Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Justice League 2017 Review
Justice League 2017 Review
Story Writers: Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder
Producers: Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Jon Berg, and Geoff Johns
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, and Jason Momoa
Composer: Danny Elfman
Cinematographer: Fabian Wagner
Editor: David Brenner, Richard Pearson, and Martin Walsh
Production Company: DC Films
Part I: Introduction
As tired as I was with the superhero genre, I was curious to see what Justice League would do for the genre and for the DCEU franchise. If you know me, Im a bigger fan of DC comics than Marvel but Ive been disappointed with their startup films. Wonder Woman was the first movie I considered not to be terrible. Does this film live up to that positive momentum that Wonder Woman started? Unfortunately, it doesnt.
Part II: Plot Synopsis
Set some time shortly after the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince set out to form a team of superheroes to stop the impending doom and invasion of Steppenwolf and an army of Parademons.
Part III: Direction & Style
DirectionIm aware that Joss Whedon was the director for most of the post production and directed some scenes, but Zack Snyder is the main director for this film. Im not going to go into much detail with that, but from what Ive seen, the overall direction here is pretty much the same I feel with a lot of Zack Synders work, a lot of time, theyre style over substance. The same way its with this film. Though where I will give some praise is that I didnt notice any difference in direction from Whedons or Snyders. It did feel more consistent than expected, coming from a movie that had more than one person directing it.
Style
Like I said earlier, a minor issue I had with the film is that a lot of its style is very flashy. Thats usually how Zack Snyder is but the problem with that is that with those flashy CGI effects, theres not weight to that style. Again, I feel its a style over substance type thing. This movie is more light-toned than previous DC movies except for Wonder Woman. At least it doesnt throw around jokes every 20 seconds like Marvel movies but it does feel a little more light than other DC movies put out in the past.
Part IV: Visual Presentation
Cinematography & FramingVisually, this film doesnt look anything special. It doesnt really do anything interesting or to make it stand out besides the color palette. Speaking of the color palette, I really dont like their color palette. It makes their films look really bland. Wonder Woman stopped using that bland-looking color palette and look how that turned out. On top of that, it feels odd how theyre aiming for a lighter tone but they have this bland color palette that suggests a darker tone than what it actually is.
Acting
The acting here isnt bad. I actually liked all of the cast that played their roles. If they had gotten a little bit better material, I would have liked their characters a bit better. Ezra Miller plays the Flash and hes supposed to be comic relief character. I didnt really feel his character was all that funny. I get that Flash was always the comic relief character in the lore in the comics. Thats fine. And they changed Aquamans character a little bit. I like a bit of this change. But again, the material that the actors were given and that fleshes out the characters is really bad. And thats not really the fault of the actors/actresses. I kinda feel a bit sorry for them. I genuinely feel that if they were given proper material, they would totally pull off compelling performances, but unfortunately, they were given a shallow script.
Visual Effects
Im sorry but the visual effects in my opinion are god awful. I dont know where they put that $300 million to, but very little of it clearly went to the special effects department. That or their special effects team is really bad. A lot of the CGI effects look really bad coming from a big, AAA high-budget $300 million film, especially Stepphenwolf. And its not just some scenes that look bad. A lot of the CGI looks either really mediocre or straight-up terrible.
Part V: Screenwriting & Character Composition
Script & Screenwriting
The script is absolutely terrible. Before I start trashing on the script, I will admit that that movie did have a few fun scenes. Mostly, the banter between the heroes was decent. I liked that. But, for the most part, the technical storytelling is atrocious. It takes the film forever to explain what is happening. And when it finally starts to pick up, things going on in the plot is poorly explained or doesnt make sense. Another major problem with the script is that it glosses over a lot of things. The plot is embarrassingly thin for a 2 hour movie.
Character Composition
Even worse than the script, this movie literally has no character composition, one of the most idiotic decisions Ive ever seen when it comes to storytelling is to gloss over introductory material for Cyborg, Aquaman, and Flash. At least for Marvel, even though most of their films arent brilliant, at least Marvel was smart enough to make solo movies for the whole cast (except for Hawkeye and Black Widow) before coming out with the Avengers. Then when the Avengers finally came out, you knew who those characters were by then. I cant say the same for Justice League. Well, I know who these people are because Im a DC fan, but if I wasnt, I probably would still not have much of a clue as to who Cyborg, Aquaman, and Flash are. You know you messed up in the character composition when at the end of the movie, people still ask "So, what is Cyborg supposed to be?" And people legitimately walked out of the theater and started asking those questions. People are not supposed to be asking those questions. Thats a fundamental question that should have been addressed either in the movie or they should have just made a solo film for every character before Justice League.
Pacing
The pacing is also really bad. The way the film is structured is so bad. Its just scenes that dont really go much anywhere other than setting up maybe a future film because its so concerned about developing the DCEU rather than focusing on its own story. It feels like characters are just taking turns with scenes. For example, one scene you have Batman doing something. Then, its Wonder Womans turn. Then its Cyborgs. Then its Aquamans. Then its Flashs turn. Then they occasionally jump to Stepphenwolf doing something for his evil plan. Plot progression is also very bad.
Part VI: Verdict & Conclusion
Look, I really didnt want to hate this movie. Im a big DC fan. The movie has a lot of technical issues, namely its storytelling and visual effects. This movie is admittedly still better than BvS, but Im still a bit disappointed how the movie continues some of the same things that made BvS such a bad film. It doesnt even feel like a film. It feels like an elongated trailer of other DC films theyre going to put out in the future.
Score: C-
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