This is it.  We’re finally here folks. This is the movie we have been waiting patiently for over many years now. It’s the movie that we as fans of these great iconic characters so rightly deserve. This moment that we are currently living is about to change human history for the better and it will be a tale that we’ll still be telling generations from now and we will go down as legends for being alive to witness firsthand the Warner Bros/Zack Snyder/Jose Whedon 2017 Box Office Bomb with a 40% score from Rotten Tomatoes –  JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Introduction: Justice League is literally the instruction manual on how to completely stuff up your superhero universe. It only took 5 years and 4 movies and the payoff completely fell flat on it’s under planned face. I honestly wasn’t excited at all for this movie when it was first announced. I don’t really remember much hype at all about this movie except from those hardcore DC fans who find it extremely difficult to admit when a movie sucks. If you haven’t guessed already, I think this movie is a failure, so let’s discuss why.

How To Ruin The Justice League: I can’t say this enough, these DC movies are made by people who fail to understand what makes these characters so great and at this point you can see that the writers flat out don’t care what makes them so great. The obvious reason for why the Justice League failed is because the people at DC didn’t make a long term plan, they just kind of half assed it. If you look at Marvel or even the DC animated series from the 90’s they had well thought out plans put together by  dedicated and talented writers who worked to enrich their universe and their characters.

Looking back on The MCU I think from Iron Man 2 onwards they found their path and they kept marching forward and haven’t stopped, while billions of fans throw money at them as they climb higher up the mountain. Phase 1 of the MCU was all about setting up The Avengers and they set them up well enough so that when they finally come together it felt extremely satisfying. The Avengers worked because Marvel took their time to introduce each member so you would want to see more movies with them and finally seeing them all together is your Christmas present for being a good sport.

As I have been going through these movies I looked in detail at where they stumbled repeatedly down the same set of stairs. So this is the payoff from 4 movies, they have been teasing this for 3 movies and what we’ve got isn’t very satisfying and it’s more than disappointing. The reason is that half of the team we haven’t even met before in this universe, the other half only having two of them being fully developed and the other one not having enough development. You’ve also got to factor in that nothing has been set-up requiring these heroes to come together besides the vague hints of something super bad and dangerous and the reasoning for coming together is because there is a file of us on the internet and Superman is dead, he would’ve wanted it this way.

Along with that there was the departure of Zack Snyder, Warner Bros’ constant interference, multiple rewrites while filming, Jose Whedon re-filming certain scenes and the clanger of the movie costing much more than expected without any on-screen payoff. So the big movie that was supposed to elevate the DCEU to new heights ended up being the lowest grossing movie in the entire DCEU!!

Set-Up: The Movie: The opening of this movie shows what remains of Zack Snyder’s original vision because it shows his slow-mo visual style of people mourning Superman. Since darkness no long exists in this universe it just looks really dull compared to the other Snyder films. Then you get an action scene of some men in suits with a bomb holding hostages. Wonder Woman is on the case and finds out that the terrorists plan to blow up four city blocks and I’m guessing they intend to die too. I don’t see the point of holding hostages if you’re just going to blow yourselves up anyway. If you want to do a better job then go into a busy crowd and BOOM, no need for hostages. But if anyone did anything logical then Wonder Woman wouldn’t be able to jump in with her stupid slow-mo Amazonian kicks.

After that Bruce Wayne goes super hero hunting and this is where we meet Arthur Curry aka Hippy Rock Star Man and we know nothing about him except that he’s really chilled out and his superpower is that he can talk to fish because that joke hasn’t been done to death already, right DC? He later meets Barry Allen aka Spiderman and he’s the quirky nerd character with a dark backstory. After that Bruce Wayne tells Alfred he needs to get Diana on the team, even though I thought she was already on the team. Next scene she’s there and Bruce never even asks if she wants to join the team! Diana offers to help recruit our next super freak Victor Stone aka boring mumbo jumbo smart language talking thing and he’s just really boring and serious because the superhero team building rulebook says you need one serious guy to break up the quirky characters and so we nominate Mr. Robot man.

After that I’m guessing the writers finally remembered that they needed a villain so Bruce and Alfred find in Lex Luthor’s notes something to do with squares. Apparently these squares are so important to the universe that they completely forgot to mention them in Batman vs Superman. So on Lady island we’re introduced to the main villain of Justice League and he’s another Evil God Guy with a horned helmet and this one is somehow much worst than the last guy. Looking back on my Man of Steel review, Zod is ironically the best DCEU villain and every villain after him just got progressively worse. This latest villain I would say might be the worst for how generically evil he is and I hate him because he never shuts up, I just wish the Justice League defeated him by stuffing his mouth with dirty socks.

The Not So Super Friends: So monster of the week’s plan is to use the three square things of doom to do something evil. Do you honestly care? In the meantime let’s talk about our team of heroes who have as much chemistry as a boardroom of executives discussing super hero franchises. Seriously, when I watched this movie I never felt any connection between any of these characters – it’s like the team dynamic was an afterthought for The Justice League writers. I guess the only relationship I could see was between Batman and Wonder Woman but it doesn’t feel like anything because it’s so under developed. All these characters feel very under developed except for Wonder Woman because she’s the only one with a proper backstory and having an actual character besides having a trait. Suicide Squad had better character interactions than this and that’s just depressing, more depressing than BvS. (I’m on a roll folks.)

