Fun movie plagued by poor special effects and a predictable story

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2017)

A non-spoilery review of Justice League. Keep in mind I really liked MoS, LOVED BvS, and thought WW was amazing. Suicide Squad was a mistake and so does not exist.
Overall: 7/10: Fun movie that you should see, but probably not in the theater.

Hero characters: 9/10: Liked them all and am interested to see their standalone movies, except for the Flash since I feel like I already know that story too well. Aquaman's casting pretty much won me over. Looking forward to seeing them all developed further.

Villain(s): 5/10: Kind of boring bad guy. Felt like they just need someone to bring the League together. Lack of explanation about the New Gods and Apocalypse (almost certainly on purpose) might be frustrating to some, though.

Story: 6/10: Served its purpose, but I was never really surprised by much. Like in WW, humor was mostly character-driven rather than joke-driven. Not the oppressive tone in BvS or MoS. Movie was thus more "fun" but it lost some of the mood of impending doom. However, it was far from the stakes-destroying, joke-a-minute fest that most Marvel movies are.

(Non-action) Cinematography 8/10: It really shined in the quieter moments, especially at the beginning where it was actually a bit chilling. Once the team got together, though, it it wasn't very interesting.

Action: 6/10: They all had a great moment or two (especially one Batman scene and another scene I won't spoil). However, it was inferior to BvS (prior to the final BvS fight, anyway). Cinematography could have been better since much felt kind of by- the-numbers towards the end. Enjoyable, but also hard to take seriously because of...

Special effects: 3/10: The special effects were often simply bad. After the great effects of BvS, MoS, and WW, these effects were actually a major downgrade. In fact, I was constantly pulled out of the action by extremely obvious CGI. Do not expect Star Wars or GotG level special effects (and even GotG had some issues with green screens being obvious). The CGI'd villain looked video game quality. Obvious CGI faces, landscapes, backgrounds, and even occasionally heroes. The Flash's lightning effects looked not much better than the TV show. I often felt like I was watching a good-looking animated movie, not a live-action movie. I did not feel like this so much with the other DC movies. It relied far too heavily on CGI landscapes in particular. I get that much of BvS (such as the main fight on the rooftop) used CGI backgrounds, but they didn't look like CGI backgrounds, and I wouldn't have guessed it except for seeing behind the scenes footage. Can't say that for Justice League. Somehow Wonder Woman often looked fake during her fights (though she was great otherwise). Warner Brothers should be embarrassed. Acceptable for maybe 2010, but not for a AAA movie in 2017 when they're competing against Marvel and Star Wars. Sometimes the effects were very good, but this almost made it worse when they became super obvious and undetailed.
See it in theater?
I don't regret seeing it in theater because I wouldn't have wanted to wait until DVD, and other than the special effects, I got pretty much what I expected, but sadly not what I hoped. It was a fun movie and a nice way to spend a couple hours.
I recommend NOT seeing it in theater, though, because the special effects will look less jarring on a small screen. And unless you absolutely don't see the major "twist" coming for some reason, you're unlikely to face real spoilers.