"What are your superpowers again?" "I'm rich."

Justice League (2017)

7.2/10 on IMDb
41% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright;
Low-energy entertainment

Watch it if you: Are a fan of DC;
Want some mindless action with a few laughs;
Aren't expecting a really great, cohesive, character-focused superhero movie

Following the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) must recruit others to form a superhero team to stand against an apocalyptic new threat.

Reviews for this movie have been very meh, so I wasn't rushing out to see this film, but I found it to be entertaining. I had low expectations, given DC's track record lately (except Wonder Woman (2017)), and this movie is skippable, but it was definitely not trash, it was still enjoyable to watch.

First off the bat though, I have to say my very first impression of this film is: CGI. There is SO MUCH CGI in this it becomes distracting. From fight scenes, to backdrops, to costumes, even to characters' faces! It was aesthetically very weird to watch.

Secondly, I didn't realise this but Zack Snyder had to step down from this movie early this year because his daughter suicided, and they hired Joss Whedon to finish it off (although Snyder is listed as the only director for the film). If I heard about this before watching the movie, I would have been concerned that the movie would be really disjointed. After all, I'm not really a fan of Zack Snyder's style, but I am a fan of Joss Whedon's. In the end I didn't even realise there were two directors for this film. I actually thought it was pretty consistent, and if anything funnier and more light hearted than I expected it to be, which is probably props to Joss Whedon.

However, in saying that the film was consistent, the film was still a little bit of a let down. Apparently Warner Bros wanted the film to be no longer than 2 hours, so a lot of Snyder's material was cut and re-edited, and in that sense the movie did feel a bit rushed.

The thing is, when we first saw The Avengers back in 2012, Marvel had already given us movies on a lot of the team, so we didn't need that much character development in the actual Avengers movie. They could instead focus on the arc of the team as a whole, from their conflicts and differing personalities to how they would end up working as a team.

But here, we've only gotten a bit of Batman from Batman v Superman, and Wonder Woman from earlier this year. We got snippet cameos or teasers of the rest of the characters, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg, but for people like me who aren't fans of the original comics or the TV shows, we ultimately don't know these characters at all. So it was really hard to understand and feel for these characters and to even see why they were necessary in this film, since they are pretty lame.

In fact, it felt like Wonder Woman was the only one who really did anything, and even still, she doesn't really do much here. Batman, who is usually any movie's big seller, the one that everyone loves, does even less and is pretty useless in this. I mean, they even throw around a lot of jokes about how his only super is being rich, but you watch this movie and the truth of that statement is very obvious.

I quite liked The Flash. I mean, they made his character really goofy and I don't know enough about the original character to know if they stuck to his original personality, but I'm not sure if they needed him to be so awkward. Although Ezra Miller is great and was actually really funny. There is one great scene where his shocked face, and his eyeballs alone, made me laugh so hard. That scene was absolutely priceless and even in the rest of the film he was generally the comic relief.

Then there was Cyborg who was a bit confusing for me. They explain his character a little bit but I think they could have delved more into his armour and his powers and things like that. We were meant to feel sorry for him but in the end I didn't care about him because there was like no backstory and I didn't really understand what he was going through. It also seemed like he could have been really really powerful, but in the end he just was like... hacking things? And that's it? He was just a hacker? I'm pretty sure he would have done more in the comics, right...?

And goodness me, I thought I was finished with the characters of Justice League but I looked at the poster again and completely forgot: Aquaman is a part of this movie too! Firstly, it is so weird seeing Khal Drogo speak English. It was almost unsettling. It was also pretty funny because Khal Drogo and the Dothraki are terrified of the sea, and the only sea they would go near is the Dothraki Sea, which is actually just a huge region of grassy plains.

Anyway, back to Aquaman: he doesn't do anything! At one point they have to force in a water scene just to make him useful, and even then he does something for like 2 seconds and that's it. Then for the rest of the film he's just like... really strong? I guess?

So basically I was a bit disappointed in the characters. When they band together and fight it doesn't seem like they're all necessary to the story. The fight scenes also seem very chaotic. I don't know why, but the DCEU just can't seem to get it right, from Man of Steel (2013) to Batman v Superman, and even some parts of Wonder Woman's action scenes, they just seem really really weird. They just don't look as aesthetically pleasing as I think the studio thinks they do.

There is one section though that they're talking about the history of the villain, and that was pretty cool. There was even a Green Lantern cameo.

Anyway, that's pretty much all my comments on the films. There's a lot of other things to discuss, but these are the things that stayed in my mind after watching it.

I do have a mini spoiler section though, so just quickly, Click to show/hide spoilers:

So, Superman came back to life. Was that a spoiler? I don't actually remember the trailer so I'm not sure, but I thought that at the end of Batman v Superman, there was a shot of Superman's grave and the soil lifted up or something to hint that he would return (although this wasn't even used in the movie), so maybe it was obvious. Regardless, it's a spoiler for people who watch this without knowing much beforehand.

Anyway, I actually did think he looked really weird, and I didn't actually know what it was (I thought it was just overuse of the CGI), but it turns out apparently Henry Cavill needed to have a moustache for another role when he was filming his reshoots, and so they had to CGI out his moustache which made him look funny. Oh and yeah, I guess since they had reports on this, his return was not a spoiler.

Anyway, Superman's return was really meh. It wasn't as epic as I think they wanted it to be, but him fighting the rest of the team was probably one of the best parts of the movie and even better than them fighting the main villain I think, mainly because once Superman enters, the fight gets really easy.

My favourite scene was when the Flash was trying to get to Superman at lightning speed and Superman slowly turns his eyes and his head and Ezra Miller has the most bewildered look on his face. That's where Ezra Miller's almost-too-comical awkwardness really pays off. Still, no one can beat the Quicksilver scene from Days of Future Past...

Ultimately, this was an enjoyable movie. Is it a must see? Definitely not, but if you watch it, it won't be terrible. It's actually quite forgettable, I saw it a few days ago and I'm already starting to forget a lot of details. But if you're a fan of the comics I guess you'd enjoy it, and if you just want some mindless action and a movie that makes you laugh a bit, then it's a decent watch.