Decent superhero romp... DC has learnt some lessons.

Rating: 6/10 (18 November 2017)

Playing catch-up in the comic-book cinematic universe race (Disney's Avengers and 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchises still way ahead), Warner Brothers' assembly of their most prized DC characters has had an arduous road to release. Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad were critical disasters, Ben Affleck has quickly reneged on his long-term involvement as this universe's Batman, and director Zack Snyder departed before principal production finished due to unfortunate personal circumstances. All that aside, Snyder—with the help of Joss Whedon who was brought in to complete production—has carved out a blockbuster that has seemingly learnt from some of the mistakes that bogged down BvS. First, the tone has been lightened, most directly through the introduction of quip-happy team members Flash (Ezra Miller) and Aquaman (Jason Mamoa); the former's social awkwardness and the latter's carefree swagger adding a nice counterbalance to the core trio's sincerity. With his super-speed depicted on screen via awesome slow-mo, Flash is also gifted the best action sequences. The standout set piece, a Superman-Flash confrontation, is an exhilarating skirmish that ranks among the best of the year. Unfortunately, the Chernobyl-set climax is the epitome of what plagues these DC movies: overwrought green-screen battles that are messily edited, sloppily shot and virtually indecipherable from a visual standpoint. Why they keep persisting with such a gloomy aesthetic and murkily choreographed action is anyone's guess. The villain is a tad bland too, the end-of-world obsessed Steppenwolf (played in motion capture by Ciarin Hinds) offering very little outside of the usual bad guy tropes. On the flip side, Henry Cavill's Superman is the coolest he's ever been, Gal Gadot is still charmingly kick-ass as Wonder Woman and Ben Affleck broods the hell out of his aging, grizzled Batman. More time and effort has clearly been put into crafting a more cohesive, interesting story too; the surprisingly short runtime (enforced by Warner Brothers) driving the creative team to strip back superfluous narrative elements and focus on the character relationships that propel the main plot along. Somehow, despite the odds stacking up against it and its many flaws, Justice League delivers a decent superhero romp. There's just enough humour and charisma to give the longevity of the DC cinematic universe a glimmer of hope.