Justice League is a hilariously bad, Frankensteined together, clusterfuck that needed not only another year to work on the CGI but also a complete rewrite of the script, because this thing makes no fucking sense.
At this point I just feel sorry for DC. You remember that scene from Dunkirk where the soldiers are held up on that small fishing ship, waiting for the tide to come in? Then German soldiers show up, using the boat for target practice. Now everyone in the boat has to try and plug up each new hole before they sink. That’s DC. They’re just trying to plug each new hole before they sink.
Wonder Woman was like I thought, a complete fluke. I believe the Wonder Woman movie is about the level any of these DC movies will ever achieve, and compared to Marvel, it’s about mid-tier. So really, mediocracy is about all they can hope for.
Where do we even start? Actually, let’s start with the good.
Ben Affleck as Batman. He’s kind of great, maybe the best since Michael Keaton. The only problem is, the only other time we have seen this Batman was in Batman v Superman. Where he was actively not only killing people but trying to kill Superman. He made a quick appearance in Suicide Squad, but besides that we really know nothing about him.
He also seems like a completely different character now from Batman V Superman. He cracks jokes and smiles a few times. This seems off to me. Like they got their Superman mixed in with my Batman and my Batman mixed in with my Superman.
Another positive would be Wonder Woman. But that might be because she’s the only one in the group that has had a solo film. So how weird is that to have a superhero team up film, but only one hero on the team has had their own solo film? That’s nuts, right? I’m not counting Superman because, for one, he’s barely in this and when he does show up it feels like what it was, a reshoot to insert him into the final product.
This is also insane because half the plot revolves around Superman. Obviously something Joss Whedon added during his extensive reshoots. How much of a mess was this when it was just Zack Snyder at the helm? It had to be an even bigger disaster.
I don’t know if it’s because I know nothing about the mother boxes or who Steppenwolf is, besides the Canadian rock band from the 60’s, but I found myself confused through most of what was going on. Thanks to Wonder Woman we know gods exist in the DC universe, unlike Marvel’s universe where we have Thor and Odin, but they aren’t actually gods, they’re aliens with advance technology and are just powerful. The gods in the DC universe aren’t highly advanced aliens, they are actual gods.
So what does that make Steppenwolf? Thanks to Superman, we also know aliens are a thing. I’m pretty sure Steppenwolf is an alien, hell bent on terraforming earth into his planet. Which is a really weak motivation for a villain to have. Plus, wasn’t that Zod’s goal in Man of Steel?
But Steppenwolf also has these dragonfly minions that sense fear, they also arrive in what looks to be spaceships, so I’m assuming he and the dragonflies are aliens.
While I’m at it, I also have no idea who Darkseid is. I’m guessing he’s just Thanos, another purple space monkey. Also, who or what was the thing we get a glimpse of in Batman v Superman when Lex made Doomsday? Or was that only in the director’s cut? That’s a problem with comic book movies, not just DC, don’t think I’m singling them out just because their films are garbage, all superhero films have things in it that only fans of the comics will get. But for the rest of us, we’re just left confused. It’s like that watermelon scene in Buckaroo Banzai. Why is there a watermelon there? I don’t know. Why was it pointed out? Don’t know that either. Maybe not the best example, seeing as comic book films all have something they are making a reference to, whereas Buckaroo Banzai there is no original source material, so it they were making a reference to absolutely nothing. It was just a scene that didn’t make any damn sense. I feel I’m getting off topic.
Steppenwolf is also stronger than several gods apparently as it takes The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies to take out one dude. And they don’t even take him out, he just runs away after they take his mommy boxes from him.
While I’m on Steppenwolf, the CGI for him is laughably bad.
It looked like a model from one of the Injustice videogames. But so is all the CGI in this. At times it seemed unfinished, like it was a placeholder until they got around to doing touchups but in this case they never got around to doing it.
It reminded me a lot of Spawn. I really thought superhero movies that bad were kind of a thing of the past. But here we are with Justice League, a film that looks like it was made 20 years ago.
Where did all the money for this film’s budget go? Did it all go into CGI-ing Superman’s mustache out? I found it completely noticeable and hilarious by the way. Once he smiles, he gets this gumby plastic face going on, it looks ridiculous. It might be the biggest waste of money in film history.
Back to Steppenwolf once again. He shows up in this tube of light. I have no idea where the tube comes from or where he goes when he goes back up it, but it’s pretty comical whenever you see it happen. Just ZOOP, there he goes.
Like I mentioned before, Wonder Woman is the only one to actually get a solo film, so she’s the only one we get any kind of backstory to. My question is why is that the case? Why are we getting a team up movie with characters we’ve never seen before on film? Marvel gave us Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor before they gave us a team for them to join. And yes, this all goes back to DC rushing things. They’re playing catchup and failing miserably.
Why were we given a Suicide Squad film? Why is that in the mix? It literally has nothing to do with anything else. It’s basically Guardians of the Galaxy. But once again, Marvel waited until after their big team up to get us there.
So with DC we get Man of Steel, tossing us right into Batman v Superman where Superman dies, then we take a detour with Suicide Squad, the only thing that film set up was a 10 second scene with Bruce Wayne getting names for his Justice League. Then we get Wonder Woman and now this clusterfuck.
