Rushed, weirdly paced, mixed bag, tonally inconsistent

Rating: 5/10 (22 November 2017)

So...this movie exists.
So I think comparing this film to The Avengers is apt since they are both ensemble superhero films, and Joss Whedon has writing credits on both of them.
Here's the issue:
The MCU made sure all relevant characters were properly introduced in their own films before putting them together in the Avengers. Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk had their own movies with their own story arcs and character development. Say what you want about the quality of the individual films, but the fact that they pulled it off as good as they did is impressive, to say the least.
Now for the DCEU, we got Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and Wonder Woman. I'm not counting Suicide Squad since that is barely relevant to the rest of them and none of the major characters there are present in Justice League. So the DCEU Batman didn't get his own flick. You can argue that Batman V Superman is a Batman movie, but it doesn't really feel like it. Neither Batman or Superman really fit as the main protagonist. It's all pretty jumbled. Wonder Woman worked, but that was because they didn't have Zach Snyder messing around too much, and it was its own thing for the most part. But we still had the Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman to develop in Justice League, in a relatively small timeframe of 2 hours (compared to the epic 3 hour Batman V Superman)
To be fair to the writers, they did a decent job with the new characters. Flash is funny and likable. Aquaman is also pretty fun, albeit less developed. Cyborg is sort of boring, but he has some room to develop later.
The story though is just...what??? The MCU did a great job introducing the broader conflicts of the Avengers within the smaller movies. In Thor, they introduce a few McGuffins, and they did the same in Captain America 1, so that when you see them in the Avengers, it makes sense.
The Avengers also made Loki, a character we've seen before, the main villain of the story. We know who he is, and what his motivations are before the story begins, so we aren't confused. Meanwhile, who the hell is Steppenwolf? Where did he come from, why is he terraforming the world? (Earth seems to get terraformed a lot in this universe) I haven't read the comics, I don't know who he is. He's doing the same thing as Zod in MoS, and he looks like Ares. It's derivative. The bug-minions are pretty neat, but who cares about them, really?
Also, spoilers, Superman comes back to life. Contrary to my expectations, they sort of retcon the ending of Batman V Superman (where the dirt on Superman's coffin begins to float) by having the Justice League actively resurrecting Superman using the cube things, but once again, that part is rushed. Superman is evil for 5 minutes, but then Lois comes along and calms him down and then he's good again.
Superman is actually fun in this one though and is less mopey. Probably because he was dead for a while and was brought back. Hopefully, they keep that character element in later films.
Yes, I have a lot of issues with this film, but I do think it's a step in the right direction for the franchise. It's more fun compared to the other dark gritty nonsense. We've got set up for new interesting characters, including a sneak peek at the Green Lantern Corps. I want to see a Flash movie and an Aquaman movie. I think both of those characters need a lot more to do. Cyborg, sure why not. I also want to see Shazam, and whatever other silly characters DC wants to do.
The box office returns for this film were lower than expected, apparently. I think DC needs to do a bit of corporate restructuring (aka fire Snyder) and hire some good writers, but after that, fingers crossed, we can start seeing DC movies match up to the same standards (or even higher) as the MCU.