Ah, the other big comic-book movie universe, the DC Extended Universe (still not a big fan of that name, BTW, but that's neither here nor there.) Two weeks after Marvel gifted us with its MCU latest in Thor: Ragnarok, DC stepped back up to the plate with Justice League, its answer of sorts to Joss Whedon's Avengers (with Whedon himself co-writing the screenplay and giving uncredited director work on the reshoots.) But you already knew that. You also knew that this movie had a pretty troubled production due in part to the increasingly poor reception of previous DCEU films, with the obvious exception of this year's super-smash hit Wonder Woman. And also the fact that it ultimately wound up being shockingly expensive, with a disappointing first weekend at the worldwide box office that doesn't even meet its $300 million price tag (though it comes close.) And that Rotten Tomatoes wouldn't even release the movie's official score until practically the day of its release, effectively delaying the inevitable news that DC had another Zack Snyder turkey travesty on their hands as far as the critics were concerned.
But hit pause on that, and if you're still torn on whether to watch this movie, consider...no, not the coconut. Consider that maybe Snyder not being 100% involved with this one's production was actually to its benefit, at least as far as tone goes. Because while this movie winds up suffering from quite a few flaws - like the over-reliance on some often piss-poor CGI, or the surprisingly thin plot for a jam-packed superhero blockbuster, the revealing Amazon armor compared to Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, Batfleck's phoned-in performance, and Snyder's general mishandling of Superman - its tone, not quite MCU-light even with Joss Whedon's trademark battle snark but certainly more hopeful than the overly nihilistic Batman v Superman and chaotic misfire of Suicide Squad, was a step in the right direction while acknowledging the film's own hamstrung-by-its-predecessors'-mistakes nature.
 |
| "Children," Diana says. "I work with children. Also, where in Hades is Bale when you need him?" |
It's funny, I actually thought Batfleck was quite a nice novelty in BvS, one of that movie's saving graces alongside Gal Gadot's terrific, if underutilized at the time, Wonder Woman. Now, though, especially knowing how visibly ashamed and disappointed Ben Affleck's become with his DCEU involvement in recent months (he's not even going to be headlining The Batman if and when that's ever made, is he?), it's so clear that he's let that negativity contaminate his performance as Bats in this one. More than anyone else (except maybe Cavill's Supes), he's a relic of the days when it looked like Snyder was going to run this franchise into the ground - almost perpetually tired and dour and gruff. Meanwhile, Supes (who died in BvS and made the kids in the theater cry ugly tears the day I saw that movie, but we all knew he was coming back from that final shot where it looked like we were about to get zombie-Supes!) comes back, of course, but the question is, is it even worth the price of admission to witness this dark Kryptonian perversion of Jesus? Is it really too much to ask that we please just have Supes be fun and optimistic like Tyler Hoechlin's portrayal on Supergirl, say?
 |
| Yeah, make Cavill more like this. I wouldn't mind if they did, Ricky. That Hoechlin man offers some stiff competition. |
Going forward from this movie, I really expect that Cavill will get to show more of Supes' fun side. More hope, and not get it nastily truncated like in the movie's prologue where a kid's interviewing him on cell phone video for a podcast, where the kid's asking what his House of El symbol means and the video abruptly cuts off and cue "Warner Bros. Pictures Presents." He'll have a lot of catching up to do, though, compared to the rest of the (currently) half-dozen-strong Justice League. Even Cyborg (who starts out brooding and wrapped up in a hoodie because he's got to stay locked up at home while he's presumed dead) and Aquaman (who's a sarcastic assbutt pretty much the whole damn time, but often just plain a dick - like, when Batman first comes to find him and he makes it a point of refusing the call to action) brighten up the day far better than our should-be-sunnier Kryptonian buddy does.
 |
| Who're you callin' "brooding?" |
 |
| He's callin' you, brother. And damn straight I was a dick to Bats. "I hear you talk to fish?" *untranslatable Atlantean* |
But of course next to Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and Ezra Miller's Flash, no one's exactly gonna look like the life of the party. Even more than Superman, who's supposed to be the symbol of hope in the DCEU, Wonder Woman shoulders that symbolic responsibility right alongside her already-in-place personification of love, and loses not a single badass point. This in spite of the camera's unnecessary fondness for her ass (hard to say if Snyder or Whedon's more to blame on this one), but Diana Prince is all the flavors of strong as she forms another movie's beating heart.
 |
| Proof you shouldn't make me angry. Someone help me spam Snyder's and Whedon's inboxes with this until they stand aside for Patty Jenkins, please? |
The funnest piece of sunshine, though, is Ezra Miller's Flash. I wasn't terribly impressed with his ten-second-or-so cameos in BvS or Suicide Squad, especially not when Grant Gustin already charmed his way into my soul with his angelically gifted performance on the CW series. But you know what? Not unlike Tom Holland vs. Andrew Garfield, Miller does his own thing as Barry Allen, making him the adorkable kid of the gang. Inexperienced, and a bit bogged down by his insecurities and fears (extra-bad news when your enemy commands an army of zombie-things that target people's fear), but also more powerful than he realizes, and more ready than he realizes to finally become a functioning member of a society operating on a plane he has little grasp of.
