Review of Justice League
Apr. 22nd, 2018 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSo, I finally saw Justice League via Optimum "On Demand" for $4.99 rental. (Which by the way is a heck of a lot cheaper than in the movie theater -- that's $15.99. It's not worth $15.99, but it is worth $4.99.)
It was better than I expected. I'd been told that of course by a couple of friends who saw it and are fans of the DC Verse. (Personally, I prefer the Marvel Verse, it's a tad less fascist and more character centric, also Stan Lee's a bit more subversive than his DC co-horts. In fact in many ways Marvel is a commentary on DC.)
Anyhow, that caveat aside, it wasn't a bad movie. And I could tell Joss Whedon wrote the teleplay, the story is Zack Snyder's. And the combination of the two is...a little jarring in places. Whedon is more subversive a writer than Snyder and likes to undercut things with a sardonic and self-deprecating humor. There's a long speech by Aquaman towards the end, right before they go into battle, where he's basically saying "we're all going to die" which is totally Whedon, but not quite something I see Aquaman stating. Momoa pulls it off though.
The two surprises in the film are Aquaman and The Flash -- the casting for both is spot-on, and the actors are compelling. I actually prefer the cinematic version of the Flash to the CW version. The actor is both better looking and more compelling than the television version. Also Aquaman surprised the heck out of me -- Jason Momoa, best known from the Game of Thrones television series, is a charismatic actor and well, I don't tend to go for the muscle bound heroes, but he's hot. You guys can have Henry Cavill's Superman, I want Momoa.
The weak links are Caville and Affleck, or Superman and Batman, which I can't quite decide if it is casting, how the characters are written, or just the tropes are now way overdone and the writing well is dry? There's supposed to be a budding romance and chemistry between Diana and Bruce, but it's not there -- possibly due to Affleck? I don't know. Unlike many, I don't dislike Affleck as an actor, actually I have no issues with him as an actor one way or another. He's been good in a few things that I've seen. But his acting style in this film is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Welling's in Lucifer, as is Henry Caville's style. Both are unbearably stiff. And they look sort of stoically forlorn throughout the film. Unlike Chris Evans, Helmsworth, and the various leads of the Marvel films, these guys don't do much emoting. I missed Christian Bale, Kevin Conroy's voice work, and Michael Keaton's takes on the character of Batman, along with Chris Reeves, who in my opinion, is the best of the Supermans. No one has come close to his take on the iconic role.
Gal Gadot continues to shine as Wonder Woman, and every scene she's in works. And Cyberman, Victor, surprised me as well, he's equally compelling, as is his relationship with his father, portrayed by Joe Morton. Jeremy Irons makes a great Alfred. Affleck's not bad, exactly, but I found him to be weaker than he should have been, since the movie was centered on Batman and Superman's relationship.
The plot is rather simplistic and the villian, sigh, a bit on the hookey side of the fence. Steppenwolf, Destroyer of Worlds, no one can defeat him, but our five heroes. Yadda Yadda. He has three mother boxes that contain celestial power -- enough to destroy worlds and rebuild them in his image. It's been done to death by now. Marvel is doing a similar story with Infinity War, except I find Infinity War's plot slightly more interesting and Marvel's handling of it far more realistic. Also Marvel's been building up to it over the course of five years, with clues planted here and there. And the story is mostly about bringing a broken team back together again to defeat it.
Here, we Batman and Wonder Woman rounding up strangers to defeat the bad guy and bringing back Superman to defeat him. Because they can't without Superman, which felt a bit silly to me. DC's places far too much value on the Superman character in it's film franchise. This film is a tad more hopeful than the last three and far less grim, in part due to the change in writers and directors half-way through.
Cinematography wise -- it's a beautiful film in places. DC's always been a notch above Marvel on the cinematography and fight sequences. Although Thor : Ragnarock had better fight sequences and I'd say was a touch above this film in plot, cinematography, characterization and writing. There's a reason both Thor and Black Panther beat Justice League's proverbial butt at the box office -- they are better films.
That said, it does do what it is supposed to do. I just wish it picked a more interesting villain, who had more to say besides -- I'm going to destroy the world first and then rule everyone. Alrighty then. The bits that did not focus on the villain were interesting.
Overall? About C+ or B-, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of thing. If not? Skip it.
It was better than I expected. I'd been told that of course by a couple of friends who saw it and are fans of the DC Verse. (Personally, I prefer the Marvel Verse, it's a tad less fascist and more character centric, also Stan Lee's a bit more subversive than his DC co-horts. In fact in many ways Marvel is a commentary on DC.)
Anyhow, that caveat aside, it wasn't a bad movie. And I could tell Joss Whedon wrote the teleplay, the story is Zack Snyder's. And the combination of the two is...a little jarring in places. Whedon is more subversive a writer than Snyder and likes to undercut things with a sardonic and self-deprecating humor. There's a long speech by Aquaman towards the end, right before they go into battle, where he's basically saying "we're all going to die" which is totally Whedon, but not quite something I see Aquaman stating. Momoa pulls it off though.
The two surprises in the film are Aquaman and The Flash -- the casting for both is spot-on, and the actors are compelling. I actually prefer the cinematic version of the Flash to the CW version. The actor is both better looking and more compelling than the television version. Also Aquaman surprised the heck out of me -- Jason Momoa, best known from the Game of Thrones television series, is a charismatic actor and well, I don't tend to go for the muscle bound heroes, but he's hot. You guys can have Henry Cavill's Superman, I want Momoa.
