Justice League Spoilers Review Part 1: What Took Me So Long?

So I’ve wanted to write this review for a while. Usually I can knock out a spoiler review pretty quickly, especially if there are spoilers that are worth talking about. If you’ve seen infinity War, you know that there is A LOT to talk about when it comes to that movie. It is pretty telling that Justice League came out last November and I’m just talking about spoilers now. I’ve tried to write this review multiple times and the result has been difficult. There’s stuff to talk about but I’ve had a difficult time harnessing my comments into something constructive. I don’t like talking about stuff just for the sake of saying, “that was cool”, or “that was dumb” . While I have done that and will do it again, I usually bring up spoilers for a purpose. I usually talk about the specifics of a movie, especially a movie in a franchise, because I figure it will lead to something larger in the future.

Unfortunately, for two reasons this has been difficult with the DC cinematic universe. The first reason is, there really wasn’t a whole lot of promise for an intriguing future that came out of Justice League. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there, I know there is a lot to talk about when it comes to future movies with the DC cinematic universe. But Justice League didn’t allude to any of that in a way that warranted an interesting review. I’ll hopefully get into that a little bit more when I start talking about specifics, but before I do, I want to talk about the second reason, because I think this was the main reason why it took me so long to get to this review.

The second reason is that Justice League didn’t fill me or a lot of people with hope that there was going to be a future with the DC cinematic universe. Because we live in a world of accelerated supply and demand, there are somethings set in motion over at DC that can’t be undone like the late staged production of Aquaman set to come out later this year, or the immense popularity of Wonder Woman, almost guaranteeing a sequel in 2019. Everything else, after Justice League just became a big question mark. So even if there were big plot elements that were going to play into future DC movies, was that even worth talking about if those ideas and concepts would never be realized in future films?

And to be honest, I still don’t know if talking about these plot points from Justice League are worth it because the future is still so unclear for DC. The only confirmed films right now are Aquaman, directed by James Wan and set to be released in December of this year and Wonder Woman 2, directed again by Patty Jenkins and set to come out late 2019. Apparently there is supposed to be a Shazam movie coming out in early 2019, but I will believe that when I see a trailer. 

But even if that movie is coming out, it’s still unclear on if, and to what extent it is related to the previous movies we’ve seen in the DC cinematic universe. Every other movie that has been talked about are at a point where I am skeptical on whether or not the movie will happen, and even if it does, I’m not convinced that they will be connected to the universe that we’re 5 movies into. Movies like, Gotham City Sirens, Suicide Squad 2, Man of Steel 2, the Matt Reeves Batman movies, any of the Harley Quinn spinoff movies, a Bat girl movie,  and even movies like Flashpoint that a year ago I was sure was going to happen are all big question marks. And then you have movies likes the Joker origin movie (with Joaquin Phoenix now?) that I’m still skeptical about, but if it does happen, it will exist in its own universe apart from the core franchise that has been set up already.

So yeah… that’s why it has taken me so long to talk about Justice League…

But if there was absolutely nothing to talk about, this review/rant would have ended right there. There are some pretty significant things that happened in Justice League and for the moment, I’m going to go off the assumption that they are going to continue this franchise with the same characters and where it could go based off of what we learned in Justice League.     

 Looking back on my review of justice League back in November, I feel like I gave Steppenwolf too much credit that he didn’t deserve. It’s not fair to compare Steppenwolf and Thanos because they really are two different types of villains. Steppenwolf was, or at least was originally intended to be, a harbinger for DC’s eventual Thanos in Darkseid. In reality, it’s more fair to compare Steppenwolf to Loki or Ultron, and even if you could compare him to Thanos, its still not fair because Justice League came out before Infinity War. However, the plots of Justice League and Infinity War are actually not that different so it is worth taking a look at. In both films, the villain is on a quest to gather a bunch of McGuffins. In the case of Thanos he’s collecting the Infinity Stones; in the case of Steppenwolf he’s collecting the mother boxes. Both with the goal of using those McGuffins to carry out destruction of innocent people. I don’t want to get into spoilers of Infinity War but you don’t have to have seen the movie to know that thanos is just a lot more interesting of a character and carries out that quest a lot better than Steppenwolf.

With Steppenwolf, there was nothing personal we were supposed to identify with him. He was just the obstacle for the heroes. He was just evil. If you think it’s fairer to compare him to Loki, we at least knew Loki’s motivation and while the audience thought it was evil, they could understand why he’s doing it.

