Justice League Review
image: taken from nerdist.com
Before I get into this review, I just want to promise that even though I am a massive Marvel fan, this review will be in no way biased (I will try my hardest). Even though I haven’t seen Wonder Woman (yet) it’s given me a lot of high hopes for this film as Wonder Woman is my favourite DC character and since they’ve finally gotten one of their movies right, maybe it’s only up from here. Since the success of the Avengers films and the marvel franchise in general, Justice League has been under a lot of pressure (in my opinion anyway) to be just as amazing and successful because who doesn’t love a superhero team up? It was weird going into this film with both high and low expectations, low because Batman V Superman was a terrible movie and I thought JL would be the same but high because of WW, all of the JL cartoons I used to watch and I knew DC would probably try really hard to make sure this film did well!
Let me start with the positives, I absolutely loved Flash and Superman in this film! For once, Superman wasn’t wooden or boring, he was funny and actually seemed like a real being for once instead of a talking statue. He had one of the funniest lines near the end of the film and I’m still surprised at how likeable he is in this film. Flash was by far the best character, he was hilarious and so relatable, almost every line he said sounded like what someone who suddenly became a superhero would say. I was afraid that maybe they would put all the comic relief on him so he would become one of those annoying characters where you dreaded them opening their mouths because it would just be something stupid but that wasn’t the case at all! He wasn’t just funny, he was smart and again just kept saying things the audience was probably thinking!
I also really enjoyed Batman for once, I have never been the biggest fan of Batman, I just don’t understand the logic of someone with no superpowers being able to keep up that well with actual superheroes. I also thought that sometimes ‘dark’ Batman was too forced and a bit cringey but even though he was dark in this film, it didn’t seem put on and he did have a few jokes here and there that were funny. Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman were also great in this film, I think the introduction of Cyborg and Aquaman (and Flash a bit) were rushed, we still don’t completely understand Aquaman and we only had one scene to see what happened with Cyborg but I still enjoyed their characters. I also have to mention the soundtrack for this film, I even had to add the Come Together cover by Gary Clark Jr to my Spotify playlist, it just fit the film perfectly!
Now for the negatives, the CGI on Henry Cavill’s face was ridiculous. The first scene in particular, I don’t understand how Warner Bros weren’t embarrassed about releasing that, it literally looks like someone got the rubber tool in Photoshop and tried to remove his moustache that way. It was honestly so bad that I kind of spent the rest of the film staring at his face to see if I could tell if there was CGI or not. The film also feels really rushed. Apparently there was pressure for the film to be cut down to less than 2 hours and you can definitely tell. There were a lot of cut scenes, you would be watching Bruce doing something in Gotham then suddenly we’re looking at the Amazons in Themyscira, but the two scenes would have nothing to do with each other.
Finally, Steppenwolf didn’t really make any sense. It was as if they couldn’t think of a villain to have so they just picked one out of a hat. I’m not really familiar with who Steppenwolf is and I’m sure he has a great backstory but I didn’t see any of that, all I saw was a huge guy with a horned helmet looking for some boxes.
In conclusion, I think Justice League is worth seeing, especially if you’re a DC fan. It is 10x better than Batman V Superman but I still think Wonder Woman beats them both. Hopefully after some origin movies have been out (I believe Aquaman’s will be first), their next attempt at this team up will be even better!