A little less than decent

Rating: 3/10 (19 November 2017)

At this point I've set the bar low for DC films. I've raised the bar a bit from Wonder Woman and now this film, but it's still pretty low to the ground. I was hit really hard at just how bad Batman Vs Superman got, and Suicide Squad was only mediocre to compensate. Wonder Woman was better than those, but Justice League was supposed to be "The Big One". Like Avengers but DC. Like how Iron Man was a really good Marvel film, then four "meh" films later we got the one of the best Marvel movies to date. But there was no Iron Man level film for DC. So... what happened here?
I can applaud a few things. I think that the story of the film makes sense at the important parts and is easy enough to follow. It is a bit dumb and shaky at points, but if you pay enough attention you can piece everything together.
I think that it's really cool we've gotten to the point in comic book movies where we can make a Justice League film. We aren't just making a Justice League film with no buildup, we actually have a Justice League film with preceding films and films to come out after the fact.
Additionally, I think it's really cool that we finally have cinematic interpretations of Aquaman, The Flash, AND Cyborg. Not with any real buildup (we could have gone without Suicide Squad, which is currently unused in this cinematic universe, and instead gotten one of those three ahead of time), but at the very least we have them. Two out of those three have good casting as well, Aquaman and Cyborg.
Lastly, this movie can be funny at times. It can sustain a laugh or two for a bit longer than a few scenes. There's one scene where Aquaman is tied to the Lasso of Truth without actually showing he's tied to the Lasso of Truth, and that got a laugh out of me.
Positives are over now. Time to get mad.
The Flash in this movie SUCKS. If watched a few episodes of the mostly okay TV series you'll be shocked at how bad they screw him up. The casting couldn't possibly be worse. Little Grievance over here can't act at all. They abridge (I use that term in the same context as the film uses it; that is to say poorly) his backstory so much it borders on offensive. He doesn't work in S.T.A.R Labs, no, in this version he's got his own little man cave, complete with multiple TV screens and boxes of pizza. One TV even has an episode of Rick and Morty on! He's also VERY unfunny. The jokes he has are cringe-levels of bad. The only time you laugh because of him is because his facial expressions are consistently dumb. Also his running animation is bad. I find it outstanding how bad they made him. He straight up ruins just about every scene he's in simply by existing!
Steppenwolf is a very weak villain. From what I can grasp he just wants to take over Earth because he failed doing it in the past, and he needs three Tesseracts I MEAN... Mother Cubes... to do so. His design would have worked so much better as a version of Ares. It would have redeemed the ending of Wonder Woman for me if they had done so.
Speaking of which, the effects aren't very good. Multiple times throughout the film I had to stop and point out to myself, "oh that isn't really there, they aren't really there, that's a really obvious green screen". I don't want to have to do that. If your effects aren't good, sorry, I'm gonna notice. Bad effects in this movie can sometimes ruin a scene or two... or fifteen.
Ultimately, I didn't like this as much as I hoped. I am glad I saw it, and because of the after-credits scene (which I won't give away), plus a thing they tease around midway through (go see it yourself), I'm hopeful for the future. Wait... isn't hope supposed to be something Superman inspires? Damn you DC! You're smarter than all of us give you credit for!