Review of Justice League (2017) by Darthnihilus — 05 Dec 2017

Despite being a comic fan (DC & Marvel) who went into this film without any preconceived opinions, I was ultimately letdown. The comic book fan in me really wanted to root for this movie after the critical success of Wonder Woman and the disaster of Green Lantern.

It seemed like DC was starting to trend in the right direction. However, that was not the case at all. The film critic in me despised the lack of character development, the terrible narrative and unrealized potential.

This movie had great marketing and tremendous hype surrounding it, but the final product simply didn't deliver. Let's start with the narrative. This film had so many Macguffins (a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation.

) I lost count. The opening scene with Batman chasing a criminal only to be interrupted by lone Parademon and then having the criminal plainly state "must be from an alien invading army" Seriously? Aquaman being very hostile with Batman upon meeting him and then being a valued member of the team barely 20-30mins later? The Motherboxes (still don't know why they are called that) containing all this power and being on earth with no explanation.

Steppenwolf (bad CGI aside) comes to collect these boxes with no explanation given other than wanting revenge for losing in his 1st attempt. There is never any mention of why he wants the boxes in the first place nor whom he works for.

Next up is character development. There is no backstory for Cyborg whatsoever, he is introduced as the moody, loner who wants nothing to do with saving the world then jumps head first into the fight after meeting with Wonder Woman? Where is the character development? I distinctly remember there being flashback scenes in the trailer that were not in the movie at all.

The only person on the team they actually gave us any real backstory and motivation for is the Flash. The battle scenes were perhaps the only bright spot in the film as they gave us a chance to see the team in action and built some chemistry between them.

The flashback battle scene was particularly entertaining even if it was only meant to tease other popular DC characters (Green Lantern, Black Adam, etc...) Finally, the unrealized potential. This is perhaps the biggest flaw of the film and the entire DCEU.

This film had the chance to jumpstart the entire DC film universe. It had a lot of things going for it: Beloved characters, Massive success of the Wonder Woman movie and ridiculous hype. Unfortunately all that meant nothing.

The fact that they neglected to show, let alone mention Darkseid is appalling. That alone could have probably saved this film. Literally NO ONE is excited about Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor. I think many people saw this film for what it was, a poor attempt for DC to catch up to Marvel.

DC should have tried to do their own thing. The way I see it, DC is suffering from an identity crisis. Their movies lack consistency in tone, narrative, direction and character development. The reason people love Marvel is because its consistent.

The change in directors really hurt this movie, you could tell it was directed by two different people. There are times when it tries to be serious and the humor is so forced instead of natural. DC needs to identify itself so that it can break away from the Marvel comparisons.