JUSTICE LEAGUE And AQUAMAN Actress Amber Heard Covers Allure Magazine

Well, I just saw Justice League...

...and I think I have a sort of different take on the movie than I've been seeing by people I generally agree with. Yes, Justice League is messy and painfully unambitious (I think that's a pretty broad consensus), but beyond that... it actually felt like a fairly appropriate continuation and evolution of the DCEU. That second part is ultimately less important to whether it's a good movie or not (it's mostly not), but it throws a curveball into the overall franchise conversation.

Let's just start with this: the previous Snyder films in this franchise were deadly dull and lifeless throughout most of their run-time. Huge chunks of screentime wasted on emotionally vacuous posturing and logistical nonsense. (Man of Steel was the lesser offender by far, but when either film slowed down for any reason, it got bogged down.) Justice League is no different EXCEPT it looks like someone took a hatchet to those scenes and chucked most of them altogether. And we're all the better for it. Justice League still drags for 2 hours, but it doesn't get bogged down in the muck for dozens of minutes like the previous two films did. As a result of the trimming, the first half is barely coherent and still quite boring, but I have a feeling it could have been so so much worse.

The story is dumb. Just straight up stupid. But again, we've seen Terrio and Snyder's idea of "smart", and this is preferable. Again, I suspect the editors saved us from exposition and backstory overload. And once we get into the second half of the movie, I think I diverge from majority opinion.

I didn't get a whole lot out of the ensemble's interactions. Cyborg is a house-plant, Flash skirts the line between adorably high-functioning autistic and actually just frustrating high-functioning autistic. Aquabro is fine and probably the best we could have gotten with this combination of role/actor/writer. Wonder Woman and Batman are way too focal to have so little to do. And... I just don't see how Superman being slightly less of a dick for 20 minutes works. Not just in terms of being earned, or him being tainted, but... he's really barely in this movie at all. For all the talk of hope, they only brought him back to punch stuff. And he came back and he punched some stuff. And he wasn't a dick (after a few minutes). Snyder has done everything to make us lower our bar of what we want in Superman, but mine is still not that low.

But as a team, there's basically no there-there. It's not an issue with depth (each character gets their own forced moment or two), but chemistry. None of these characters really fit together in any meaningful way. A bit of snark can't plaster over how cold and lifeless these people are when they're with each other. Real human connections are completely absent, and they're stuck in this awkward middleground where everyone is standing side-by-side, but no one actually knows each other.

And it's a tall ask for people to have chemistry in a movie where they only have time for a handful of character moments, but this ensemble remained shallow the entire film. That's not to say it's hopeless (sometimes ensembles gel), but they seemed to be much more cohesive as a group off-screen than on (Affleck and Cavill aside). And the current status of the DCEU suggests they may not get another bite at the apple anyway.

Ultimately, the critics are right, the complaints are right, and even the more mellow defenders are right, it's a bland, inoffensive, and yet still baffling movie. And I'm convinced WB saved it. A few Whedonisms here and there may have made a difference, but this movie's only saving grace is that it doesn't stick around long enough to stink.

In isolation: it's meh. I found it less engaging than some, but also less poorly constructed than the strongest critics say. In baseball terms, it's a bunt. And not a particularly strategic one, either.

As part of the broader DCEU franchise... well, TBD. I'll have more to say about that at some point, and the near future we may learn more context, but the movie wasn't all that interested in building on anything that came before, nor creating a foundation for anything to come after.

Maybe I'm easier to please when it comes to DC than I am with the X-Men, but for what amounts to a very similarly structure film as Apocalypse (which I would give something like a 4/10), for Justice League to get a 6/10 maybe just reveals my own bias. Or maybe I'm just glad it's over.

Why muck up that gorgeous face with too much makeup and jewelry?

...yyyyikes.... (and yuck)