It’s also worth mentioning that throughout the entire movie of Justice League, we never really get a good sense of what the motherboxes are. In Infinity War we get a sense of their power and they’re not just McGuffins, they’re complex and pose a real threat. If Steppenwolf had actually used a mother box in a creative way like destroying a city or using it against the Justice League, I would have had a better understanding of why Steppenwolf needed to be stopped. The only real exposure we get to the power of the mother boxes come in 3 places. The resurrection of Cyborg, which we didn’t even see in Justice League, we saw it in Batman v Superman, the way it changed the environment near the end when Steppenwolf gathered them together and started to form his own world, and finally in the resurrection of Superman. Beyond those three moments, these McGuffins were boring and were just a boring fetch quest for Steppenwolf.

And speaking of Superman, his resurrection in this movie may be the third and most important reason I just became tired and apathetic to writing this review as well as to the entire DC cinematic universe in general. Superman is my favorite character. I really like Henry Cavill as Superman, I think he’s a good actor and great for the role. I have gotten physically angry about the way they killed him off in Batman v Superman in his second outing. But the way they resurrected him wasn’t just bad, I just didn’t care.

If Marvel learned anything from their fans on how they govern their cinematic universe, it is that fans get really frustrated when the death of a character doesn’t mean something. The death of Superman in Batman v Superman felt like it was going to mean something. His resurrection didn’t follow through with that promise.

When Superman died, I was pissed. I’ve talked about this at length. But then the speculation came. What would the death and (obvious) resurrection of Superman mean? Would he come back evil? How much would he be in the film? What role would he eventually take in the Justice League?

The answer to those questions were: It really didn’t mean much at all as if his sacrifice was pointless, he would come back evil for like a minute then immediately turn good almost too good, he would only be in the second half of the film, and we don’t really know what role he’ll take in the Justice League.

And the weird thing is that I think there was a version of this script where Steppenwolf was the bad guy, but the main conflict in the movie was bringing Superman back to life and dealing with the consequences of that. The first half of the movie we got focuses on bringing together a group of people in order to stop Steppenwolf. If that’s your goal, bringing back Superman feels like an extra step that maybe you don’t include or you include it as a cliff hanger at the end. I could see a good version of this movie that centered only on the formation of the Justice League and the question of who should lead it, Batman or Wonder Woman, with the same atmosphere that we got in the first Avengers film. The first Avengers movie worked because the team wasn’t united until the very end with the final showdown in New York. That could have been the direction Justice League went and you don’t really need Superman in there. You already shoehorned in his death, why shoehorn in his resurrection?

But there’s another version of this movie that I feel could have been good too. It’s the movie where Steppenwolf takes a backseat or isn’t in the movie at all and the team comes together to bring Superman back to life, only to be at odds with him when he returns evil. This also sounds interesting. You could potentially create an Injustice route with this version, you could delve into the ultimate power of Superman and make him a really great villain if you go the Injustice route, or you create a more reflective Superman who is committed to doing good from here on out, earning the Superman we got at the end of the original movie, instead of a random change in character like we got.

Instead we got a weird mixture of both in a movie that should have been longer but was limited to a very short two hour limit. Instead of leaving us with questions to make the fans excited about what’s on the horizon, instead of taking risks, we get a bright and sunny ending that felt like the end of the franchise instead of just the beginning.

I don’t care if you bring in Deathstroke, I don’t care if you show me an actually bald Lex Luthor who suddenly isn’t crazy anymore for some reason, nothing about this movie felt like it was building up to anything impactful. It’s hard to go from the Justice League facing off with Cosmic beings to Jesse Eisenberg and his limited criminal enterprise that will be a sad excuse for the Legion of Doom.

The last Justice League specific thing is that it didn’t do any favors to characters who have been around for the longest. Superman, Batman, Lex Luthor, even Wonder Woman to a certain extent, they either didn’t grow or change in any productive way, and if they did, their shift in character didn’t make any sense. Ben Affleck’s Batman didn’t seem to be changed at all by the experience of fighting a cosmic being, he didn’t learn anything. Even Wonder Woman didn’t have a concrete arc in this movie. This movie maybe established her as the leader of the league, but I don’t think it took the risk and actually took that step at all. And both Superman and Lex Luthor changed in a certain way, but instead of making a change that makes sense, they become cartoony. Superman turned into smiley campy Superman with one liners, and Lex Luthor became your more competent but cartoon-y like supervillain without any explanation as to how they made it there. But the worst example of this is Lois Lane.

First of all, Lois Lane didn’t need to be in this movie. The only reason I bring her up is because this franchise took a character that was actually pretty well done in Man of Steel. She was independent, bright, and wanted to do the right thing. She was a badass who contributed. In BvS, she still had those traits but wasn’t utilized in a correct way to contribute anything to plot. And this movie took it to the next level where not only was she useless to the plot, they added a conflict that was only resolved when she found her man. Her whole arc of losing her confidence and drive as a reporter is not only inconsistent with her character in the comics, it’s inconsistent with the strong character that was done really well in Man of Steel and it actually kind of makes me angry because Amy Adams doesn’t phone in that character. She’s a great actress and she deserves better than the poorly written character they’ve given her.

