. . . Did you also like The Avengers?
Well, I've got some good news, and some bad news. . .
It's not good.
But it's also not really bad?
Ok, so the bar with the DC Extended Universe films is pretty low at this point - the legitimately great Wonder Woman notwithstanding - so that might be damning with faint praise, but given everything that's gone on behind the scenes with this one (being well into production before it was obvious its predecessor was a bad movie people didn't like, starting as a two-part movie before being cut down to one, a change in directors, heavy reshoots), this isn't any better or worse than what could have been reasonably expected. Justice League is here to deliver on a promised cumulative result of a slate of films, and it mostly succeeds in that respect.
It's just unfortunate that it feels like an obligatory business meeting more than an exciting convergence of interesting stories.
The plot really is the same as 2012's The Avengers. Space god bad guy with horns? Check. Canon fodder alien army? Check. Trans-dimensional magic cubes? Triple-check. Six heroes who are the only thing that can save the world so long as they can put aside their not-always-cooperative personalities? You betcha. It even has the same mid-film "Oh no, our strongest superhero went berserk and is fighting his teammates! I sure do hope we can resolve that in time for Act 3!" business. The problem? It doesn't have all the stuff that made MARVEL's game-changing team-up a good movie. To whit, the plot (as in, the machinery of the Stuff That Happens) is the same, but the story (the reason WHY the Stuff That Happens happens the way it does and how the characters react to it) is this film's Achilles Heel. Because that stuff the film still has to mostly inherit from a very very bad movie, and does so in a way that actively harms characters who worked previously as often as it tries to "fix" them.
Oddly enough, as an example of cross-film continuity and serial storytelling, Justice League works as one of the best arguments against this approach to blockbuster franchising. The best parts of the movie are easily the ones where the film hazily forgets or outright ignores/retcons pieces of Batman v Superman, which is awkward given that the movie simply doesn't work without the events of BvS to set it up. Characters will remark on actions or motivations that run completely counter to what we know of events as they transpired, and it's almost as jarring as Henry Cavill's CGI mustache removal. To an extent, I'm willing to forgive this, because it leads to things squaring better with versions of these characters that work, but it leads to some awkward dissonance with a film that's so clearly a follow-up.
The other jarring moments of the film are the product of some very obvious and heavy editing. This shows up a lot in the first half of the film, and leads to a lot of bouncing around with no connective tissue and really awkward exposition (there's a moment where one character has a meet-cute with their future love interest in the same conversation as they explain their own backstory and boy howdy does it not work), and it also contributes to the overriding tonal problem where jumps between Snyder's material and the reshoots are most obvious. There's only enough room left for a couple scenes showcasing character dynamics or anything resembling arcs, so there's not a lot of chemistry that the cast gets to bring to bear.
As bad as all this sounds, the movie still manages to be fun in a lot of places. The production design is problematic given the last-minute change in the style of effects during set pieces, but there are some solidly fun action beats (Wonder Woman in particular gets a really neat intro sequence), even if none of the sequences hang together as action storytelling so much as splash page money shots. But there's an undeniably infectious energy that the film picks up and really kicks in during the finale. An odd equilibrium sets in where the film finally decides to embrace the zany silver-age superhero goofiness, and while it doesn't end up doing so as gracefully as some other cape films, there's at least an honesty to it.
The result is less something that feels like a "Snyderesque" DCEU movie or an MCU movie so much as a live-action adaptation of one of the direct-to-video DC animated entries.
Not one of the really good ones, but still.
It's tempting to give this film a soft pass (it tries even harder to win audience goodwill during the last 30 minutes in the face of the mess that preceded it than Jurassic World), but for all the promise of a new status quo and some cute credits teases, it doesn't magically make the movie good. Maybe ten years ago, this kind of earnest messiness would have passed muster, but now we expect and deserve better. The "now we can get to the good stuff!" line has been trotted out for defense of these movies since Man of Steel, and has long since worn thin, especially when someone like Patty Jenkins or James Gunn makes something truly special right out of the gate, and has something to say and a journey for a character and feels like a passionate story rather than a checked box on a financials list.
And maybe we'll get that *sigh* next time out with this team (assuming there is a next time before some sort of soft reboot). But for now, Justice League just isn't enough to save itself.
The other jarring moments of the film are the product of some very obvious and heavy editing. This shows up a lot in the first half of the film, and leads to a lot of bouncing around with no connective tissue and really awkward exposition (there's a moment where one character has a meet-cute with their future love interest in the same conversation as they explain their own backstory and boy howdy does it not work), and it also contributes to the overriding tonal problem where jumps between Snyder's material and the reshoots are most obvious. There's only enough room left for a couple scenes showcasing character dynamics or anything resembling arcs, so there's not a lot of chemistry that the cast gets to bring to bear.
As bad as all this sounds, the movie still manages to be fun in a lot of places. The production design is problematic given the last-minute change in the style of effects during set pieces, but there are some solidly fun action beats (Wonder Woman in particular gets a really neat intro sequence), even if none of the sequences hang together as action storytelling so much as splash page money shots. But there's an undeniably infectious energy that the film picks up and really kicks in during the finale. An odd equilibrium sets in where the film finally decides to embrace the zany silver-age superhero goofiness, and while it doesn't end up doing so as gracefully as some other cape films, there's at least an honesty to it.
The result is less something that feels like a "Snyderesque" DCEU movie or an MCU movie so much as a live-action adaptation of one of the direct-to-video DC animated entries.
Not one of the really good ones, but still.
It's tempting to give this film a soft pass (it tries even harder to win audience goodwill during the last 30 minutes in the face of the mess that preceded it than Jurassic World), but for all the promise of a new status quo and some cute credits teases, it doesn't magically make the movie good. Maybe ten years ago, this kind of earnest messiness would have passed muster, but now we expect and deserve better. The "now we can get to the good stuff!" line has been trotted out for defense of these movies since Man of Steel, and has long since worn thin, especially when someone like Patty Jenkins or James Gunn makes something truly special right out of the gate, and has something to say and a journey for a character and feels like a passionate story rather than a checked box on a financials list.
And maybe we'll get that *sigh* next time out with this team (assuming there is a next time before some sort of soft reboot). But for now, Justice League just isn't enough to save itself.
Always a treat to read you . . . no matter IF I disagree. I don't want to say too much cause I know you been sick and I wouldn't want to be cause of you having a relapse . . . I will say, that two things really made me laugh and they have to do with character.
ReplyDelete1. The Flash seems to have been modeled after Marvel's new version of Spider-Man.
2. Aquaman really feels like a superhero version of The Dude. :)