Justice League Review

Justice League is a good comic book movie. This is a movie that is aimed at DC and comic book fans. Don’t go into it expecting a cinematic masterpiece, go in expecting an enjoyable superhero movie.

I am going to try not to give away any spoilers in my review however if you want to watch the movie completely unaware then don’t read any further.

At times the plot is either a bit incoherent or very predictable however this is a movie that is more driven by character and action scenes so I feel I can overlook that a little. Justice League is a relatively standard end of the world apocalypse that the heroes must come together to fight and save the world. The main villain was weak but I don’t mind too much as really this movie is about the heroes coming together and forming the Justice League.

For me Wonder Woman stole the show. This is probably not a surprise if you saw Wonder Woman. DC continue to get Diana’s character spot on and combine the badass warrior with her compassionate nature. Gal Gadot delivers another good performance. It was also nice to see more of her being Diana Prince this time round. (Though she still needs to get the Invisible Jet!)

Finally, once again we have an optimistic Superman! If you know Superman from any other media then this is that version of Superman. The positive hero who stands for hope and justice. He’s likeable, he’s funny and he’s a badass! There’s also a moment during a fight scene where he goes off to save the civilians which is just such a Superman thing to do.

I liked Batman in this movie. This is a Batman with tons of gadgets! He feels very much like the character we know from the comics, but he’s not unrelentingly grim. We get moments where he actually gets some good one-liners!

If you know me you know that I am a massive Flash fan, therefore it probably isn’t a surprise that I have very strong feelings about the Flash. I was against the take on him that the DC Cinematic Universe has been doing from the initially casting but I really wanted to be proved wrong. I wasn’t proved wrong. The Flash was good, he is quite likeable and has some decent one-liners but he is not Barry Allen. For me this version of the Flash feels like a weird hybrid of Wally West and Spider-Man which just doesn’t work. As a Flash fan this is annoying because Justice League is likely the first time that a general audience will be seeing the Flash and they’re going to be seeing a character who just is not Barry Allen’s Flash. Grant Gustin is still the best live action Flash.

I must admit that I really don’t know much about Aquaman so I’m not sure how much I can judge him. However I sort of felt like they were trying too hard to make him cool. But there’s moments which seem promising for setting up his solo movie. (Also he swims wearing jeans. Who thought that was a good idea? As anyone who has ever worn jeans in the rain can tell you, denim and water are not a good combination!)

I like the take they’ve gone for with Cyborg. He’s right at the start of his journey and he’s not yet the more fun hero he will later become, it’s an interesting set up that is clearly intended to be followed on from in later movies. Also, he gets to say his catchphrase Booyah!

There’s a lot of moments and lines in Justice League that are there to be fan pleasing. These sort of moments don’t take away from the main plot but they’re there to be spotted by the geeks and things like that make me smile. There’s also several appearances from the main hero’s supporting casts of characters. We see Lois Lane, Jim Gordon, Mera and Henry Allen, maybe these appearances weren’t entirely needed but they were definitely something that helped to round out the heroes and give another fan pleasing moment.

I saw Justice League in 3D because the 3D showing worked best for my schedule but honestly I would say that it was actually worth seeing in 3D. Wonder Woman’s action scenes are definitely worth seeing in 3D!

Stylistically I would say Justice League felt more like watching a comic book than any other superhero movie I have seen. For example there’s a scene near the beginning set in Gotham that honestly felt like it had been lifted straight from a comic.

A few things I would like to have seen are…

·         Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), even if it was just a brief appearance I really feel like Hal should have been there somewhere.

·         The Invisible Jet, I’m not going to stop talking about this until Wonder Woman gets her Invisible Jet.

·         I would have liked Jim Gordon to have referenced his daughter Barbara. I know that’s a very specifically geeky one but given a Batgirl movie is in production it would have been nice to get a little reference to Barbara Gordon.

But overall I enjoyed Justice League. It is a good, but not exceptional, comic book movie. Certainly I think DC fans are going to like it. Personally I am looking forward to seeing what comes next in the DC Cinematic Universe.