Justice League

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been a DC fan since the age of seven (a long time ago), with my favourite superheroes being Batman and The Flash, so, despite the mediocre reviews from critics, I needed to go watch Justice League. After all, I liked Batman vs. Superman a lot more than the critics did, despite Ben Affleck’s presence as Batman. 

I watched Justice League in 2D IMAX, the only way to watch this film. And I must note, right off, that, unlike Ragnarok, the cinematography suffers very little by being made-for-3D. Indeed, Justice League looked gorgeous on the IMAX screen and this alone was worth the price of admission. I especially enjoyed the continued dark atmosphere of the Zack Snyder DC films, helped by Danny Elfman’s score, which, while nothing special, did what was needed. 

Justice League tells the story of how Bruce Wayne (Batman), with the help of Alfred (Jeremy Irons), brings together a group of superheroes to fight the big bad Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciaran Hinds), who wants nothing less than to make planet earth his own. To do this, Steppenwolf needs three boxes full of primal energy that have been kept hidden and protected by the three groups who had fought and defeated  Steppenwolf once before (the Amazons, the Atlantans, and regular humans). For some reason, Steppenwolf has little trouble finding and acquiring the boxes. Indeed, before Bruce Wayne manages to bring the Justice League together, Steppenwolf has already brought the three boxes together to create the mighty power that will destroy the planet. Can the Justice League possibly arrive in time to save humanity? And what about Superman? Can they do it without him? Isn’t he dead? What would happen if a way was found to bring him back to life - would that be a good idea?

The questions above should be read in a tone that lets you know how little I respect the plot of Justice League. It is every bit as inane as the plot of Ragnarok, and that is saying something. Big baddie wants to destroy the world. Superheroes fight together (after many arguments and much sarcastic repartee) to destroy big baddie. The end! What a crock! How is it that the writers of superhero films (and no less than Joss Whedan was involved in writing Justice League) have such a limited imagination when it comes to telling an original or at least entertaining story. They just tell the same old story over and over and over again, ad nauseam, hoping that all the mindless action and a few lines of entertaining dialogue will be enough to bring in the masses. Surely, one of these days, the masses will get bored (but not yet, since Justice League had one of the 25 highest-grossing opening weekends of all time, though it's viewed a failure because it didn't perform as well at the U.S. box office as it was supposed to).

As in Ragnarok, the characters in Justice League are occasionally fun to watch, especially The Flash, played well by Ezra Miller. Other Justice League members include Batman, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and, if he weren’t so very dead, Superman (Henry Cavill). The Justice League 'origin story', while by no means original, was at least at lot more entertaining than the Steppenwolf story. Amy Adams does well as Lois Lane, but how could she have so much airtime if Superman is dead? Sigh. Other than Miller, the acting certainly wasn’t outstanding, but it was passable (I’m even getting used to Affleck as Batman).

The  bottom line is that I enjoyed Justice League about as much as I enjoyed Ragnarok (though for different reasons), which means I did think it was worth a look. *** My mug is up, but one of these days the lack of an original flavour inside will make me turn these mugs down.