A cadre of nameless henchmen point their guns at a group of unarmed civilians. The camera cuts to an adorable child to raise audience engagement. A trigger-happy goon takes aim. Suddenly, a powerful blow knocks the criminals away. The cute kid looks up, eyes sparkling with the cinematic innocence of youth (trademarked by Steven Spielberg). The hero of the movie stands over them, triumphant, bold, angelic. Maybe they crack a solid one-liner. Crowd applauds. Orchestral music soars. Great scene.
This is known as the “hero shot” (at least that’s what I call it). In our decade-plus of superhero movie saturation, we’ve seen endless variations of this shot. Heroes save dogs, old ladies, children, aliens, whatever works. It’s simple, effective shorthand to pump the audience up and get them excited.
So it’s almost impressive how Justice League consistently bungles this basic concept. The legendary DC Comics heroes rarely appear in dramatic reveals or in awe-inspiring moments; they just show up, like a faded celebrity making a begrudging, contractually-obligated appearance at an autograph signing. There will be some mildly tense scene and the camera will abruptly cut to the hero in question standing there. No drama, no build, nothing. This mistake is only one sin in this film’s laundry list of flaws.
It shouldn’t be this hard. I want to like DC movies. I enjoy these comic book characters. But time after time, movie after movie, they screw it up. Batman v Superman burrowed past the bottom of the barrel and Suicide Squad was right next to it. At a certain point, you have to shrug and resign yourself to the mediocrity. And that’s just what Justice League does. It’s a feature-length shrug.
The filmmakers knew they were going to make money no matter what they pumped out. If Ant-Man and Doctor Strange can rake in cash hand over fist, a Justice League movie is a slam-dunk. So they shoved this barely coherent, rushed film into theatres and waited for the money to roll in. And it surely will. But if they keep making movies like this, it won’t keep rolling in for much longer.
After the events of Batman v Superman, Batman (Ben Affleck) is shell-shocked (who wasn’t after seeing that trainwreck?). He suspects there’s an alien invasion afoot and, wouldn’t you know it, he’s right. Steppenwolf (not the band) is collecting three magic cubes to either destroy Earth or make it look like a World of Warcraft level. Who knows? So Batman has to unite the Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg to battle this threat.
The most important factor in team movies like these is the characters. They need to have interesting chemistry and interactions. We need to like spending time with them. So it only makes sense that Justice League, easily the worst superhero movie of the year, collects the most unlikable, annoying group of jerks for its squad.
Ben Affleck’s Batman is visually interesting, but the actor is clearly bored out of his mind. Gal Gadot is solid as Wonder Woman and Ray Fisher brings a nice weight to his performance as Cyborg. But Jason Momoa and Ezra Miller bomb hard as Aquaman and Flash, respectively. Aquaman is inconsistent, changing his personality from scene to scene, and Momoa is incapable of making it engaging. Miller is gratingly obnoxious as the Flash, providing unwelcome and unfunny comic relief. The less said about Ciaran Hinds’ abysmal performance as Steppenwolf, the better.
Worst of all, none of the protagonists have any chemistry together. They blandly talk at each other until the next visually-dense action scene happens. Rinse and repeat.
What truly sinks Justice League is its atrocious editing. Scenes are smashed together with no rhyme or reason. Characters will suddenly appear in shots with no fanfare or explanation. Action scenes are muddled messes. Its dark, murky visuals do not play well with its frenetic editing. Too often it feels like you’re watching a cinematic stew. It seems as though all the connective tissue was ripped out of the film to make it more streamlined. Justice League is under two hours long. That’s its one saving grace.
The writing is equally bad. The tone is overly serious, which clashes with its feeble attempts at humour. The dialogue rotates from unfunny to boilerplate to melodramatic, often in the same scene. None of it lands.
All of this tonal whiplash can probably be laid at the feet of the film’s notoriously rough production history. Zack Snyder directed a majority of the film until he had to step away for personal reasons. Joss Whedon (of Avengers fame) hopped aboard to reshoot some scenes and rewrite lines of dialogue. That’s not a good situation to build a quality film. The filmmakers have my sympathy, but it runs short when they charge full-price for this unfinished movie.
Justice League is another abject failure for DC Comics. Only in Hollywood could a business push out so many broken products and still bring in a huge profit. Maybe this’ll be the film to spark a consumer revolt.
