Review of Justice League (2017) by Connor S — 28 Nov 2017

While everyone is quick to compare this to Disney's Marvel manufacturing machine, which keeps pumping out highly watchable movies, "Justice League" is thoroughly enjoyable in its own right albeit with a few flaws. Don't compare this to Thor Ragnarok or Wonder Woman.

Professional critics are quick to play up this movie's weaknesses, and admittedly there are some. However, I'd urge any fan of these characters to give this movie a watch. It doesn't suffer from the bloated and chaotic feel of Batman v. Superman. As the first comic cinematic universe to develop, Marvel had the luxury of taking their time developing characters through origin stories and layer their plots more gradually. In an effort to keep pace, the DCU has sprinted to catch up, so I agree that this team-up seems a bit rushed, but I think that they did the best given the situation.

Additionally, I heard that the studio restricted the run-time on this movie to 2 hours, which doesn't make sense to me. I agree that this film shouldn't feel bloated (like BvS which packed way too many plot points into a 3-hour movie). As the flagship of their franchise, I would think that the goal of this film was to tell a thorough, well-crafted story. However, the pacing felt very rushed. In lieu of another CGI scene of Steppenwolf swinging his ax or purple vines taking over a former Soviet city (read: Sokovia) or the terribly rendered plants/flowers at the end, I'd rather see more non-CGI scenes of the Justice League bonding and developing a rapport. I thought the best scenes in the Avengers was the one-on-one interactions. One major peeve that others have beaten to death, but I think deserves mentioning: if you are going to edit out Henry Cavill's MI-6 mustache, maybe don't start the movie starring directly at his CGI'd face. Not knowing anything about film editing, I still believe that a more tactful way of pulling that off must exist.

Again, as super hero movies go, this one is far from the worst, but it is also certainly not best. Despite being an MCU fanboy, I liked it.