owned bodegas and some “revolutionary terrorists” preparing to blow up a couple city blocks. Batman and Wonder Woman show some face to keep the true calamities from going down, but even they are jaded.
Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, Live by Night) whines to Alfred, “I don’t recognize this world anymore” and “I can hardly read the news anyways - so much bitterness.” We don’t have to read between the lines too hard to see Zack Snyder’s Justice League expresses the opinion of around 65% of the American electorate in Trump’s dystopian America. This past year has been so bad, even the superheroes hang their heads in shame at what the world has done to itself. Did Superman’s death result in our politics and national sanity turning to instant shit? According to Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, and company, it did more than that. The demise of Clark Kent immediately unlocked the door for a very tall, muscled, devil-horned helmet wearing monster named Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds, Silence) to invade the planet looking for his “mother boxes”.
Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, Live by Night) whines to Alfred, “I don’t recognize this world anymore” and “I can hardly read the news anyways - so much bitterness.” We don’t have to read between the lines too hard to see Zack Snyder’s Justice League expresses the opinion of around 65% of the American electorate in Trump’s dystopian America. This past year has been so bad, even the superheroes hang their heads in shame at what the world has done to itself. Did Superman’s death result in our politics and national sanity turning to instant shit? According to Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, and company, it did more than that. The demise of Clark Kent immediately unlocked the door for a very tall, muscled, devil-horned helmet wearing monster named Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds, Silence) to invade the planet looking for his “mother boxes”.
Before I tear into whatever the fuck a mother box is, let’s talk Steppenwolf. He has no backstory. It is unclear where he is coming from other than what people call his home world. What home world? We never see it. Have we ever heard of it before? What is his fascination with Earth? Why didn’t he conquer it before Superman landed as a baby in Kevin Costner’s cornfield? There are flashbacks to the last time Steppenwolf tried to take the place over, but if he had just returned for revenge in the 18th century or even 1971, Justice League would have never happened. Now about those mother boxes.
There are three of these things divided up among the Amazons we first met in Wonder Woman, the residents of Atlantis we only briefly see, and one floating around Metropolis or Gotham; I cannot tell those two cities apart anymore. Put all three boxes together and they combine into the Unity. According to some cobbled together exposition, the mother boxes do not grant power, they are power. They are perpetual energy. They destroy as they create. Ascribe any platitudinous description to them and it will fit. It really comes off as tacky horse shit. They have no origin to speak of; they are merely a device for superheroes to try and protect and for the bad guy to chase. They make as much sense as that All Spark thing Optimus Prime used to prattle on about.
Helping the audience keep up with the mother boxes and talking about them in serious tones so we don’t accidentally realize what a stupid name they have is Steppenwolf’s penchant for self-exposition. Just like your favorite cartoon villains from the ‘80s, think Mumm-Ra from the Thundercats and Skeletor, Steppenwolf loves to talk himself through his plan as he acts it out. Seriously, talking to absolutely nobody but himself, his dialogue goes like this: “First, I will recover the mother boxes and then …. and finally…”. Garbage like this following so close on the heels of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok and Doctor Strange will do this franchise no favors; Justice League is amateur hour compared to those snappy scripts.
The rest of Justice League are the team meet and greets. The Flash (Ezra Miller, Trainwreck) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), get the most screen time and backstory which isn’t saying much. The Flash, a twitchy millennial confused by the concept of brunch tries to build rapport with Cyborg noticing how they are the superhero accidents. They were not born into it like Wonder Woman and Aquaman nor are they rich enough to turn themselves into one like Batman. They’re here because of lightning strikes and metallurgical computer science. All the superheroes get their mini-stories except Aquaman (Jason Momoa). Perhaps the writers realized the warning is true; it is impossible to make this guy an intriguing character. We hardly see him underwater and most of time on land, he is full of gruff one-liners and “yee-haws” when he finally joins the team.
I don’t remember this from Wonder Woman, but it was most likely a feature. Most of her scenes in Justice League include multiple frames of what I will call Gal Gadot ass angle. The camera is low and looking upward. It stares at Gal Gadot’s ass in tight leather pants and in her skimpy Wonder Woman outfit. After awhile, these angles become so overt I was embarrassed for Zack Snyder and the whole film. Isn’t this inherently contradictory to what Wonder Woman is supposed to stand for and all the grand pronouncements everyone preached when her solo film struck box office platinum earlier this year? "Finally, a role model for our daughters to get behind, identify with, and dress us as for Halloween instead of sexy nurse." Well, Justice League certainly kept the “behind” part of that description.
Justice League sports its fair share of moments to please both fanboys and the skeptics alike, but it keeps Ben Affleck’s auto-tuned growl and Batman’s overly complicated flying and crawling machines. The soundtrack is quirky with covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” and The Beatles “Come Together” and it’s not your fault when you compare The Flash’s fast running to Quicksilver’s in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Personal opinion: Quicksilver’s montage remains head and shoulders above anything The Flash pulls off. Steppenwolf’s CG effects are impressive but I cannot move past the asinine mother boxes, unity, and cartoony declarations. Justice League will thrill those who crave these blockbuster spectacles but anyone who digs around the story here is going to discover a whole bunch of nothing.
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