 |
| Feel free to headcanon me as autistic. Ricky encourages it. And also queer - come on, you totally saw me checking out Aquaman's butt, right? I'm in a relationship, you know. |
The villain Steppenwolf, though, is one of the movie's weak links, mostly for not really adding anything to the table. He looks like an unholy hybrid of Surtur, Ronan the Accuser, and Ares; he speaks entirely in agonizing clichés; his evil plot manages to mash up both of Whedon's Avengers movies, Age of Ultron included; and his name makes me think only of a certain classic rock band. He's also one of the movie's many CGI failings - as cool as a lot of the visuals are, usually when we get into slow-mo bullet-time with Barry and/or Diana, the CGI gets way too much at times, and considering the movie's massive price tag, it really has no business looking this bad. There are so many shots of everything looking artificial, like the Gotham skyline like it's still Tim Burton making the movies in the late 80s.
The cherry on top, though, has to be the infamous CGI Supes-face. Done to remove the mustache Henry Cavill had to wear for his next high-profile role in Mission: Impossible 6, it's gotten a lot of noise for giving him what amounts to a poorly animated upper lip. (And why would they even go there anyway? There's precedent for Supes having full facial hair in Man of Steel, after all.) For all that noise, though, I didn't see quite what everyone else was seeing. I saw not so much a CGI mouth as an entire CGI face at times. Not really as bad as the infamous video-game quality Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One last year, but glaring enough to stand out and further drag down many of Supes' scenes, including his inevitable Lois Lane reunion. On that subject, even more than in BvS, Lois feels like such an afterthought, begging the question of why they'd even include her here to begin with and all but waste Amy Adams' time and talent. To be fair, I'm not a big fan of Lois Lane in general, except maybe for Erica Durance's portrayal on Smallville - and maybe Gwenda Bond's YA Lois Lane series if I ever get around to reading those books - but Amy Adams' version of the character, as always, remains tragically underwritten, and is one of the many reasons why I insistently ship SuperWonder instead of Clois.
Though Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon's collaborative effort leaves a little to be desired, it's not anywhere near as dreadful as some of the previous DCEU films. I can't exactly call them "bad," the previous Snyder DCEU movies, because they're really more undesirable than anything else with their relentless deconstruction of Superman in particular. But here, when Snyder at least relinquishes enough control to allow some of his darkest instincts to be reined in, resulting in a faster, shorter, and tighter-paced movie in addition to a happier one. I gave BvS a B on first viewing, though in hindsight I'd downgrade that to a C. Justice League, I'll give it a B+ and hopefully it'll stick through the years.
Till next time, Pinecones...
The cherry on top, though, has to be the infamous CGI Supes-face. Done to remove the mustache Henry Cavill had to wear for his next high-profile role in Mission: Impossible 6, it's gotten a lot of noise for giving him what amounts to a poorly animated upper lip. (And why would they even go there anyway? There's precedent for Supes having full facial hair in Man of Steel, after all.) For all that noise, though, I didn't see quite what everyone else was seeing. I saw not so much a CGI mouth as an entire CGI face at times. Not really as bad as the infamous video-game quality Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One last year, but glaring enough to stand out and further drag down many of Supes' scenes, including his inevitable Lois Lane reunion. On that subject, even more than in BvS, Lois feels like such an afterthought, begging the question of why they'd even include her here to begin with and all but waste Amy Adams' time and talent. To be fair, I'm not a big fan of Lois Lane in general, except maybe for Erica Durance's portrayal on Smallville - and maybe Gwenda Bond's YA Lois Lane series if I ever get around to reading those books - but Amy Adams' version of the character, as always, remains tragically underwritten, and is one of the many reasons why I insistently ship SuperWonder instead of Clois.
 |
| On a related note, here's another one to spam Snyder with. I sincerely hope he'll stop trying to make WonderBat happen. Actually, that's probably Whedon doing that. Black Widow and Hulk, anyone? O Zeu kai alloi theoi...in that case, I'll spam them both. |
Though Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon's collaborative effort leaves a little to be desired, it's not anywhere near as dreadful as some of the previous DCEU films. I can't exactly call them "bad," the previous Snyder DCEU movies, because they're really more undesirable than anything else with their relentless deconstruction of Superman in particular. But here, when Snyder at least relinquishes enough control to allow some of his darkest instincts to be reined in, resulting in a faster, shorter, and tighter-paced movie in addition to a happier one. I gave BvS a B on first viewing, though in hindsight I'd downgrade that to a C. Justice League, I'll give it a B+ and hopefully it'll stick through the years.
Till next time, Pinecones...
 |
| #FeedTheRightWolf |
 |
| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
Woah! This is such an interesting post. I was just looking for more shows by Andy Yeatman because I have finished watching the ones available on Netflix. The shows were very entertaining and educating. I hope to find it somewhere online now.
ReplyDelete