While I can nitpick it, I had such a fun time with it that I feel disingenuous doing so.

Rating: 9/10 (21 November 2017)

While there are things I could nitpick in this movie, it's really hard to bring myself to do so. The whole movie was a really fun experience and one of my favourite s this year. The banter between the various JL members was much more comedic than you would expect. The amount of times you'll catch the actors just grinning from ear to ear as the movie plays out helps to lighten the tone of the overall piece, which is thematically appropriate when paired up with the precursor of Batman V Superman. However, while the movie was a fun ride, it also knew when to reign it in for more serious moments, and how to weave the two tones together into the same scene to deliver character exposition while still being entertaining.
DC seems to have found their footing with this one from a storytelling perspective, but one thing I never expected to improve genuinely surprised me – the music. While I've not hated the DC film universe's music, it's been far from a standout, which in comparison to other DC music outings, is a damn shame and something I'd pretty much given up on improving. However, the music composed by Danny Elfman blew me away. When it wasn't reminiscent of Batman TAS, it was pulling from Superman TAS, and, on very rare occasion, even the classic John Williams theme (which I would LOVE to see return). The music here is everything I could have hoped for in a DC movie with the one exception being that the Wonder Woman theme seemed to go unchanged. Which is fine really. It's barely in the movie. I just don't like it nearly as much as the other pieces of music in the film and don't think it fits in with the rest that well.
Since I mentioned the Wonder Woman music, I should probably go into the nitpicks that DID on occasion pull me out of the movie. Let's get the big one out of the way right off the bat - the CGI. There is just too much of it in the movie, and has a tendency to make certain shots that are supposed to look deadly serious instead appear comical. Usually this'll happen when Superman is fighting the big bad of the film, Steppenwolf, or in a scene where the aforementioned baddie enters into conflicts with large armies. The big battles here felt like they were trying to evoke something akin to Lord of the Rings, but since the armies in these scenes were filled with nothing but CGI, there was almost no tension there. However, every time the fighting got up close and you could tell it was real people fighting, the tension returned, so it wasn't too big an issue. If I'm sticking with my nitpicks, (and am willing to take the risk of sounding like a DC fan nutter) Flash's personality feels like a weird amalgamation of Barry Allen and Wally West, Aquaman acts more like an adrenaline junkie than Atlantean royalty, and Cyborg just doesn't fit in the Justice League roster when compared to the likes of Martian Manhunter or Green Lantern. It would have also been nice to see this lineup go to 7 rather than 6. However, as that could have bogged down the movie too much I would have been OK if a GL had been here in place of Cyborg and Martian Manhunter was established in his own movie later on. Basically I just don't like Cyborg being a Justice League member. It was a weird choice in the comics back in 2011 and it's weird here too.
Seeing as this is DC's first major team up movie, I feel like comparisons between this and the first Avengers movie are inevitable. To that end, imagine that 20 years from now, no one cares who "got there first". As both movies are a part of their respective cinematic universes, and are even both responsible for setting up the main villains of their whole series, it would make sense then, that both movies be compared based on which one managed the job better. To that end, I'd make the case that Justice League actually did a better job building up Darkseid than Avengers did Thanos. While it's true that JL has the assistance of BvS in this regard, even with this movie in a vacuum we get a sense of Apocalyptic technology, as well as a glimpse into that general world through the use of parademons and the like. The movie even had the sense to drop his name once, and only once, increasing the tension and buildup to his inevitable showing in a later movie, without jamming in our faces that he would be the big bad. By contrast in the first Avengers movie, while it is true that Thanos is technically the reason everything in that movie happened, we don't get any hints to this until that mid credits scene where he suddenly appears. It gets the job done, sure, but did we learn anything about him over the course of the film? Not really. We found out that he was connected to the Chitauri in some way. Those unfamiliar with the character have no reason to feel threatened or intimidated by him personally. I'm not trying to compare the two villains' portrayals as a whole. Rather, I'm just pointing out that DC's Justice League did a better job at setting up it's major villain than Marvel's Avengers did theirs, which is why I think that, down the line Justice League will age better than Avengers. One, while entertaining, leans heavily on nostalgia and memories of its initial release. The other is forced to stand apart from that emotional response, but manages to actually do more at the same time.
At the end of the day, I had a lot of fun with Justice League and am looking forward to adding it to my movie collection when it gets a blu-ray release.