Justice or Injustice? A review on The Justice League Film

November 17 marked an exciting day on the calendar for fans of the DC movie franchise and comics. Justice League was a highly anticipated movie, however since the film’s release, it’s gotten more negative feedback than positive.

One of the many issues people had happened to be the plot. Three power boxes that are put together to destroy the world need to be seperated in order to stop the apocalypse. Its simple, but what happens to the world when Steppenwolf gets more than one box is a beautiful scene in the movie as a plague surrounds the area in Russia.

The event of the motherboxes helps bring Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg together, and it also leads to the revival of Superman. Sometimes it’s something simple that brings people together in real life, so why should it be different in film? The mother boxes as the main source of conflict leaves room for the unfortunately small character development in the film.

Barry Allen got better throughout the film, as did Victor Stone’s, but it could’ve been better. The  time spent on action scenes instead of character and team development is frustrating. The original cut time for Justice League was about 3 hours long, but Warner Bros. cut the time. This cut could be the cause of the plot development problems. For example, in the film Bruce Wayne expresses remorse about killing Superman but it is never explained why — other than the fact that their world has basically gone into a downwards spiral without their symbol of hope. Other than that there isn’t an explanation why Bruce feels this way about Superman and is so adamant on bringing him back to life.

There is also the end credit scene between Superman and The Flash where they’re about to race each other, and the loser has to go to brunch, as suggested by Superman. How did Superman know that Barry does not like or get the concept of brunch? Bruce Wayne would have had to tell him this information since Clark wasn’t around Barry till the end of the movie.

Most of the complaints circle around the actual production of the movie and not the cast itself. There was heavy use of CGI animation for the enemies, most of the fighting, and the removal of Henry Cavill’s moustache. CGI is basically a gift in movie culture. It helps bring fantasy settings to life, but it is overused in Justice League. After all they’re fighting things that aren’t there, and it doesn’t seem real.

Many thought the movie could have been better, but it trumps the DC Extended Universe (DCEU)’s other films. I actually found the movie enjoyable and easy to follow because I’ve read comics from The New 52 Universe in which the film is set. The movie ties into a similar plot from The Justice League: Dark comic series, and the animated film of the same name, also by Warner Brothers. In the recent Justice League film, their villain Steppenwolf mentions Darkseid, who, in The Justice League: Dark, is the main villain.

This similarity led me to one conclusion after I left the theatre: the plot was similar to the Dark animated film, with the exception of a few characters and, of course, the main villain. This also made me wonder what a follow up movie could be about.

People might be trying to dissect the film into something it never was to make it seem worse. Either way, it was a decent movie, and this could mean that the DCEU will improve from here,  especially with the upcoming Batgirl film and Wonder Woman 2.