It's pretty easy to diagnose where the latest iteration of DC comics-inspired films went wrong and a lot of it has to do with entrusting the bulk of its storytelling to writer-director Zack Snyder, who inexplicably has a passionately devoted fanbase, despite the fact that most of his films have been distinctly terrible.
There's this attitude that literal darkness evokes gravitas and more compelling filmmaking when in reality just because something is thematically 'dark' it doesn't mean it has to be unpleasant to look at (see the films of David Fincher) or utterly humorless (see the original Star Wars trilogy).
As I waded the through the bloated, overstuffed 4 hours of the latest iteration of Justice League, I kept thinking to myself -- who is this for? Definitely not kids. And I don't say this because the film has a few more F bombs and considerable bone crushing carnage. There's just no joy in it. I didn't crack a smile once during its entire duration and there was not a single spectacle that I was in awe of.
The first version --which was part Snyder, part the newly disgraced Joss Whedon -- was pretty forgettable on its own terms. And yes, this version eschews a lot of the annoying forced jokey banter that made that a pretty leaden experience. But all it's replaced it with is extended exposition, broken up with pretentious chapter breaks which only serve to remind you how outrageously long and self important this movie is.
This may be the worst superhero movie I've ever seen and I've seen the Halle Berry Catwoman.
First off, it takes characters that should be at least a little interesting and strips them of all their charisma. Ben Affleck, at least when he's in the Batsuit, looks cool. But he seems utterly bored in the role and he's subjected to playing the sort of Danny Ocean ringleader who rounds up all the other characters to fight the bad guy -- who could only be described as a Thanos knock-off. The plot, which I found incomprehensible, is about something called 'motherboxes' which made no sense to me no matter how many times they say that word -- and it's a lot.
There's Henry Cavill's scowling, sort of nasty Superman, who seems to only serve the purpose of showing you how unlike Christopher Reeve this Superman can be. There's Jason Momoa as Aquaman, who at least was having a good time in his own film, but is forced to be more brooding here. Gal Gadot barely registers as Wonder Woman and worst of all is Ezra Miller's titanically unappealing performance as the Flash.
He is so unfunny and unlikable in this role that I literally cringed every time he came on screen. It's a role that's written to be comic relief but there is nothing funny about him or his dialogue which he delivers in a twitchy, airquotes-y way that I found exhausting.
All this serves to do is remind you that despite all their flaws, the Marvel movies handle this kind of material so much better. They ping around to different characters but generally speaking give hem all something to do or at least a cool moment or to. The action is clearer to understand and is grounded in reality just enough that you don't feel like you're watching a video game.
In this Justice League, every sequence is a slo mo melange of cartoons fighting other cartoons -- all set to a portentous soundtrack that wants the viewer to believe they're watching something epic on the scale of Lawrence of Arabia.
Nothing is subtle. Nothing is sophisticated. And by the time the movie gets to its extended epilogue, with multiple fake out endings -- nothing makes sense. It's all a set up for more superhero movies that may or may not ever be made and certainly won't be accessible to anyone who isn't fully read into the comic universe its re-creating.
Would a film where Batman and the Joker are forced to team up be interesting -- theoretically -- but you have to give me a compelling story to get me there first. Watching this movie -- it's like an impatient teenager wrote it and they just want to 'get to the right scenes'
I know that there a lot of people giving Snyder and his fans props for making this new version happen but at the end of the day, what did this really achieve? It's a longer version of a shitty movie.
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