Review of Justice League (2017) by Ahand — 17 Nov 2017

Justice League is the culmination of a grand total of three movies (Discounting Suicide Squad), where our beloved DC characters band together and forms the eponymous league. It offers bite-sized bits of fun in its action and character dialogue, but ultimately proves to be a clumsy attempt at brightening up the atmosphere of Snyder's DC universe. It is unrewarding and shallow at anything it tries to explore.

-THEME-.

The film opens with an amateur recording of Cavill's Superman, offering his cheerful wisdom (of which he had none in his previous two films) in a dialogue about hope and car keys, suggesting that the central theme of the movie is hope. And since his passing in BvS, the world was rocked into anxiety and distress.

This theme, however, was never explored any further. The movie never shows the emotion of hope draining or rejuvenating our characters. In the end, the movie has no theme to revolve around, resorting instead into a mindless fight of good and evil, where our heroes race to stop Steppenwolf in his conquest to gather three loot boxes and destroy the earth... for no reason other than "because I am Steppenwolf".

-CHARACTERS-.

Steppenwolf himself proved to be a very forgettable wet blanket of a villain, with one-note dialogue that revolves around the words "box" and "destroy". He does not provide the protagonists with moral or philosophical quandary.

On the other hand, a few of our protagonists (specifically Miller’s Barry Allen, Gadot’s Wonder Woman, and Momoa’s Aquaman) provided the movie with its better parts. The movie is at its strongest points when it explores their characters, allowing us glimpses into the kinds of people each of the Leaguers are. This endeavour proved shallow because none of them were never really presented with a conflict that challenges their beliefs. Having spent much of their earlier screen time as friends who have nothing to challenge the others about, the culmination of the story fizzles unrewardingly as they “finally” unite against their common foe. There is no buildup, no lessons learned by anyone, that led to this point.

Much like Wonder Woman in BvS, Superman felt like an item on a checklist. His resurrection was – say it with me – unrewarding. The impact of his death was not explored sufficiently. The impact and consequences of his resurrection seemed trivial. Justice League was an unrewarding experience, and if you don’t care enough for action blockbusters or superero films, you’re off not spending any time and money for this movie. Snyder/DC’s diehard fans will still find some things to enjoy in this movie.