Review of Justice League (2017) by William W — 17 Dec 2017

Admittedly a mediocre superhero/ comic book movie, Justice League is unique in it's ability to both be interesting on a character level and... disappointing on a plot level.

Lets start with the pros I suppose:

The characters are great. They are by far the best thing about this movie, and the actors are very clearly trying their best to make this the best movie they can. It is a shame that so many other things work against this (which I will get into later). The action is pretty good, and visually (even though some of the effects look fake) this movie has a much broader color palate than most DC movies in addition to some welcome levity (very Marvel-esque at times).

Unfortunately, the cons of this movie go a long way towards overlooking those things. Like previous DC installments, it is often disjointed and scenes do a poor job of connecting to one another. The pacing suffers as well because the movie is entasked with the nearly-impossibly job of effectively setting up the introduction of most of the Justice League characters.

Lets talk about the villain, who is ultimately my biggest problem with this movie. Any good movie needs a strong villain; one could even argue that a good villain makes a good movie. Take "Batman: The Dark Knight," or the original Star Wars trilogy. What would those movies be without intimidating, remarkable villains with a unique perspective and terrifying (but human) qualities? The villain in Justice League (Steppenwolf) is embarrassingly forgettable and rushed. He has absolutely no remarkable qualities and is just a generic baddie for our heroes to fight. Is plan is simply world domination, and his personality? He really does not have one.

All in all, this movie was interesting, but disappointing. It isn't un-enjoyable, but it is a very forgettable comic book movie with little re-watch value and its main quality being investment in characters.