You don’t think time would have been better spent with a solo Batman film or a Flash film or since Justice League is centered mostly around Cyborg, maybe have a solo film dedicated to him? You didn’t think having a team up film, where serval superheroes coming together might be an issue for the audience if you’ve never introduced these characters before? Not counting Batman or Wonder Woman, you got three characters we know nothing about. So that means you’d have to spend at least 30 minutes with each character just to set them up. Did they do that? Nope! I have a feeling a ton was cut from this. They got a mandate from the studio to limit the runtime to only 2 hours, an hour and 48 minutes minus the credits, and seeing as none of these characters have any kind of backstory, that just wasn’t going to work. So right off the bat they are doomed to fail.
It’s pretty clear that DC has no idea what they are doing. They have no plan for this franchise, it seems like they’re tossing spaghetti pasta at the wall, seeing what sticks. Suicide Squad? Well, it’s on the wall, we might as well go with it.
The plot I found to be very rushed and nonsensical. Not to mention thin and forgettable. It will leave your brain starving. After I watched this I was grateful for Punisher on Netflix. I am getting somewhat confused now with all the Marvel shows however. I no longer know what show is in continuity with what brand. Does it take place in the MCU or in the X-Men universe? Like Runaways, is that X-Men or is that a part of the MCU? What about The Gifted? Is that connected with Legion?
At least DC isn’t even trying with their tv shows. They’re connected to themselves, minus Gotham but besides that, they have nothing to do with the films. It also helps they are all on one network. Marvel has yet another one on a completely different network coming out soon called Cloak & Dagger. Again, is it connected to X-Men or the MCU? It gets confusing.
So Justice League!
Justice League starts off with Batman chasing down a thief, only for the thief to be grabbed by one of Steppenwolf’s dragonfly things. Batman kills it and it leaves behind an imprint of some cube shapes, so… now he knows these boxes are somehow important? What?
Somehow he knows something bad is coming, now it’s time to assemble his super team, that he’s already been wanting to assemble, because… why? Because Superman is dead? Wasn’t your whole goal in BvS to see him dead because having that much power was too dangerous? Or whatever his motivation was during that film, who knows!
First on the list is Aquaman, who instantly tells Bats to fuck off.
Jason Momoa, I’ve never been a fan, I remember first seeing him from that short lived Fox series North Shore. I’m guessing no one else has ever watched that. It was back when he had dreadlocks that looked like turds clipped to his head. He then showed up in Stargate: Atlantis and then in Game of Thrones where I’m sure most people know him from.
I guess he’s fine as Aquaman, I mean, I really know nothing about the character aside from the fact he’s a punchline on Entourage. Also one of the worst videogames ever made was an Aquaman game, so maybe that’s where my bias comes from. He’s basically this joke. A superhero that talks to fish. To counteract that, they just made him crack jokes and guzzle whiskey from the bottle. So instantly he’s cool now.
Maybe one day I’ll grow to love Jason Momoa the way I now love Jon Bernthal. I’ve seen them both pop up in some equally strange films.
I guess Aquaman was okay here. You get ZERO backstory on the guy. I have no idea who he is or who Amber Heard is meant to be playing. We get one action scene in Atlantis… that’s where Aquaman lives, right? Anyway, we get one action scene there and that’s it.
Bruce Wayne then goes to visit Barry Allen aka The Flash. Him I do know about because I watch the Flash tv series. I guess they’re more or less the same, though the Justice League Flash is a bit more neurotic and talks more like a Joss Whedon character.
I guess that leaves Cyborg. The only thing I’ve seen Cyborg in was the old Teen Titans cartoon. There he was jokey and fun, you like Cyborg, he’s a cool dude. Here he’s the complete opposite. He’s a wooden (or should I say robotic) character that doesn’t really do much. Even though technically the story mostly revolves around him and the fact he was brought back to life by one of the three mother boxes.
After getting their asses handed to them by Steppenwolf, the team decides, hey, let’s use the mother box to bring Superman back, since we obviously suck and aren’t strong enough to take this guy out.
And when they bring him back, he comes back as how he has always been, an asshole. Everyone is so shocked that he’s attacking them and wants to kill Batman, I saw no difference between how they’ve always portrayed him. Oh no, Superman had gone bad! Except he’s always been this way, so there’s no difference.
Eventually they get through to him or at least make him stop trying to kill them by tossing Lois Lane in his direction. He’s all better now, with his creepy CGI face.
I do have to mention how much more color is in the Superman scenes. There’s actual color in his suit, all the suits actually. They weren’t their usual brown color.
Though Batman’s suit looked kind of terrible in the sunlight. I don’t think it was intended to be shot during the day, but with the new Superman reshoots they had to have him wear it and it looked slightly off.
They get the location of the mother boxes and head off to get their asses kicked, only to have Superman swoop in at the last minute to save everyone. They need time for Cyborg to separate the boxes to stop Steppenwolf’s evil plan of transforming earth.
It took me a second to remember what happened to him after they managed to defeat him. After Superman blasted him with some frost breath, shattering his axe, his dragonfly minions smell his fear and attack him. Then he and his bugs get sucked up in his tube of light, hopefully to never be seen again. For a villain, this might be the most generic I’ve seen in a superhero movie.
After that they create a main base for their Justice League headquarters, giving way for more really shitty sequels and spinoffs.
This movie is pretty terrible, it has more “fun” in it than Batman v Superman, which I found to be a miserable experience. Justice League is still bad, but it’s bad on a different level.
It gets a RENT IT.
I know, you were thinking this was getting a lower grade, but I think if this is on Netflix and you have some time to kill, check it out. I’m not sure if this is going to get an extended cut with an hour of deleted footage, but maybe wait for that to inevitably come out.
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