Justice League

Warner Brothers has not had the best of luck with its DC Cinematic Universe. Yes, there was that bright beacon that was Wonder Woman this spring, but the other outings: Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad were all critical duds. Their latest outing is the superhero team-up movie Justice League, and unfortunately it does not continue an upward trend that Wonder Woman might have set.

Justice League picks off with a world without Superman (Henry Cavill), after his death in Batman v. Superman. However, an evil being named Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) comes from space to destroy the earth, so Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) must put up a team of superheroes to stop this new villain; their team will include the introductions of the Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher).

As far as DC movies go this one is pretty enjoyable, the only problem is that it was too by the numbers considering the components this movie had; not only is there a star cast (Amy Adams and Jeremy Irons pop up), but also the possibility of a superhero mash-up that every studio has wanted ever since The Avengers came out in 2012.

The assembling of the team and introduction to new characters is probably the most enjoyable aspects of the film, and you want to spend more time with these characters, but the filmmakers have a sudden lurch to rush to their finale and cram as many unnecessary and never-ending battle sequences into their runtime instead. It should be noted that this film had two directors since Zack Snyder left after a personal tragedy halfway through, and Avengers mastermind Joss Whedon finished the film. The tonal changes are noticeable, but putting that aside, both directors should know better than to rush through character building scenes.

Fortunately Justice League’s cast was game to work with anything thrown their way, so that the brief tacky dialogue they get to exchange is done so to its max possible effect.

Nevertheless, a rushed storyline with skimmed character intros, not to mention a forgettable villain, do this film’s magnitude no justice (no pun intended); we end up getting as generic a superhero film you could get.

6.3/10