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.
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