Why So Blu?

Why I Give Justice League 2 F’s! (Movie Review)

I didn’t think this glorious day would ever come, but alas it has.  Heaven on Earth is here.  That could only mean ONE thing for sure in life.  The Justice League motion picture has finally arrived on the big screen!  As far as 2017 feature films go I have thought of nothing else except Justice League ever since I left San Diego Comic-Con this past July and attended this unforgettable superhero panel captured in all its splendor and awe right here.  I have also painstakingly covered Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad here on the site with both the utmost of detail and exposé.  So with overwhelming joy and rousing happiness I now am in a position to do much the same with my take on the long awaited November 17th superhero ensemble flick, Justice League.  Buckle up ladies and gentlemen as I’m about to steal/drive Batman’s Batmobile both fast and so very furious.  Vroom, vroom!

I’m not going to go into much detail regarding the previous films in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) that have come before or talk about the constant whining of the critics (there is one who has been writing the same story on it for two years now) over the depressing tone of Batman v. Superman (BvS for short).  It is what it is.  Instead I’m just going to cover the very basics of it all first.  Justice League is obviously based on the DC Comics superhero team of the same name.  If you’re counting, then you’ll find it to be the fifth installment in the DCEU.  It’s directed by both Zack Snyder and later on by Joss Whedon.  Don’t worry we’ll get to how that all came to be in a brief moment.  Like the superhero team it also features quite the ensemble cast in real life that includes Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen and J. K. Simmons.  Those are some huge names, huh?  In a nutshell the Justice League is all about where things left off in my favorite film of 2016, BvS.  Batman and Wonder Woman form a team and recruit metahumans Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg to honor Superman (BvS spoiler alert!) following his death and to save the planet from certain doom, the invasion of the evil Steppenwolf and his army of ridiculous looking Parademons.

Up above I talked about the direction of this film under two separate names, Snyder and Whedon.  The story of how that all happened goes a little something like this.  Synder initially brought Joss Whedon on to write scenes for the movie that would be utilized during reboots.  However, tragedy struck and devastated the Snyder household.  Zack’s daughter died and in the middle of all this stress/pressure of creating one of the greatest and most anticipated ensemble superhero flicks he left the project in May 2017.  Joss Whedon stepped into help.  He was hired to both oversee the remainder of post-production and direct all these new scenes/reshoots he wrote, which I just mentioned prior.  However, Snyder receives sole director credit for his work and Whedon gets a screenplay credit in post.  The only other difference to point out here other than the film’s tone is the absence sadly of John Williams (I feel it greatly).  This time out we have Spider-Man‘s Danny Elfman.  Yay (notice my excitement)!  If you choose to pay attention, many fans will hear both a familiar Batman and Superman cue.  I don’t know about you all, but the reason I like these new DCEU adventures is the distance they keep from the original films that have come before.  I’m just saying.  The callbacks were cute and all, but unnecessary in my opinion.  Moving on…

If you remember where BvS left off (BE WARNED – BvS spoilers galore here on out), then you’ll know Bruce Wayne (Affleck) had his faith in humanity restored due to Superman’s selfless act that (pun intended) saved the world from certain “doom.”  At Clark Kent’s (Cavill) funeral we saw Bruce enlisting his new ally, Diana Prince (Gadot).  Due in part to his futuristic nightmare visions and Lex Luthor’s lunatic mumblings at the end he feels Wonder Woman and himself (alter identity Batman) must stand together with the other metahumans (also shown in BvS) they can find to thwart off the inevitable threat.  It’s a hunch so to speak, but a very good one as it’s the reason we are all gathered here today.  Therefore, Bruce Wayne takes it upon himself to recruit for this motley crew team of his, AKA the Justice League.  Once the team is united — Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash — the question becomes are they enough and/or are they too late to save the planet from an alien invasion led by the villainous Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and his army of man/bird-like creatures called Parademons.

Now if you’re like me, you’ll probably want to brush up on your DC Comics lore to find out who this new bad guy, Steppenwolf, really is.  Don’t worry!  I have you covered here.  His character was originally created by Jack Kirby in the pages of New Gods #7 in 1972.  In our film here he’s portrayed through use of motion capture.  I guess you can call him an alien military officer.  He’s from Apokolips and leads the army of Parademons I made mention up above, which first appeared in Bruce Wayne’s dreams in BvS.  He is charged by his nephew, Darkseid, with finding the three mother boxes held on Earth: in Atlantis, Themyscria and embedded in Victor Stone, AKA Cyborg (Fisher) — also see BvS.  What are the mother boxes you ask?  Well, that’s a great question.  DC Wikia define them as “small portable supercomputers created by the New Gods.  They were invented by the Apokoliptian scientist Himon the Artificer using the mysterious Element X.  They have vast undefined abilities which range from teleportation via Boom Tubes (extra dimensional point-to-point travel portal), to energy manipulation.”

A lot of you complained about the depressing and somber tone of BvS.  Why you didn’t all cry the same about Marvel’s Civil War I have no idea, but I digress.  You’ll be happy to know that for the most part this is a FUN outing here.  Yes I said the word “fun” in reference to a DCEU movie in the same sentence.  Am I on drugs?  No, I am not.  I guess you could call this fifth entry in the DCEU a bit more hopeful and optimistic.  However, while that’s good for everyone that hated BvS or Suicide Squad there’s also a FLAW in that way of thinking too.  If you wondered what I meant by the two F’s in my title of this review, then here’s what I am getting at.  Justice League is a very FLAWED film, but at the same time it’s also a very FUN one too.  I ask you to at least try and let that sink in while I set the stage as to why I feel that way.  Before I do that though, riddle me this.  Is Batman the world’s greatest detective or is Alfred?  I’m just saying.  Ha ha.  Think about that as you watch this one over the weekend.

Because of the rumor mill that claims Warner Bros. supposedly forced upon filmmakers a two hour runtime I feel that the scenes that featured great emotional weight/potential impact never really fully materialized.  We had one quick cut after another and the sequences where it should have lingered on a bit longer to create a sense of gravity with emotional weight they were forced to trim and chop down.  Other examples involve a minimal amount of proper backstory and character development for some and a complete lack of involvement for others.  I wish I could embellish some more and give fine examples, but as I said before this review is spoiler free.  So you’ll just have to take my word as gospel.  The last thing I want to nitpick is how slow the First Act feels.  Don’t get me wrong I can literally spend hours in this DCEU environment the way they graciously frame Gal Gadot’s assets every chance they get.  However, to the average moviegoer I can relate to peer complaints of how it was a very slow moving First Act.  Let’s agree to digress though and move on because what I want to highlight next is the cast’s chemistry.

The cast’s chemistry is where the FUN factor comes into play when talking Justice League.  I’m sure plenty of people wanted this with Suicide Squad, but most walked away void of having any fun with it.  I can understand that, but I’ll always have Harley.  So listen up all you BvS and Suicide Squad haters Justice League is what you wanted from the DCEU.  Can you just be happy now?   The shenanigans, banter and playful one-liners between the bunch really exist and are the core lifeline of this movie.  While my eyes may have been fixated on Gal at all times it is really Ezra Miller as the Flash that runs away and steals the show here (sorry Gal).  I’m genuinely disappointed there’s no standalone Flash movie already in the works.  I could spend a breezy two hours with him anytime (Aquaman and Cyborg are just OK characters to me).  I can’t say the same thing for Steppenwolf though.  If you thought Wonder Woman‘s main bad guy was weak, you haven’t met Steppenwolf yet.  I’m not a fan, but given the fact that he’s the reason why the League is united and we’re all here today I can learn to love him.  He’s pretty one dimensional and lackluster to say the least (especially his flaws), but like any bad God gone mad he poses at least a big enough threat to unite Earth’s mightiest heroes (yes I know that is a Marvel thing) to “Come Together” and save the world.  I’ll always have the wild romp he takes us through on the island of Themyscira.  That action sequence is cool.  Speaking of cool, let’s talk about the production design real quick.

