Justice League Review

Justice League is rather disappointing, it was a fast build up without the proper character development behind it and that shows. What we get here is the aftermath of Batman v Superman with Batman and Wonder Woman rushing to assemble a team. There's some generic type villain called Steppenwolf that's come to grab some cubes and they need to stop him as the world is at stake. We get a selection of brief character meet ups as everyone gets together without much trouble and they decide they're useless without one particular person. They then decide it's best to work towards getting them and that's how it goes.

Instead of this being a focus on each individual member and their strengths the team is nothing without this other individual. That aside, there really wasn't much of a plot and it felt too similar to other hero films. It was also strange in tone considering BvS was so dark, now it's all bright and happy. The jokes were nice as it made the characters feel warmer, but I'd like to see DC have a general theme for how serious this universe is going to be. The strength of this film was definitely in its characters and with the casting, the DC universe has a stellar chance with their current heroes. It mostly just comes down to getting a decent story to put them in.

The Flash (Ezra Miller) particularly stood out being comic relief and a really awesome part of the film. His speed areas were awesome, they looked cool and I just want to see more of The Flash. Wonder Woman was fine, Batman was too happy though again Ben Affleck did a solid job. Everyone else was alright, but honestly I need to see more of their characters to get a better idea of how I feel about them.

I wasn't huge on Cyborg, yet I feel that Jason Momoa's Aquaman has real potential. Aside from the somewhat weak story, the CGI was appalling in multiple portions of the film. Many environmental aspects looked fake, the main villain didn't look great in some shots and a number of effects were bizarre with that clearly being visible during my IMAX screening. At the start mostly everything was great, but like the story the CGI got worse and worse as the movie progressed.

The Conclusion

I liked the direction of where they were going with the heroes in Justice League, these standalone entries have some real potential after seeing everyone in action. It mostly felt like the build-up was lacking and that I didn't care at all for some of the characters here. The whole thing just came across as so bland and typical with a villain whose motives were so generically pointless. The CGI was seriously awful in some parts and for a movie at this budget level that just shouldn't be the case.

The plot was weak, the cubes weren't creative and this mostly just acted as an establishing entry for the separate standalone films to come. I liked some parts of it, but at the end I just sort of watched the movie and will probably not return to view it again. It's somewhat necessary for those invested in this universe, but DC needs to get a streak going as this negates the potential brought from the Wonder Woman standalone.

Justice League Review at Theater with IMAX Viewing
Screening Provided by Warner Brothers

Rating Overall: 5.0