The only other thing I can point out that happened in this movie that was kind of cool was the cameos in the flashback battle scene. We see the Greek Gods fighting against Steppenwolf which was pretty cool. I don’t know if that will relate to Shazam at all or if it was just Zeus doing cool things with lightning bolts. Also we see the Green Lantern Corp. They were in the movie, they exist in this universe…

And unfortunately, that’s it for Justice League specific spoilers. All the other thoughts, though they might be related to what happens in the movie, are more focused on the future of the franchise and what could happen. A lot of this is going to be speculation and I don’t really like that. I don’t like making predictions that aren’t based on anything. The truth is, while Ezra Miller does some cool things in this movie, I have no idea what Flashpoint is going to be like. Sure I saw a heated conversation between Aquaman and Mera, but that conversation didn’t really give me any indication of what Aquaman is going to be like this December.

And part of this is a good thing. This movie served more as an introduction for these characters and got me excited to see more of them, even though I have no idea what more with these characters is going to entail.

But the overall spoiler thoughts on Justice League is that the same way Batman v Superman introduced conflict and cliffhangers into the DC cinematic universe in a clunky and awkward way, Justice League concisely concluded those conflicts in the laziest ways possible. And the result is a totally revamped DC cinematic universe that has a new tone that doesn’t line up with anything that we’ve been introduced to before.

While I like the mid credit scene where Superman and the Flash race, it felt out of place and definitely had the Joss Whedon finger prints all over it.

And to close out this first part, I want to talk about Joss Whedon.

For those who don’t know, there is a little bit of drama that came out of Joss Whedon’s involvement with Justice League. Originally, Zach Synder was on track to do a two part movie with Justice League. This plan was set up well before the release and unfortunate panning of Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad in 2016. Eventually the movie was cut down to one movie and there are rumors that Synder was fired well before the actual time he bowed out of the project due to family tragedy.

Regardless of whether it was family tragedy or being fired, Warner Brothers, needing to salvage their project in time for their scheduled release date decide to hire a guy who has done this before, twice, to save their team up movie, Joss Whedon.

Now before I saw the movie, I considered this a weird idea, but it thought it could be a good plan. I mean the logic is sound. If he did it for Marvel, he could do it again right?

The end result proved that that was a horrendous idea and we should have seen it coming. If you lose a director, fired or not, and you have 90% of the film done, you probably want someone who is not only a stronger director, but also someone who is going to make that transition flawless and make it feel as though there was never a change. You would think they would choose someone close to the style of Snyder.

Instead they choose a director who, I think, exemplifies the exact opposite tone and feeling, Joss Whedon.

But the rationale for this choice is obvious. Warner Brothers wanted to retreat to something that they thought has been successful in the past and will automatically be successful again. They wanted to make an Avengers film.

So I understand beef people have with DC for not “releasing the Synder cut”. There’s clearly an audience for DC movies and while a lot of them are also fans of Marvel movies, they want variety. They want something different. I don’t know if a “Synder Cut” of Justice League exists, but I understand why people want to see it. They didn’t want an Avengers movie, they wanted a Justice League movie, the way it was originally intended to be made. Not with the bathos jokes like Marvel, not with corny one liners from Batman of all people, we wanted Zach Synder’s version of the Justice League…

However…

Not only do I not believe that a Synder cut exists. Even if it does, I think you would get a movie that was not as good as the one we got.

I’ve been trashing this movie a lot and that’s because I’ve had a lot of time to rewatch it, and reexamine it, and while I probably don’t like Justice League as much as my initial reaction, I still believe that Joss Whedon had a lot of work to do on that movie and a Synder cut would not have been good.

This is coming from a guy who likes Zach Synder. I really like Man of Steel. I really like Watchmen, I really like 300. I think he’s a good director, especially with visually beautiful movies. But I don’t think he’s a good choice with the DC cinematic universe. I think when he’s addressing personal stories like Superman’s in Man of Steel, he can do a good job. But when working with the connective tissue of a cinematic universe, I don’t think Snyder is the right choice.

And the worst thing is, since DC decided to blend these polar opposites, not only did we get a mediocre film, we are now put in a situation where it’s difficult to tell where this franchise is going. If Whedon was continuing his involvement in the DC cinematic universe and they announced that he’s taking up the reigns and taking the franchise in a new Whedon-ish direction, that would be one thing (I wouldn’t like it, but I could at least get a beat on the direction they’re heading). But there is no good way to tell now. I don’t know where Superman, who at the end of Justice League is totally different than who he was in Man of Steel, will go. Since Justice League, DC has cleaned house, fired old people, brought in new producers, and are potentially setting themselves up to create a concise direction for the franchise, but I can honestly say, I have no idea what direction that is or if I can predict anything that will happen.

But I’m gonna try dammit.