Official
Australian release date: 16/11/17. Viewed: 16/11/17.
Director:
Zack Snyder
Actors:
Ben Affleck, Gal Godot, Henry Cavill, Ezra Miller
Genre:
Action / Sci-Fi
Rating:
M
‘Justice League’ is the 5th
film in the DC Extended Universe and, after ‘Wonder Woman’, is their best
attempt to compete with Marvel – even going as far as bringing in ‘The Avengers’
director, Joss Whedon, to write the screenplay. The director, Snyder (who also
directed ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘Batman V Superman’) is only given a “story by”
credit. If you haven’t seen any of those three films, I suggest you do, as this
film starts with Clark/Superman (Cavill) already dead and Batman/Bruce
(Affleck) and Wonder Woman/Diana (Godot) pulling together a super-team to fight
off some impending doom.
There’s the obligatory hour of
introductions to each of the five main characters: Arthur/Aquaman (Momoa), Victor/Cyborg
(Fisher), Barry/Flash (Miller, the best new character) – plus more screen time
for Lois Lane (Adams), Martha Kent (Lane), Commissioner Gordon (Simmons) and Alfred
(Irons), who are all kind of wasted. The plot is that they have to fight off an
alien bent on destroying Earth, with his army of zombie-grasshoppers – directly
ripped off from ‘Star Wars: Attack of the Clones’. It’s an odd choice, since
this should technically be aimed at kids, but I’m not sure if I’d let anyone
younger than 10 watch this…
But that’s part of the problem with the
DCEU so far – it’s still trying to be dark and unforgiving, attempting to reach
Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but not hitting any of the marks. Something’s just missing
that doesn’t hold it all together as well as a Marvel film. And, odd as it may
sound, there’s probably too much CGI here. Not a spoiler: obviously Superman
comes back and helps save the day, but it begs the question – isn’t everyone a
bit suspicious that Clark Kent is now somehow walking around? There’s some
decent quips and a few funny moments, mostly thanks to Flash and some OK battle
scenes. Plenty of enjoyable moments, but not quite a fully-formed faction film.
Overall: Not bad, not great, but a
decent platform.
Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.
