And Justice League for all...

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2017)

I'm a big fan of the early Justice League (of America) DC comics of the early 60's, usually written by Gardner Fox and penned by Mike Sekowsky so this megabucks all-action SFX fest should have been right up my street. However I hadn't seen the preceding "Batman / Superman" or "Wonder Woman" movies and found I had a lot of exposition to catch up on, but I just about got there by the end.
DC has been trailing Marvel, I think it's fair to say, in the movie stakes of late and even though in comicdom, the JLA predated the Avengers, obviously Marvel's two group blockbusters have stolen a lot of the prevailing thunder, both in terms of critical praise and box office success.
I guess the big problem for DC is the perennial one, to paraphrase "The Sound Of Music", how do you solve a problem like Superman. The Man Of Steel is so all-powerful that you know that any team he's on really can't lose even if the super-villain the rest of the Leaguers are up against can beat them all to a standstill. About that super-villain, a giant cross between Loki and Thor (he even wields a mighty hammer) called Steppenwolf (rumours that he was almost called Iron Butterfly are unfounded), I found him to be rather unconvincing, not to mention unintelligible at times as he blasts and blusters all over the place.
And as for the individual Leaguers, well, of the newcomers, I didn't recognise the Cyborg character (wasn't he a Teen Titan?) and felt he had the least presence of anyone on the team. For me, his place should have been taken by Green Lantern, one of the original comic book characters - frustratingly we see fleetingly a member of the Lantern Corps in one of the massed battles with Steppenwolf and his Viking-like hordes. My favourite DC character of all is The Flash, now starring in his own long-running, very enjoyable TV series but here portrayed as a callow youth, just learning about his powers. He's used for much of the humour in the film but I prefer my Barry Allen to be older and more confident than this. Aquaman, king of Atlantis I almost didn't recognise as a long-haired, bearded, tattooed denizen of the deep who when it comes to the big battle scenes above water makes you wonder why he's there at all. Debate will continue as to whether Batman, a non-super-powered human even deserves his place on the team but Wonder Woman makes a big impression, being the group's second most powerful (behind Supes) and frankly best-looking individual.
Of course there are SFX galore, possibly too much as sensory overload is almost achieved, but the story is relatively easy to understand and those scenes where the five, later six, get to pose heroically for truth, justice if not the American Way, against the skyline, get me every time.
Markers are put down for sequels although I'd prefer the League in the future to fight against their individual, better known rivals, sort of a league of super villains but I hope the film does well enough to get the follow-up go-ahead otherwise its back the comics for me.
Oh and I loved the tag of the old Superman / Flash who's the fastest, after the titles.