Movie Review: "Justice League" Isn't Terrible, But We'd Rather More Solo "Wonder Woman" Instead

Justice League unites Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg, and here we are, just hoping it won’t suck.

You can credit the slow erosion of our faith in DC adaptations to the unfairly maligned albeit sullen Man of Steel, and the joyless, very fairly maligned slogs Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad.

Fans were given a reprieve earlier this year with Patty Jenkins’ electrifying and empathetic Wonder Woman, but it was maybe too much to expect that Zack Snyder’s third crack at the DC Extended Universe would turn things around. The most optimistic among you can at least take solace in this: Justice League isn’t actively bad like the last two team-ups. We are now settling for “inert" and "inoffensive”.

I’ll tell you the plot and you can tell me how little you care: With Superman dead, a newly-confident alien horde invades Earth under the instruction of apocalyptic space demon Steppenwolf, an unholy CGI creature torn from the ‘Drafts’ folder of Warcraft’s animators. His goal? Find three ‘Mother Boxes’ scattered across the globe. Combined, they have the power to turn Earth into a red-hued hellscape.

So, to answer your first question, yes, this is a picture about superheroes ultimately trying to separate boxes.

One box is hidden on Themyscira, the island home of Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). Another is in Atlantis, where Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman (Jason Momoa), reluctantly reigns. And the third is hiding among humankind, where it has been used to revive Victor Stone into Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), heeding Diana’s warnings, puts a team together to defend the last box, even using his Batman guise to sign-up the starstruck Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a teen who moves—and talks—with the speed of a Flash. If possible, they’ll try to bring Superman (Henry Cavill) back too. Death is no obstacle for the son of Krypton, particularly when there’s a $300-million movie to sell.

For a film with two characters who travel at the speed of light, Justice League is pretty sluggish, with a sputtering narrative engine—again: to separate boxes—that barely gives our heroes enough juice to get to the end of a modest 121-minute runtime. It’s all so un-grand, and without consequence. On the one hand, what a relief: Instead of turgid posturing and tortured nihilism, Justice League gives us loners learning to fit in. Cute!

On the other hand, Marvel is still best at making 'superhero hang-out' flicks, even when balancing more complicated tales, such as Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Age of Ultron. (Thor: Ragnarok basically perfected the art.) Momoa, Fisher and Miller work hard to bring some levity and relatability, except screenwriters Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon (also of Avengers) didn’t write anything decent for them to say. Justice League has jokes; that doesn’t mean it’s funny.

If Justice League has any value at all, it’s for furthering, slightly, Diana Prince’s story. It's time for the creators to understand all of this is now just window-dressing for the Wonder Woman saga and Gadot’s exceptionally charismatic, smoky-voiced turn as the iconic hero. Here, she learns how to go from a reclusive vigilante to a public beacon for hope. It’s not Homer’s Odyssey, but a journey’s a journey, and Gadot embarks on it with all the compassion and ferocity that’s come to define her performance.

Unfortunately, Zack Snyder’s directorial style—once an idiosyncratic calling card—has become an albatross, heralded by the opening credits, when an especially-morose cover of Leonard Cohen’s overused “Everybody Knows” plays over slow-motion footage of post-Superman society crumbling. It used to be he could at least be called upon to capture an iconic ‘hero’ pose; now, Batman moves chunkily, Aquaman’s big fight scene is obscured by its churning underwater setting, and the shiny Cyborg is never not silly-looking. Poor Wonder Woman is re-introduced doing a squatting-Cossack dance to deflect bullets. I thought the bare minimum required of a Justice League director was to make the heroes look cool?

It’s hard to know who to blame or credit, given that Snyder—the lone listed director—stepped away to deal with an unimaginable personal tragedy, giving Joss Whedon responsibility for reshoots. However it mutated over the course of its production, we can only judge the Justice League in front of us, and it does not suggest this is a franchise learning the right lessons from its mistakes. As with Wonder Woman, you’re more likely to see real growth in the standalone films for Aquaman and The Flash, should we ever receive them. (Don’t hold your breath for Cyborg.)

2.5/5

In cinemas now. Rated M for action violence.

Photo: Warner Bros