Review of Justice League (2017) by Phil S — 26 Nov 2017

This film gave me newfound appreciation for Batman v. Superman because despite its bloated run time, disjointed storytelling, and oppressively grimdark atmosphere, that movie still managed to feel coherent and come together at the end once all the pieces fell into place.

With Justice League on the other hand, there is no such consistency. It is an erratic and tonal mess; cramming in far too many scenes with no logical flow from one to the next. It feels like there are some scenes that are just outright missing, as the film fails to adequately explain how characters appear in random locations out of the blue.

The villain and special effects get so ridiculously campy that it honestly feels like you're watching cut scenes from a bad video game. This is easily the worst DCEU film I've seen to date. DC's attempts to course correct have resulted in producer meddling that has only worsened their problems.

Justice League is overstuffed with pointless action scenes, characters get no meaningful development, and the direction is so sloppy that it borders on fan film quality. Perhaps some of this is owed to the fact that director Zack Snyder had to bow out early due to a family tragedy, and that's understandable, but DC should have just scrapped the whole thing and started over rather than try to salvage it with what they had.

Do I even need to mention Superman's cringey CG upper lip that they have to do constant close-ups on? What a train wreck.