After Superman's death, alien dictator Steppenwolf thinks it is the right time to try to invade a weakened Earth with his parademons, and thus aims to obtain three boxes scattered across the globe: by uniting them, he will terraform Earth into his own planet, destroying previous life. Batman thus goes on a mission to rally as many allies as possible, including Cyborg, Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman, while they also manage to revive Superman. Together, they join forces and stop Steppenwolf and his army from destroying Earth.
The critics were far too harsh towards "Justice League", DC's alternative to Marvel's "The Avengers", since they seemed to have been sucked into the quagmire of negative news and bad rumors regarding its troubled production, yet as time goes by, it is becoming clear that it is a perfectly decent superhero film. Joss Whedon saved the film—he rightfully concluded that another humorless parade of pretentiousness of Zack Snyder's would be simply too much, and thus he added a lot of freshness during re-shoots which gave the movie some humor, energy and charm. Almost all of Whedon's added scenes stick out like a sore thumb, but in a good way: they are like oases in a desert, since without them, the movie would simply be just another boring run-of-the-mill routine. Yet he realized that DC's franchize needed to stop taking superhero movies so seriously. Ezra Miller's character of super-fast Barry / Flash is one of the comedic highlights—his very first intro sequence makes an impression, showing that he is so fast that is able to use a marker to draw a moustache and glasses on a bully's face in a fraction of a second, without the latter even noticing it. Wonder Woman's introduction is also rather cool, as she is seen standing, not without irony, on a statue of Lady Justice just as a crime is underway. Aquaman also has one of the funniest moments in the entire film, a one which is simply comedy gold—during a meeting, he slips that he finds Wonder Woman pretty and suddenly starts mumbling about being afraid and insecure, until Batman points out that Aquaman was accidentally holding Wonder Woman's "lasso of truth" the entire time: delicious.
Unfortunately, they comprise only three out of six superheros in the story: the other three—Batman, Superman, Cyborg—are surprisingly unmemorable and bland. Batman, for instance, doesn't rise to the occasion at all: his super high IQ is never noticeable in these events, and thus he is reduced to someone who just punches the bad guys (as if others couldn't do that as well). They simply don't stand out like Flash, Wonder Woman or Aquaman. Another problem is the inconclusive narrative: going back to the opening bank robbery that is stopped by Wonder Woman—what is the motivation of the criminals? And if they had a bomb that could blow up several blocks anyway, what was the point of breaking into the bank in the first place? They could have simply detonated outside. This wasn't well thought out to the end. A third problem is the main villain: Steppenwolf is disappointingly one-dimensional, without any background or a coherent character development. Even Skeletor from the "Masters of the Universe" film had more charm than him. Worse still, it's just another "conquer the world" story, and a one about terraforming it, which was already done in "Man of Steel". The finale seems to have lost any goals for innovation and just resorted to a typical superhero ending on autopilot. Despite a rushed writing, "Justice League" has its humorous moments that make the viewers smile (such as the scene where insect-humanoids, parademons, start a siege of a house, and a little girl prepares some bug spray for defence), indicating that even in this 'abridged' edition Whedon still had moments of inspiration.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment