Justice League: Right Back At It Again

Rating: 4/10 (20 November 2017)

Justice League. Not DC's Avengers, THE Justice League. The unification of Detective Comics most powerful heroes into one entity to protect planet Earth from threats within and without. The force that many wanted to be a part of growing up, that hit children's TV shows have been made of and that comics have been running for years with iconic and best selling story lines. Like Batman V Superman, this should be one of the biggest films of the year. It should easily blow out the competition in the Comic Book Film market and should be going for the Number 2 spot in the Highest Grossing 2017 movie list.
But like Batman V Superman, it's going to be a rough time.
Critically "eh"'d at by both fans and naysayers with many giving it a "Not as bad as Batman V Superman", they've really set the bar low on how good their films can be. And after having watched the film about 2 days ago, upon writing, I can say that those that have gone "eh" are right.
This film is not a masterpiece. It is not the film that echoes the Justice League Unlimited of the past and it is not the film that even comes close to Wonder Woman. This film is boring, badly paced with bad jokes with badly performed punchlines. It's a visual sensation, but that was never a problem, the problem was the sheer amount of visuals to wrap your head around. It has the depth of a paddling pool and if you think about it for too long you might get a headache because this once again does not make sense.
The story is a copy and paste from The Avengers, which got boring with Age of Ultron, Suicide Squad and other various Superhero films that all end in the team having a big CGI fight with the villain where they have to stop them from destroying the entire world so they, or someone they work for, can rule it for all of eternity. Collect X item at Y location for Z outcome before A Team come and stop B Villain.
DC has just a wide range of villains that it can pick from, why they went for someone as obscure and underdeveloped as Steppenwolf astounds me. Take away the fact that he does nothing in the entire movie, I hadn't even heard of him in the comics before and even though I haven't read Issue #6 of Detective Comics, I know enough about the characters and their respective villains to know EGGHEAD. But add in the movie spice that takes a layer away, and you're left with Malekth but with even less substance, because at least Maleketh was actually doing everything because Asgard killed his ENTIRE RACE. Steppenwolf is doing it "For The Unity" and "For Darkseid".
So the plot and the villain are terrible and the writing with jokes is on and off with most of them not landing and only some situations where they attempt to make jokes actually working. What are we left with? Character interaction!
Batman - The complete opposite to BvS because people hated it and they didn't have the guts to show him actually change from wanting to end crime through the permanent means of death to going through the system and trusting that one day humanity will actually sort itself out.
Wonder Woman - See Wonder Woman the movie now out on Blu-Ray, it's pretty good and people thought that so go see it before seeing this mess.
The Flash - Watch the TV Show for the actual Barry Allen and pretend this is Wally West instead.
Aquaman - See Aquaman 2018, sorry we didn't get the film out in time but it'll be good we promise.
Cyborg - He's here too!
Superman - Sorry we killed him in the previous film in the most disrespectful way we possibly could, here, we'll get him to almost kill the entire Justice League and make you think that we'll go down a route that makes this entire universe the universe that it seems like it is but then pull one over and have him be a Superman you can actually like without us having to make an entire movie to build him back up and make him like an actual character or give him any characteristics from the comics and have him smile more YAY WE DID IT!
There are some good things to the film though. The Superman fight, while boring, did have the shining moment of Superman's speed compared to the Flash which made me laugh and the use of Superman's Frost Breath actually gave me an erection because HIS FROST BREATH IS NOT USED ENOUGH GOD DAMN.
Apart from all of the things that I just said and the ones I've left unspoken, including the way they handle Superman's resurrection and how it's the literal worst way they could've done it, this film doesn't leave you with a bad taste in your mouth from the amount of excrement you just ate while watching it.
It ends on the note of, we're trying guys, we just don't want to copy Marvel too much and have these films be their own thing away from the corporate machine, before giving up two post credits scenes that make you realise that they're lying and that once Flashpoint happens we are getting a full Marvel DC film.
At the end of the day, once you've seen the film and you're walking out the cinema trying to wonder what is going on with Deathstroke's beard and why Arrow has a better Deathstroke and how that is even possible.
Justice League isn't as bad as Batman V Superman.
And that's all we can hope for in this Age of Heroes.