Reviews Film / Justice League 2017

A complete and total trainwreck

Full disclosure - yes, I am looking at this movie through the lens of hindsight and the Snyder Cut, so this will be heavily biased and negative, but I need to get my feelings out.

There’s no mincing words - Josstice is a trainwreck, albeit a fascinating one for its backstory and how it compares against the Snyder Cut in a "what went wrong vs what went right" kind of way. I was mostly on the fence about the "Release the Snyder Cut' movement, but I'm happy it succeeded and even happier that the end result of that was a much better and more memorable movie.

There are some positives in this version – the actors at least seem like they're trying to make this salvageable, there are some decent lines and moments, and I'll even admit that the opening scene of Superman talking with the kids was an interesting idea in theory, even if it wasn't executed well.

As for the negatives, well, let's just say Mustache-gate was the least of this movie's problems. The tone is all over the place. The visuals are underwhelming. The "Everybody Knows' sequence is nauseatingly overwrought as fuck. The attempts at "Marvel style humor" are jarring, coming at the expense of making the characters hold the Conflict Ball for the sake of Avengers-style bantering. The score is forgettable (no, Danny Elfman, your theme is not the only valid theme for Batman). The story is weak and underwhelming; between the rushed pacing and forced humor, any weight that existed in similar parts of ZSJL were just sapped away in this cut.

The characters suffer the worst. Bruce is an asshole who yells at and belittles his team for not being Superman. Arthur gets turned into a macho loner whose most emotional moment was when he comes onto Wonder Woman after sitting on the Lasso. Barry is turned into a scared bumbling little boy who face plants into Wonder Woman's boobs and it's embarrassing that his part in saving the whole world got cut out and traded out for him saving that useless Russian family with a stupid joke. Clark is turned into a cocky clown and second-rate replica of Christopher Reeve. What Whedon did to Victor, the heart of ZSJL, the one whose arc is the entire movie, is just criminal. Diana is reduced into a sex object with gratuitous butt shots. And Steppenwolf... like, why am I even supposed to fear Josstice Steppenwolf? He's a lame joke of a villain with a horrid design and generic motivations. And to say nothing of cutting out Darkseid beyond an easy-to-miss namedrop, whose presence gave a great deal more weight and context to the story overall.

Really, this isn't a movie. It's a product. A toy commercial. It's like that Parks and Rec episode "The Camel", except this camel isn't even fun. It's just depressing. If there is one good thing Josstice leaves, it's the lesson that trying to apply the "Marvel formula" onto a different movie (especially a DC movie) is just not a good move.

I think I'm gonna go rewatch the Snyder Cut to wash this out.