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Just came back from the pre-premiere of the movie and if you asked me to describe DCEU's latest (and most important) film so far, I'd borrow a sentence I heard somewhere else: "It looks like a Snyder movie but it plays like a Whedon one."
After Snyder's daughter passed away and he was forced to drop off the project, Whedon was allowed to finish things up and he definitely did more than just say "yea, this is ok". His signature is clearly seen throughout the film and while this will make everyone who wanted a more "normal" cinema experience from DC happy but for that same reason it also made me disappointed.
In many ways this is a more normal superhero movie than Batman v Superman was. It has ton of action, it's fast-paced, has lots of humour and is simple and easy to follow. While I am fine with everything else, the last bit is what I have a problem with, or the degree of it to be precise. The film plays like a Marvel film would, but it plays like a dumb Marvel film. The story here had potential; Batman goes on to gather all these mysterious folks and they overcome their differences to fight the big bad. The problem is, most of it is poorly executed.
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To contrast BvS' long, slowly-revealed story with action being put off till the last moment, Justice League bombards us with entertaining and spectacular fights (truly nothing to complain about here, better coreography than a lot of things Marvel has done) but it also tries to not make your head hurt by laying bare what the story is all at once. Right at the first part of the movie, we're told who the bad guy is, what he wants and what needs to be done to stop him (in a really really cheap and unimaginative way) and from there on we already can see how the rest of the movie will play out.
The movie would've degraded into utter predictability if there wasn't an inner conflict between the League memebers which takes a different form from simple "recruit issues" we saw in Avengers. The conflict definitely makes for the most interesting, funny, original and entertaining parts of the whole movie. Too bad that we're thrown back into the predictable generic "bad guy wants to destroy the world" story.
SUMMARY
So is Justice League good? Well the answer to this will depend on one thing. If you can get over the bland and generic villain and the boring and predictable alien invasion plot and are here for tons of action and laughs (and trust me, the Flash, Aquaman and even Batman will make you laugh) while enjoying the epic sight of all these heroes finallly working together how heroes should work, then yes you will love the movie. If however you came expecting a more "Snyder-like" experience with a complicated story, you will walk out underwhelmed. You will instead be greeted with a Marvel-like film which is overall what you'd expect from a blockbuster hero film - it's loud, funny, action-packed and visually beautiful but at the same time not something that will make you use your brain much.
+ character dynamic
+ action coreography and visuals
+ great conflict between league members
+ good jokes
bland and uninteresting story and villain -
recruitment scenes feel rushed -
certain character's backstories aren't satisfactorly revelaed -
recruitment scenes feel rushed -
certain character's backstories aren't satisfactorly revelaed -
SCORE: 6.5/10
