Genre: Action

Director: Zack Snyder

Screenplay: Chris Terrio, Joss Whedon

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, Jason Monoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds

Running Length:  120 minutes

Synopsis: Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s (Henry Cavill) selfless act, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes – Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) – it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

Review: Where to start…? Justice League commits mistakes on so many levels that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it starts to unravel – is it the choice of a bland, generic supervillain? Or the whiplash-inducing changes of pace, probably due to the replacement of Zack Snyder (who quit the show due to a family tragedy) with Joss Whedon, who allegedly reshot 15% – 20% of the movie? Or that the narrative is confused and lacks any coherent focus? Or the decidedly subpar CG visuals (made worse by a very insipid 3D presentation – please stick to 2D for this one)? While it remains a serviceable action film and should make pretty good bank at the box office, the writing is on the wall: the DC Extended Universe is in deep trouble if this movie represents the real trend, and Wonder Woman but a mere anomalous bright spot in what looks like an increasingly untenable franchise.

One of the biggest problems faced by the DCEU is that of tardiness – there’s no denying that Warner Brothers is playing a desperate game of catch-up, being only five movies deep into the DC cinematic mythos, while their Marvel counterpart is far ahead with 17 films already done and dusted. The fact that Justice League is coming before most of the characters’ standalone films (if they even materialize) is a sign of this, and the Justice League film itself suffers narratively because of this. With the need to set up the backstories of multiple superheroes in this ensemble film, the first hour of Justice League moves at a snail’s pace, punctuated only by the occasional murkily choreographed fight sequence that does not feel like central to the plot (see: the battles at Themyscira and Atlantis). Overall, the storytelling in Justice League is a huge, ungainly mess, because it needed to do so many things that nothing really worked.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the buildup of getting the team in place ends up being inconsequential, as the unmemorable Steppenwolf (in a rare feat, Ciarán Hinds’ performance is expensively motion captured and yet looks like a cheap render from a B-movie) is portrayed as being so powerful that it requires a literal deus ex machina to overcome, rendering much of the team-building process moot. That the deus ex machina segment actually is one of the high points of the movie is one of the many little ironies that pervade Justice League. Fortunately, the cast all put in passable performances and exhibit sufficient chemistry with each other, barring Affleck whose turn as an aging Batman is rather insipid and generic.

While it was clear that the pitch-black treatment that Snyder applied to the DC Extended Universe was a wrong move, the reparative actions taken to steer Justice League in the other direction fails to fully convince. It’s clear that Whedon is the one that injected the comedic moments into the film, and while these are fun to watch in silo, it simply does not jibe with the rest of the film. The result is a tonally fragmented film that requires a lot of patience to wade through, and feels like an eternity despite being just two hours long.

Now that Justice League is finally a done deal and likely to be a critic-proof box office hit, Warner Brothers can hopefully finally take some time to let the DCEU develop and steer entirely clear of the shadow Snyder had unfortunately managed to cast on the entire franchise. If the Aquaman movie in 2018 is more akin to Wonder Woman, then at the very least we have some hope that the DCEU will eventually shape up to be a worthy contender to the MCU. That Justice League 2 is still in development without any announced cast, crew or release date is actually good news.

Rating: * * (out of four stars)