Justice League is (wait for it)... just an average superhero movie

Going into Justice League, the new DC superhero mashup from Zack Snyder (and an uncredited directing effort by Joss Whedon), I had pretty low expectations.  After walking out, I can say that they were mostly met.  Like every other DC cinematic universe film (with the exception of the joyful Wonder Woman), it was marred with shoddy storytelling, not quite fleshed out characters, and tooooo much CGI.  It's a microcosm  of the entire DCCU, which has been trying to play catch up the larger, and more successful, Marvel Universe.  The fact that we're already at a team-up film after only 2 films (plus a prequel of sorts with WW) is all you need to know.  Whilst the Marvel Universe took its time to develop characters and stories before teaming all its heroes up, DC seems to think you won't care that they're essentially introducing three new characters during its first team-up effort.  Save for a couple brief cameos, we have never met or seen The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman.  That's not to say that they weren't entertaining characters, but how can we fully care about any of them if we're just meeting them minutes before a big boss battle.

The story of Justice League essentially boils down to this... Superman is dead, bad guys are coming, and it's up to Batman to get a team strong enough to stop the evil Steppenwolf (no, not that Steppenwolf!) before he can destroy the world.  Each character is given roughly 10 minutes of introduction before they're banding together.  I barely had enough time to register the lackluster plot before we're engulfed in another Zack Snyder slow-motion fisticuffs.

There are some good things about Justice League.  The Flash (played by Ezra Miller) steals the show as the film's comic relief.  It's clear that DC was intended to liven things up, and The Flash reaps the main benefits of this tonal shift.  Jason Momoa actually makes the worst superhero in history, Aquaman, palatable.  He plays him as equal parts lone wolf and rockstar, and it totally works.  Gal Gadot is great, as always, as Wonder Woman.  DC has a real star here in Gadot.  And I feel bad for Ben Afleck because he is actually pretty good as Bruce Wayne/Batman.  I would like to see his now scrapped Batman solo film.  Too bad that it looks like he's leaving the franchise as soon as he can.

The bad does, sadly, outweigh the good.  The main villain, Steppenwolf, is as bad as his CGI.  There is minimal backstory to him, and I could not care less about this character.  I feel like the villain of this film should have been Zod, Doomsday, or even a convoluted Lex Luthor plot.  It's too bad they already wasted them in previous films.  Cyborg's character is about as inhuman as his robotic body.  He's supposed to be the glue that binds all the characters together, but he's not given enough to work with here.  And (spoiler alert) Superman's CGI mustache removal is a major distraction throughout the film.

I'm giving Justice League 1.75 stars out of 4.  It's a big step back for DC after the commercial and critical success of Wonder Woman.  I don't think this is the end for the DCCU, but they're going to have to develop these characters way more before they even think about Justice League 2.

Thor: Ragnarok... a new comedy duo is born!

Abbott and Costello. Gleason and Carney. Pryor and Wilder. Murphy and Hall.  Aykroyd and Belushi... and now Thor and The Hulk???  You read that right.  In the annals of comedy duos, we have seen the birth of the next great duo.  Thor: Ragnarok is the funniest Marvel film ever and Thor and The Hulk should have their own series of films.

Thor is a major part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and yet, his solo films have always felt like also-rans... filler used to advance a larger Avengers storyline.  The first Thor film seemed to exist solely to introduce us to Loki and the Tesseract (which would be the main foils of the first Avengers movie).  The second Thor film (The Dark World) is widely regarded as the worst of the MCU films.  In that film, we barely get a coherent story, and the sole purpose of it was to introduce the MCU to another infinity stone.  That's not to say that they were bad films.  In fact, I quite enjoyed them both.  However, they are the first examples you can point to to the assembly line nature that the MCU has sometimes been labeled with.  It's also not to say that Thor, himself, was a bland character.  He often brings levity to the films that he's in (the diner scene in the original Thor, and the late night test of strength in Age of Ultron).  It's refreshing to see Chris Hemsworth given so much more to work with in this film... the first full-blown comedy in the MCU.

Ragnarok picks up two years after the events of Ultron.  Loki is still up to mischief, and The Hulk has shown up on a mysterious planet where The Master (played hilariously by Jeff Goldblum... doing a great Jeff Goldblum impersonation) has staged gladiatorial style fights for leisure.  Thor ends up on this planet after being banished from Asgard by his long-lost sister Hela, the Goddess of Death (played by the agelss wonder Cate Blanchett).  You see, she was Thor's father's first child, and wants her throne back.  The fact that she's a complete psychopath and has been banished by her father and wiped from Asgardian history comes as a complete surprise to Thor and Loki.

This movie is all smiles from start to finish.

This film works because it strips Thor down (and, gasp, cuts his hair).  He loses his hammer and has to build himself back up from lowly gladiator to god (or Lord, as he's hilariously referred to, in this film) of thunder.  This film really picks up during the Thor/Hulk brouhaha.  From that point on, they are a comedy duo for the ages, delivering zingers that would make a Judd Apatow production jealous.  Thor realizes that he needs The Hulk to help in his quest for revenge.

There's a lot to like in this film.  The comedy is gold.  The acting (especially the supporting cast) is superb.  And the special effects are top notch.  That's not to say that it's a perfect film.  The storyline feels a little disjointed in places.  It's basically a mash-up of two comic book runs (Ragnarok and Planet Hulk).  There are parts in the film, where the comedy feels out of place or forced.  However, I'm not knocking it too much.  It's a genuinely delightful film.  Kudos to director Taika Waititi for pumping life into Marvel's stalest character.  Definitely go see Thor: Ragnarok. 3 out of 4 stars.

Stay through the credits for the standard MCU advancing scenes.