Justice League - Entertaining, but riddled with problems

The movie brings in together a team of extremely powerful individuals, superheroes, who have to band together to fight another entity who is stronger than a few of them but would have been beaten by Diana and Kal El. Oops…that’s right Superman is resurrected. But it was an open secret anyway. I mean that CGI muzzle really made my companion unsettled because it was a blatant distraction to everything else that was going on. It goes to show that there aren't a great many things to focus on.

That’s kind of flaw here. This movie is pretty good when it comes to these unimaginably powerful being unleashing their ferocious power, but on other occasions, when it tries to make a sombre or sincere moment, or while trying to create an origin story, it feels contrived and flat, there is a great of empathy.

That’s something that you would want to have in a movie where a sinister being is trying to make the planet into a literal hellhole, but we never really care about the inhabitants of the planet, who are represented by a Russian family, who literally lives in the middle of nowhere. The actions of these noble heroes are to save the people of the earth, yet we feel like they are only a means to an end, that the quest that they are serving is merely a team-building exercise.

Another problem that is quite glaring, but is not necessarily a problem, so much as it is a mismatch, is that there is a huge tonal difference inherent in the film. Zack Snyder’s part makes the film a dark and brooding one where the characters are seriously discussing their own internal plights or what is going to happen to the world, or their plans of conquering it, while abruptly in the middle of such scenes, we get a whiff of Joss Whedon who inserts a joke or a sly observation that will make people, as many in the audience did, but was diametrically opposite to the scenes just prior or the context.

I will list out the other problems that I had with this film:

1.       Batman – This character is going nowhere in terms of development, he is just there to give exposition, leadership advice, and of course, brooding.

2.       Aquaman and Cyborg- Their origin stories fell flat, and they seem to be just stereotypes, the former being a brash and brawny tough guy, while the other reluctant scientist. Superhero character tropes. But there was a moment where Aquaman’s personality shone through.

3.       Supporting characters – Lois Lane, Martha (Superman’s mom), Commissioner of Gotham (played by J.K. Simmons}, and Alfred (played by the great Jeremy Irons), all were just instruments, and not really memorable.

Fundamentally, the problem lies with the script and how the characters were developed.

Now, the good things. You might have noticed how I didn’t mention the Flash. That’s because he was the best part of the movie. His origin story is also insincere and half-hearted, but he is the one with a fully developed personality, and he just made things more human than all the others on screen. Ezra gave a really good performance, and he made the character sympathetic, funny, and someone to cheer for.

Diana, or Wonder Woman, played by Gal, is another shining beacon, in this movie, she is captivating, not only because of her gorgeous looks but because she is the most sincere. She puts heart into everything she does, and when she fights, oh boy, she is the best of the bunch, even the more powerful Superman, cannot match the charisma of Wonder Woman.

Henry Cavill played a good Superman, and he was the centre of a really good fight scene between himself and the rest of his Justice League teammates. That’s another facet of the film that makes the film good, it has some ordinary fight scenes, and then there are three pretty good ones - the one that I mentioned just prior, the brilliant one from Wonder Woman in the beginning (now you might be thinking that I am just ogling over her), and the pretty good underwater scene when Steppenwolf goes to fight the Atlanteans.

The entertaining parts just shone brightly enough to make the movie a hit I predict, yet these problems must be addressed and the movie needs to chip off these things and stick to what is really good at, or what it is supposed to be, a movie where we can witness how good triumphs over evil with the help of endearing characters who we can root for and evil ones that we want to be vanquished while we vicariously seeing through the lens of human characters the surreal events that unfold before their eyes.