Review of Justice League: War (2014) by Caleb M — 02 Sep 2017

People criticize this new DCEU and how they're jumping head first into a Justice League movie without having even set up most of the characters. And those are valid criticisms, but if you're going to do a Justice League movie without pre established characters, this is how you do it.

The movie has a great hook. There's some effective world building, albeit contrived. The characters, for the most part, have a good dynamic. Batman is, appropriately, the only one really taking the situation seriously. Green Lantern is a pig headed narcissist with a hero complex. Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is a stoic, spirited, and fairly naive warrior. There's not really much to Cyborg as a character other than being an exposition machine, but his characterization before he becomes Cyborg is refreshing. He's a neglected son with a workaholic dad. But, he's actually quite tolerant and patient with his father until all of his pent up frustration finally bursts. His father also has a surprisingly interesting motivation for being so neglectful. The two worst characters are Superman and Captain Marvel. Both of them suffer from the same problem. Both of these characters in the comics are supposed to be stoic. They're supposed to be very classical, goody two shoes superheroes. But, I suppose the writers thought that that would be too campy, so they instead decided to make them both douche bags. They are insufferably arrogant and cruel. They have absolutely no redeeming qualities.

If I were to call out one major difference between this movie and, say, Avengers, that difference would be that the Avengers is about a group of super powered beings fighting at the same time and in the same place. Occasionally in pairs. But with this movie, during the climax, none of them are ever off alone fighting by themselves. They are all acting together as a team to accomplish one goal. Is it a big detail to differentiate? No, but it was noticeable.