While I have nothing but mediocre/decent things to say about Elfman’s swinging, superhero score (he’s no John Williams) I did want to spend a few moments chatting about all the special effects within.  After spending so much time with 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format as of late special effects, particularly fiery explosions, have become very important to me.  How they look, feel and lend themselves to overall credibility become crucial once you’re watching these superhero films in 4K resolution.  Having recently revisited the many explosions in Man of Steel on 4K Blu-ray trust me I know what I’m talking about.   I would venture out on a limb here and say with credibility the effects throughout Justice League are on par with what you come to expect from action sequences in BvS or Suicide Squad.  Explosions did not always resonate authentic, but they weren’t any lesser in quality than what you’re used to from BvS.  It got a little crazy in the film’s hellish-like conclusion in Russia, but even purple glacier-like formations popping up from the ground didn’t take me out of my state of enjoyment.  I was in it to win it, but speaking of taking me out of it.  Kudos to the effects team and the disappearance of Henry Cavill’s ‘stache.  I can’t wait to tackle this behind-the-scenes extras on the eventual home media release covering all that.  Ha!  Did you notice I said nothing about Superman really this whole review?  That’s on purpose!

Interestingly enough, after leaving us hanging in both Wonder Woman and BvS there are not one but two after credit scenes here.  After the final post credits scene I heard people say “there’s the movie I wanted to see” or “that was the most impressive use of an after credits scene ever.”  Your mileage may very, but I was left satisfied.  Now where things go from here is anyone’s guess.  It depends upon a multitude of things such as how harshly the critics bash this (unknown Tomato meter at the time of this writing) to how well it fairs at the box office against its reported 300 million dollar budget.  My only guess is to really challenge the team again in let’s say a Justice League 2 kind of setting it’s going to have to be another God, and yes I’m looking at you Darkseid.   We all know they will make a Wonder Woman 2 movie as long as Mrs. Gadot gets her way and there’s still supposedly a Batman standalone feature (that may or may not involve Affleck), Suicide Squad 2, Batgirl and so many others thrown out there that it makes my head hurt.  All I know is this though.  I’m very saddened to know that all we have is Aquaman’s solo feature (in the very capable hands of James Wan) next year in the DCEU unless they managed to pull a 10 Cloverfield Lane kind of filmmaking surprise out of their hats.  I just hope some of these aforementioned projects would start filming already.  Is it too much to ask for a Wonder Woman v. Harley Quinn film?  Come on!  I’ll gladly start writing it.

So there you have it folks.  You have my true gut feelings and sentiments up above on all things Justice League here.  You have NO idea how badly I want to give this one a perfect 5-star score, sing songs of its praise at work in the hallways and declare this is the best motion picture since Casablanca, but all that would be a lie.  It would be unethical.  I would not be doing my civil duty in providing you a somewhat unbiased review despite my love for the DCEU.   Yes, I’m gonna go see it again this weekend.  Yes, I’m going to watch and cherish the hell out of its 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release in four months.  And yes I’m going to scoop up every single Justice League promo item I possibly can.  However, what it all comes down to for me is the following admittance.  Justice League is NOT in the same “league” as Wonder Woman.  Wonder Woman was more cinematic, a better/cohesive story and most importantly more emotional and character driven.  I’m not just saying that because the entire movie features Gal either.  I’m saying that because I truly believe it to be and sad but true those little Porgs may not make The Last Jedi a lesser film than I thought.  Only time will tell on that front though.  One thing is for sure though I’m going to have as much rinse and repeat fun as I can with this Justice League feature and not you or anybody else can stop me.  Unfortunately my score below represents the actual reality of the film as a whole.  That doesn’t mean it can’t be my delicious guilty pleasure from now until end times.  Whatever your verdict is thanks for reading and enjoy!

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Disclaimer: Please remember per my title of this review up above the 2 F’s refer to FLAWED and FUN, hence what Justice League is.  Enjoy!

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