Today marked premier of the newest chapter in the DC cinematic universe: Justice League, and it has been the topic on everyone's minds for the past week leading up to release. Last night, critic website Rotten Tomatoes released their aggregated critic score of the film at a very disturbing 42 percent. Critics bashed the movie for it's clunky narrative and weak villain. However, I am a firm believer of making my own opinion of the film. Justice League was not only a fun movie, but it genuinely surprised me that it got the reviews it did. While far from a perfect film, Justice League is a movie that surpasses the standards of several Marvel Phase One films. While it may not amaze to the degree of Avengers the film certainly makes headway in some great introductions and portrayals of characters as well as a fantastic screen chemistry between the team itself.
The film's first act is probably it's weakest point, which honestly comes to be expected. This first act does a lot of jumping around trying to introduce the members of the team while reintroducing the characters we already know of. The obvious fix to this problem was to not rush into this film and allow for each of these characters to experience their own solo film adventure before getting to this point, but since that's not what was decided, what we got was decent enough. However, once that first act is done, the movie builds its momentum and never really stopped. While Steppenwolf, the film's villain, is no Iago, he's not terrible and serves his purpose as hulking opponent that provides a necessary threat to unite the league. I honestly don't understand most of the criticisms of this character. As a side note, anyone with any knowledge of who Steppenwolf is, knows he's not exactly what one would even remotely consider as a powerhouse villain in either ability or personality. Where the film shines is where it counts and that is the portrayals of the heroes. Gal Gadot gives yet another stellar performance in League, providing the team with a conscience that parallels to Steve Rogers in the Marvel films. Jason Momoa gives us a fantastic first look at Aquaman that will genuinely make you crave for more (don't fret his solo outing is right around the corner in 2018). Ezra Miller's Flash is a new take on the speedster showing him at the beginnings of his career and the relationship he has with Affleck's Batman is great as you get to see Batman bring out some of the lessons he clearly instilled in other people he's worked with. Ray Fisher's Cyborg was far better than I expected it to be, and even made me invested in him as a Leaguer (something that I had not done previously as I had only associated him as a Titan). The supporting ensemble of Billy Crudup, Amber Heard, Diane Lane, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, and J.K. Simmons bring an incredible human element to the film that has been missing in the DCEU's previous outings. Lastly, Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck deserve their own paragraphs.
Let's start with Cavill. If you have read ANY of my moviepilot pieces, Superman was a big thing for me. My most viewed articles were about Superman, and I wrote several things about how DC had dropped the ball on writing. When it comes down to Justice League, Henry Cavill shines. Cavill's Superman has probably some of my favorite scenes in the movie and they really show that ears have been opened to fan criticisms. He has excellent scenes with everyone in the film even though he only comes back to the action during the latter half of the film. His dialogue is corny a good deal of the time, but honestly that's Superman in a nut shell and I was just happy to see Cavill live up to the potential that he had for the character. However, while Cavill was great, I want to take a moment to address the portrayal that I feel is being missed out in praise.
In many reviews I have read, they claim Affleck's performance to be half hearted. That he didn't seem to want to be there. I couldn't disagree more. If there was any notions of misplacement it's because Batman genuinely feels out of place, and that's absolutely the way it should be. He is the only normal human on this team of essentially gods. Ben does a great job of showing just how humbling an experience the death of Superman was to his character. He is riddled with self doubt, and doesn't even feel himself worthy of leading the League, even claiming that Superman could have done it better. It honestly hurts knowing that this may be the last time I see Ben in the cowl. I sincerely hope that he at least signs up for Matt Reeves' solo Batman film. I think that if he allows himself to do it, he will have a chance to see the true vindication of his hard work, that it will all pay off in the best live action Batman film ever made.
The movies is not without faults, as I said the narrative suffers in the beginning, the CGI is inconsistent at points (no doubt a result of the switch in direction), some of the dialogue is corny. However, it is certainly not enough to condemn the movie to a terrible score. If you put this film up against movies like Thor, Iron Man 2, or even First Avenger it more than stacks up, and maybe that's a bit of a let down that a film with as much potential as this can only cut it against the early Marvel films after five outings, but again that doesn't make it a terrible film. It's a lot of fun and I feel most people will leave the theater not only having enjoyed, but excited to see where the franchise might take us. If Justice League proves anything, it's that the critics went into this film wanting to hate it, and so they looked hard and hard for holes to poke at, rather than walk into a movie with the sole purpose of trying to have a good time. I genuinely expect audience response for this film to show the giant disconnect that exists between critics and the average movie goer.
I would personally give Justice League a 6.5 to a 7 out of 10. Though flawed in some of it's presentation of narrative, it delivers a genuinely fun experience.
This has been another edition of Comic Relief! and I hope you guys enjoyed this review
(PS stay through the credits)
(PPS audience score on Rotten Tomatoes currently resides at an 86)
Good review!
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