You know you can expect better, right?

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2017)

I should have just titled this 'does it matter, people will defend it anyway'. I only wrote this review because of how much bias (and I'm not talking negative criticism here) there is for this movie. Also, to just preface, I love DC. I prefer it to Marvel, if that shuts up the fanboys. I just wanted a good movie, something I can watch again, something that actually has some devotion to the source material.... and it fails so hard.
Coming off of the average, slightly underwhelming, Wonder Woman, I expected a potentially good movie with Justice League. It had a bunch of my favourite characters (even Cyborg, who I always loved) and even thrown into the typical DCEU flair, it would be hard to mess up. Sadly, this just sits in the fire that is this franchise.
The characters themselves are fleshed out to some degree and have what may resemble arcs, but there is little room for growth. They are fun to be sure, but the moments of character growth and interaction are so forced and obvious that they feel like points on a road map, rather than a genuine and fluid change. This may be due to the 50 minutes or so of cuts taken from the movie, but it does effect the experience as a whole. The casting was well done this time however, with the likes of Aquaman, the Flash and Cyborg acting and portrayed as they should be. Outside of the CGI (which I will touch on), the costume design was something that added to the film.
Unfortunately, all of this feels pointless in comparison to the villain. There was nothing to note of him, to the point where he literally has no character, just a back story and some (very) flimsy motivation. Again, this may be due to the cuts, but the development of his character is nowhere to be found. Because of this it makes the character development of the actual Justice League limited, as the threat feels so extraterrestrial to the main story. The entire plot is hampered with this issue and the pacing lags massively as a result, with random exposition thrown in that just seems out of place. It's difficult to care about anything if you do not feel any sense of drama or emotional context from the movie, which this completely fails to deliver. This is tied up with how poorly the movie ends, with an obvious Deus Ex Machina that renders the whole of the movie before it moot.
The CGI and effects were a joke. Straight up joke. Considering other films (Iron Man in 2008 for instance) managed to outshine the CGI in this, just shows how shoddy and rushed of a job the movie is. The main villain is completely CGI (I think) and it shows, which when compared to the Heroes of the movie, it stands out in the worst way possible. This was mirrored in the handful of action scenes we actually got, with loads of slow motion drivel and poorly executed choreography that doesn't take enough advantage of the JL composition and their varying powers. It's predictable and boring.
The reality is, Justice League was average. Bang average. It does multiple things, some poorly and some alright, balancing the entire thing to mediocrity. This may be corrected if/when a directors cut of the full movie is released, but I'm not holding my breath. Sadly, you can see a glimpse of what looks like a fun movie underneath, but its bogged down so much that it feels as though the team behind the movie (or should I say the WB executives) didn't care and neither did I as a result. The rabid fanbase will likely defend this one and further prove that they will just take anything, which Warner Brothers is more than aware of. As a DC fan, I expect more from the movies and so should you.