[7]

SPOILER REVIEW: Technically, there are spoilers in this review. But if you look at the movie’s credits, you shouldn’t be surprised by them.

Although we’ll probably never really know for sure, it looks to me like Joss Whedon saved Justice League from Zack Snyder. The movie has character and heart and it’s paced like a real movie, whereas Snyder’s movies lack character and heart, and, worst of all, are paced like two-hour-long trailers. In Justic League, scenes are actually allowed to happen. There are peaks and valleys in the way the narrative unfolds. It’s not just a neverending razzle-dazzle montage full of cool slow-mo shots. In fact, all the super-nifty-cool teenaged wet-dream slow-mo shots in the trailer? Gone. They play at normal speed in the movie. And because of this de-Snyderization, dramatic moments finally have weight. The action is finally comprehensible. Characters are allowed to shine through computer-generated miasma and I was never once taken out of the movie by Snyder’s intense, hyper-stylized, ‘look at me, look at me!’ direction. Justice League works.

It still suffers, like nearly every single superhero movie, from a generic bad guy of the week. This one’s called Steppenwolf. He’s tall, wears armor, has an ugly CGI face and lacks any original personality. He wants three magic boxes so he can put them together and… can you guess? destroy the world — bet you never saw that one coming! Like many of the Marvel movies, Justice League forsakes any daring narrative choices and instead skates through on the charm of its characters.

Batman (Ben Affleck) is more likeable and relatable than he’s been in any other Snyder effort. Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is magic — we could watch her on screen forever, probably. Ezra Miller provides constant comic relief as The Flash and Jason Momoa provides the cool loner qualities of Wolverine or Han Solo. If anyone gets short-shrifted, and I don’t think it’s by much, it’d be Cyborg (Ray Fisher). He has plenty of screen time, but he’s a stick-in-the-mud, personality wise. Maybe every team needs a straight man. Henry Cavill returns as Superman, but I still don’t have any sense of his character. At least he’s fucking sexy, though.

The narrative is familiar, but classic. If you have to retread familiar ground, why not take the ’round up the troops’ path? Batman and Wonder Woman find the new recruits, but it’s not enough to stop the Big Bad Guy. So when an opportunity to ressurect Superman presents itself, they give it considerable thought. But as Miller’s Flash character says, what’s to stop things from going all ‘Pet Sematary’? And that leads to the most interesting part of the film. The third act is pretty formulaic, but as I indicated before — character gets you through it.

I am honestly shocked to hell and back that this didn’t feel like a Frankenstein patchwork quilt of a movie. I could not see any seams or indications that it was a troubled production, except maybe in Danny Elfman’s score. It’s a decent score, but he had four orchestrators working on it. It was probably written and performed in under a month. This is Elfman’s forte. I’m guessing with more time, it’d be more striking. It’s nice to hear subtle use of his old Tim Burton Batman theme again, too.

In the end, Justice League reminds me of the first X-Men movie. It’s good enough, and has room to grow. After the success of Wonder Woman, and now with this entry, DC is definitely improving its trajectory.

With Amy Smart, Diane Lane, JK Simmons, and Jeremy Irons.

Related Reviews: Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice