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. 

Halloween is Over

Well it’s the start of November today which means that it is the beginning of Christmas season and the end of Halloween 2017. But before we completely say goodbye to Halloween I wanted to share a few thoughts about my Halloween in Canada.

In the weeks running up to Halloween there was quite a lot of anticipation amongst most people I know. Especially after Thanksgiving there seemed to be a lot of excitement building for Halloween. To be honest in the end more things seemed to be happening over the weekend instead of on Halloween itself, in the UK at uni we tend to do Halloween stuff both on the weekend and on the night itself.

For me Halloween really began on Saturday with my trip to Haunt at Canada’s Wonderland which was undoubtedly the highlight of my Halloween this year. I had a really good time.

Tuesday, Halloween Day went more or less as a normal day for me. This year for Halloween I was Clark Kent/Superman, I was actually going around all day in my costume just with the shirt buttoned up for most of the day. I guess the glasses really do mean that Superman can hide in plain sight.

It was more or less a normal day until I went to my night lecture, then suddenly about 5-10 minutes into the lecture the lights suddenly went out and there was a powercut. I’m 90% sure that the powercut must have been caused by ghosts. Either that or it was karma for scheduling classes on Halloween night. We got let out of the lecture and I walked across a darkened campus to my residence. Everyone was just gathering together and hanging out in the dark. Usually we’re a very social group in my accommodation however something about the dark made us all even more sociable than usually, maybe it was because without power we were all forced away from our screens. This was not how I expected my Halloween night to go but honestly it was actually a lot of fun. There’s something inherently spooky about being in the dark without power but then when you’re enjoying spending time with friend it’s even better.

So maybe I did not have the Halloween I had been anticipating but I have had a good one this year.

My Haul – DC Comics, Disney and Star Wars

Just yesterday I posted that I would be doing more Haul posts if I bought an interesting selection of stuff. Well today I bought an interesting selection of stuff that includes things from DC Comics, Disney and Star Wars.

First up, The Lego Batman Movie on DVD. I love DC Comics and I love Lego so of course I liked this film and of course I was going to buy it on DVD. In Tesco I found that they are selling it with a free Lego mini set that includes a mini figure of the Joker who I don’t already have a mini figure of.

Next I found this Justice League t-shirt that has both the Flash and Wonder Woman on it! How could I possibly refuse buying a tee that has my two favourite DC characters on it? This is also extra exciting for me as it is usually really hard to find Wonder Woman included on men’s tees.

Another of today’s finds was the Tsum Tsum of Hank from Finding Dory. He was reduced to just £1.99 and I found that grumpy face too funny to resist. Hank is the 3^rd character from Finding Nemo/Dory that I have a Tsum Tsum of. I previously bought Squirt and Bruce.

Finally I bought a Chewbacca Itty Bitty. Itty Bitty’s are still pretty hard to find in the UK, however my collection is increasingly growing. Chewie is the first Star Wars character in my collection. My Itty Bitty collection now includes Star Wars, Disney, Marvel and DC characters.

Lois Lane YA Novels – Review

Yesterday I finished reading Triple Threat by Gwenda Bond, the latest novel in the YA Lois Lane series. Yes, I mean Lois Lane as in Superman and Lois Lane.

About a fortnight back I read on Twitter that there was a series of YA novels about Lois Lane starting her career as a journalist. I was intrigued and thought it might be worth a read. I bought the first book, Fallout and have been hooked since then. The Lois Lane series is about a young teen journalist investigating weird and unexplained things in Metropolis. That basic premise reminds me a bit of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which in my opinion is a very good thing. It is a YA series but these are entertaining and gripping mystery novels that transcend the clichéd tropes of YA. Reading this series has definitely shifted my opinion of Lois Lane. Before I kind of just assumed that she was the stereotypical superhero girlfriend damsel in distress. After reading the series that opinion has been changed. To put it another way, when I saw a rumour that Lois Lane was going to get a DC Superhero Girls doll I didn’t understand why, now I really hope they release one!

Fallout is the first book in the series and sets the general tone for the series. Lois Lane is newly arrived in Metropolis, she’s trying to stay out of trouble and make friends. Lois is successful at making friends with her team of young journalists at The Daily Planet’s new teen aimed news site. But she completely fails at staying out of trouble as she starts to investigate something strange happening at her new school. This book deals with bullying and technology being misused, out of the three books I would say it is the most concerned with real world issues though it still has a strong sci-fi mystery.

Double Down then continues the story. Lois is now more confident in her abilities as a journalist and takes on an ambitious new assignment. I think this book really highlighted one of the biggest strengths of the series, the supporting cast of characters. Lois has a strong group of friends – whom she befriended in Fallout – and in Double Down they are just as important to the plot as Lois Lane herself. Also Double Down has arguably some of the most intense moments in the entire series as Lois gets herself into a situation that turns out to be way more complicated than it initially appeared.

Triple Threat is the latest novel in the series. It pulls together several loose ends from the previous books. I feel that if I say too much I will possibly accidentally spoil Fallout and Double Down.  But if Triple Threat is the last book in the series then it’s a satisfying ending, however I really hope that there’s a fourth book!

As someone who is a pretty hard-core DC Comics fanboy I found it really interesting to read a series about the DC universe before it becomes the more recognisable DC universe. What I mean by that is when these books are set Clark Kent has yet to become Superman, Barry Allen has yet to be struck by lightning, Diana Prince has yet to leave Themyscira and so on. This makes the stories of Lois Lane’s investigations even more interesting as weird stuff is not yet widely accepted as part of daily life for people within the novel.

I’d recommend the Lois Lane YA series for comic and superhero fans, fans of mystery novels and in general people who enjoy reading stories about competent female protagonists who know what they want and go get it. With Lois Lane getting her chance to shine in these novels, Wonder Woman finally hitting the big screen very soon, Supergirl on TV and the DC Superhero Girls toys quite widely available it’s good to see that DC have made such a serious commitment to their female characters. Long may it continue!