I was kind of mean to Gal Gadot in my last DC review but that was mostly because she was surrounded by much better actors, unlike in this one where she is actually decent and everyone else sucks. Ezra Miller as The Flash is one I kind of liked, his character stunk but I liked his performance and, I’m sick of saying this, in a better movie (or better universe) I think he could have pulled it off.  Same with Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher – in better movies they could possibly pull it off. The worst hero in the Justice League is Batman because his character is just terrible and Ben Affleck clearly wants to be far far away from this sinking ship. He appears to be really bored and they messed with his character so much that I think the league would be better off without the bored knight.

So later in the movie Batman decides they should bring Superman back, don’t know why, just because no one else can stop the evil horned man. (Did they forget Wonder Woman stopped a god once?) Stuff happens that I don’t care to express and Supes is back, this time more cheerful than his previous broody self. Superman abandons his friends to be with his beloved Lois and it’s nice to finally see a more heart filled Superman and it’s also nice that Lois Lane is only in three scenes in the whole movie!

Cartoony Fun Third Act: I think it’s about time I talked about the blown budget again because apparently the movie cost $300 million and yet the CG is horrendously bad. Every shot in this movie looks like a cheap Nickelodeon TV special but with big actors. The effects look way worse than they were in Wonder Woman – it looks so bad that I don’t know how they even let it be released in theaters. Probably the most prominent example is the CG work on Henry Cavil’s face. During Jose Whedon’s rein Henry Cavil grew a moustache for his latest film Mission Impossible: Fallout. So the VFX team had to digitally remove it and it’s kind of hard not to look at certain scenes and go ‘Superman, something is wrong with your upper lip’!

So we’re finally at the last act. It’s like the ending to every other DC movie in this series except this time it’s more light hearted and fun, which is a bit of a staple of Jose Whedon’s writing. A little detour about the humour as you can clearly tell where Zack Snyder’s writing meets Jose Whedon’s because most scenes end with an unfunny joke that completely ruins the tone of the scene. (If there was a tone to begin with.) So back to the last act as it’s kind of like stuff happens and then I wake up looking at the credits. This final battle feels very small scale which doesn’t sound like a good sign for a movie like this. I’m guessing we’ll never see the Justice League fight in a densely populated city ever again because, you know why. The only people in this unnamed town that we see is a small family that gets an absurd amount of screen time. They hide in their house from the bad guys, they run away from their house and The Flash saves them. The End. All this takes place over 5 scenes and I cannot understand the logic in showing boring random civilians unless they’re going to play a large part in the story.

In the end they stop whatever the hell his name was, they go back to their day and the movie is over until two more end credit scenes show up. The first one has Superman and The Flash competing in a race, kind of like what they do in the comics. It was at this point in the movie, after my brain got over the numbness, that I realised this is the only fun scene in the whole movie. The other one has Lex Luthor talking about setting up his own EVIL Justice League and all I hope for is that they set these characters up better than the heroes were.

Conclusion: Justice League is a complete failure in my opinion and this terrible company got what they so rightfully deserve and hopefully this will give them the hint, and other studios also, that we expect a lot better from our franchises.  So here we are at the end of a fun little journey so let’s end this with a little ranking because there is no other way to end a series.

Best Character of the Movie

1. Steve Trevor (WW) – Chris Pine was really good and his character has depth.
2. Alfred Pennyworth (JL) – The only character I didn’t want to punch in the face.
3. El Diablo (SS) – The character I found the most tolerable.
4. Perry White (MoS & BvS) – I find him the only character I would want to hang out with in this universe.

Worst Character of the Movie

1. Superman (BvS) – There is so much wrong with this character that I’m not going to say why.
2. Ares (WW) – The British accent along with the stupid plot twist.
3. Killer Croc (SS) – The voice and I was so close to just saying everyone.
4. Steppenwolf (JL) – The voice along with other things.
5. Jonathan Kent (MoS) – The reason for being so low is because he dies so early on.

The Actual Best Character of the Movie

1. Lex Luthor (BvS) – DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING.
2. General Zod (MoS) – I WILL FIND THEM!!
3. The Enchantress (SS) – Sadly this clip features no belly dancing
4. General Erich Ludendorff (WW) – Luddendorff, Enough!
5. Aquaman (JL) – You dress like a bat, I dig it.

Worst Final Acts

1. The Worst Plot Twist in Human History (WW)
2. Saturday Night Cartoon Fun (JL)
3. Cave Troll v Broody Heroes: Dawn of the Light Show (BvS)
4. The Suicide Squad’s wet light show (SS)
5. Superman murdering everyone in Metropolis (MoS)

Best Members of The Justice League

1. Wonder Woman
2. Superman
3. The Flash
4. Aquaman
5. Cyborg
6. Batman

Best Villains

1. General Zod
2. Lex Luthor
3. Amanda Waller
4. Enchantress
5. Ludendorff & Dr Poison
6. Steppenwolf
7. Ares
8. The Joker

Best DCEU Movies So Far

1. Man of Steel 5/10
2. Wonder Woman 4/10
3. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice 3/10
4. Suicide Squad 0/10 (BC’s Epic Fail)
5. Justice League -1/10 (BC’s Epic Fail)

That’ll do for another review. I hoped you enjoyed this little series and leave some comments on what other series you want me to tackle in this format. So if you made it this far then congrats you made it to the end and you’ll be one of the first to know that next year I want to review a series of movies that have gone for many decades now and it’s something I hope to do for most of next year so stay tuned.

I’m The Blog Complainer and I’ll see you again at the same blog time, same blog channel. (I have only now just thought of it, I swear.)