The weak links are Caville and Affleck, or Superman and Batman, which I can't quite decide if it is casting, how the characters are written, or just the tropes are now way overdone and the writing well is dry? There's supposed to be a budding romance and chemistry between Diana and Bruce, but it's not there -- possibly due to Affleck? I don't know. Unlike many, I don't dislike Affleck as an actor, actually I have no issues with him as an actor one way or another. He's been good in a few things that I've seen. But his acting style in this film is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Welling's in Lucifer, as is Henry Caville's style. Both are unbearably stiff. And they look sort of stoically forlorn throughout the film. Unlike Chris Evans, Helmsworth, and the various leads of the Marvel films, these guys don't do much emoting. I missed Christian Bale, Kevin Conroy's voice work, and Michael Keaton's takes on the character of Batman, along with Chris Reeves, who in my opinion, is the best of the Supermans. No one has come close to his take on the iconic role.
Gal Gadot continues to shine as Wonder Woman, and every scene she's in works. And Cyberman, Victor, surprised me as well, he's equally compelling, as is his relationship with his father, portrayed by Joe Morton. Jeremy Irons makes a great Alfred. Affleck's not bad, exactly, but I found him to be weaker than he should have been, since the movie was centered on Batman and Superman's relationship.
The plot is rather simplistic and the villian, sigh, a bit on the hookey side of the fence. Steppenwolf, Destroyer of Worlds, no one can defeat him, but our five heroes. Yadda Yadda. He has three mother boxes that contain celestial power -- enough to destroy worlds and rebuild them in his image. It's been done to death by now. Marvel is doing a similar story with Infinity War, except I find Infinity War's plot slightly more interesting and Marvel's handling of it far more realistic. Also Marvel's been building up to it over the course of five years, with clues planted here and there. And the story is mostly about bringing a broken team back together again to defeat it.
Here, we Batman and Wonder Woman rounding up strangers to defeat the bad guy and bringing back Superman to defeat him. Because they can't without Superman, which felt a bit silly to me. DC's places far too much value on the Superman character in it's film franchise. This film is a tad more hopeful than the last three and far less grim, in part due to the change in writers and directors half-way through.
Cinematography wise -- it's a beautiful film in places. DC's always been a notch above Marvel on the cinematography and fight sequences. Although Thor : Ragnarock had better fight sequences and I'd say was a touch above this film in plot, cinematography, characterization and writing. There's a reason both Thor and Black Panther beat Justice League's proverbial butt at the box office -- they are better films.
That said, it does do what it is supposed to do. I just wish it picked a more interesting villain, who had more to say besides -- I'm going to destroy the world first and then rule everyone. Alrighty then. The bits that did not focus on the villain were interesting.
Overall? About C+ or B-, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of thing. If not? Skip it.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-24 10:49 pm (UTC)I didn't have a lot of your problems -- mainly because I don'f follow or enjoy the television DC series at all. So I wasn't really comparing, and I don't like TV The Flash at all, so that wasn't an issue for me. Tried it a few times. Don't like it. Don't watch. ;-) And have absolutely no attachment to the comicverse take on Auqaman. I didn't like the comicverse's Aquaman. I was expecting to dislike him here. And I'm not a fan of Jason Momoa, sort of ambivalent and not getting the appeal (I don't get turned on by the traditional macho muscle guy, they tend to turn me off). So, I went into the movie expecting to dislike him -- and was really surprised. He was interesting. I expected boring muscle guy.
No, Wonder Woman was always supposed be part of Justice League -- ever since Batman vs. Superman where she basically stole the movie. They were trying to figure out how much of a focus to make her -- and were waiting to see how well her film did before doing it. They realized more of one than Batman and Superman, who at this point have been overdone. (Note 98% of films are re-shot or have lots of scenes re-shot after the initial shooting and editing. All the Money in the World -- excised all of Kevin Spacey's footage and reshot it with Christopher Plummer. And Last Jedi, reshot a lot of its scenes, all of them do. It's not specific to this one. Also it's not uncommon for directors and writers to leave or get others to come in. That's what happened on Last Jedi and Solo. The Entertainment Business is a painful one. It's actually a miracle films get made at all.)
What happened was this - Zack Snyder wrote and was directing it, but midway through his son committed suicide, I think it was his son, not his daughter. Anyhow, his family was being torn apart by grief. Snyder chose to leave the film to take care of his family. DC hired Joss Whedon, who at that point had been hired to write Batgirl for them and they were basically giving him a trail run. Whedon also is an established script fixer in Hollywood, he's fixed a lot of action film scripts and gotten no credit for it. Anyhow, he got hired to pitch hit for Snyder who had to take a break because of a horrible tragedy (As an aside, I remember discussing the film with a friend who rec'd it, she said it was actually a good movie, but all the back story got in its way. The critics knew too much and speculated too much about what was going on behind the scenes and looked for flaws as a result, not focusing on the positives. I think you did the same thing. I'd like to strangle the critics and media for how they've treated Snyder, they all deserve to be spanked.)
Unfortunately, Whedon and Snyder's film styles don't always quite mesh. But, I like both styles, and I think Snyder's action scenes are better than Whedon's which get too busy. However, there are places in the film that threw me or were jarring -- comedic bits that sort of went against Snyder's style. And I didn't pick up on the shifts in color...so didn't bother me at all. Nor did I pick up on Cavill's mustache. I admittedly was doing other things during it, eating, fixing dinner, so I kept stopping and starting it. And I saw it on the small screen not the big screen, so a lot of the things that bugged you weren't noticeable.
I think we saw different movies for a lot of the reasons stated above, mainly because we brought different baggage to it, different bits of knowledge, and vastly different expectations. That, and I saw it on a 25 inch screen at home for $4.99 rental.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-25 12:48 pm (UTC)I've loved Jason Momoa since Stargate Atlantis; Ronon was a great character. ♥
As for The Flash, they actually used the TV Flash's theme song for Barry's theme song in the movie! I giggled. It was a nice homage for folks who love the show.