A review with brevity (if not wit)
I put this one off because I know I would hate it. I should have waited later (like late night Netflix streaming many years from now later).
Justice League is a terrible movie full of (poorly executed) sound and fury signifying less than nothing (nothing can at least, at times, be peaceful).
Rita Kempley at the Washington Post set the bar for a poorly reviewed movie when she said in her review of the movie “Battlefield Earth” in 2000 that:
“A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as “Battlefield Earth.”
Now, I am not saying Justice League is as bad as Battlefield Earth (it is close) but as bad as it was (and it was awful) at least Battlefield Earth had ambition.
Don’t take this is as “DC Hating because I love DC Comics (I even did recaps of the CW Flash television show for one season). I wish it had been good.
But, it sadly is not, this movie is just a litany of every kind of bad:
Bad directing decisions,
Bad basic story
Bad Villain
Bad writing (and that is coming from a mediocre writer…bad recognizes bad).
I guess what I am saying is that a million monkeys with a million crayons could probably, in a million years, create something as cretinous as Justice League…but they wouldn’t be very happy about it (and that most likely, much poo would be thrown)
Breaking Down the Awful
The heroes I was waiting for may indeed have arrived, but I wish I had waited a bit longer to go see them (or had enjoyed a ton more eggnog first).
So what made Justice League so bad?
1. Story (in name only)
Here is you basic plot primer:
Many hundreds of years ago, a tall and powerfully grumpy CGI character named Steppenwolf found and connected three “mother boxes” which gave him the power to create an army of CGI flying undead (who all look suspiciously like Zombie versions of The Tick’s sidekick “Arthur”) and to conquer the earth.
Supposedly, back in the day, a bunch of humans, Atlanteans, and Amazons joined together all those many years ago to defeat Steppenwolf and exile him (by separating the boxes from each other).
After they exiled Steppenwolf, they moved the boxes to two guarded locations.
Somehow, despite this genius plan, Steppenwolf was reading the newspaper in the sixth circle of Hell (or wherever he was exiled) heard Superman was dead and decides to come back to reunite the three Mother Boxes. Of course he can just blow through all the defenses which makes you wonder how the humans won the first time (Superman had nothing to do with the first time he was defeated).
Anyway, Batman fights one of the flying “Arthur” zombies in Gotham, and immediately realizes it is a harbinger and gets in touch with Wonder Woman to put (a) the Justice League together.
I won’t go into much more detail (God knows I could, and I wish I couldn’t)
I will just say this, why do any of us care about ANY of this?
You had a whole universe of DC comics with stories people have spent DECADES caring about and you chose Steppenwolf?
And yes, in the comics there was indeed a character named Steppenwolf who killed Superman, Wonder Woman, and lost to Batman (who sacrificed himself) in the Earth 2 timeline, but this movie made NONE of those choices(and didn’t even set things up remotely the same way — they also did none of the character development on Steppenwolf that could have made him an interesting villain).
2. Basil Exposition
The dialog on Justice League is so bad that George Lucas, had he helped with the script, would have been too embarrassed and ashamed to ask for a writing credit.
Every scene is spent explaining its own existence.
Every second of dialog is either someone saying something forced and non-organic OR someone saying something designed to fill in one of the millions of holes in the plot.
Instead of letting the action reveal the reasoning or even dealing with exposition in narration or flashback, Justice League chooses to explain everything through dialog (and I mean everything).
For example, Cyborg has to have multiple discussions with his Dad (who did experiments on him to save his life) about all of the experiments his Dad did on him to save his life (sadly, that is only one of 1000 examples).
It is hard to settle in and just enjoy the movie because they just keep telling you more and more and more nonsense (that no viewer could possibly care about).
Justice League has too many characters, has too many back stories to tell, is filled with too many bad ideas, and spends way too much trying to write itself out of the corners it creates for itself.
Basically, nobody on the writing team seems to believe in the old standard rule, “Show don’t tell.”
3. Zack Snyder is STILL a terrible director
Yes, Wonder Woman was a really great movie.
But, Wonder Woman was directed by Patty Jenkins and written by Allan Heinberg (an aside, we were in Select Choir together in High School, true story).
Justice League, conversely, was directed by Zack Snyder from a script written by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon (Whedon was added late and I am still trying to discern what his impact was).
If they wanted to save this bomb, they should have stuck with the winning team behind Wonder Woman (Heinberg also wrote the Wonder Woman comic for some time, clearly had a better feel for the DC universe).
The colors of the movie are all washed out, the cinematography makes almost everyone look awful (how is it even possible to make Amy Adams and Diane Lane look bad?), and the CGI is terrible (each and every zombie “Arthur” looks like every other zombie “Arthur”).
Humanity is only represented at the very beginning of the movie (in a Wonder Woman scene), in a fishing village (where Aquaman likes to occasionally deliver fresh fish), and by a family in some small Soviet town where Steppenwolf decides to start his new revolution.
That’s it.
For a movie that wants to “save the world” we don’t really have much of humanity to connect to or relate with.
And what the hell is it with Zack Snyder and “bullet-time?”
Holy hell, there is not one action scene in the entire movie that isn’t slowed down into bullet-time. Nobody in the history of directing has been so addicted to one trick (It would be like all Spike Lee movies being filmed in nothing but dolly shots). I liked the Matrix too but learn a few more CGI tricks (please).
4. Superman, Batman, Aquaman
I will admit, I thoroughly enjoyed Ezra Miller as the Flash (one of the only bright points of Justice League) and I mostly was okay with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and Ray Fisher as Cyborg.
Henry Cavill gets worse with his every appearance as Superman (no charisma and a totally one note performance).
Having him not wear his shirt for long stretches probably helps with certain demographics but he is still about as charismatic in the role as were the flying “Arthur” zombies.
Many people have suggested that Ben Affleck was mailing this one in, and that is probably a fair criticism (like him or hate him, Ben is a decent director and actor and he had to have smelled how bad this movie was from the start).
Affleck’s aging Batman ends up being boring and superfluous. It also makes NO sense that in Dawn of Justice he was saying stopping Superman was a moral necessity and now he is saying that saving Superman is a moral necessity.
Aquaman was God-Awful. I don’t blame this on Jason Momoa who looked the part and seemed game but the writing team decided to write Aquaman as a “Bro” (Momoa’s Aquaman is essentially played as if he were a younger Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious of XXX (but with a phallic spear instead of a car). So bad, in this one instance, almost so bad it could be good (assuming the right amount of spirits were involved).
Thinking Out Loud
Look, I don’t really have any more quips or facts. I can’t even believe I have written as much about this movie as I have to this point.
I suspect that even if you like action for action’s sake this movie might wear you down (the action isn’t very good and the CGI is particularly unimaginative).
Diane Lane, Amy Adams, JK Simmons, and Jeremy Irons are all entirely wasted (and why did they give JK Simmons a terrible CGI hairpiece?).
I would stay far away from Justice League (until some night far in the future when you have had a few too many drinks and are feeling like watching something silly).
Josh is a blogger and freelance writer who writes about television, movies, music, politics, race, ethics, and whatever else seems interesting at the time.
Conclusion: Biohazard: Keep As Far Away As Possible
