“Aquaman is Cool for the First Time”
(6.5/10)
One of America's favorite superhero teams has finally gotten it's live action debut on the big screen. The Justice League has been seen in various animated series, TV movies, and straight to DVD movies, but this was the first time we have seen The Justice League in this form. This is the movie the DC extended universe (DCEU) was building up to over the past couple of films. The DCEU finally has their most important team-up movie yet, but it didn’t hit as close to the bullseye as they would have hoped. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this movie. It was way more entertaining than Batman V Superman, in my opinion, but it definitely fell short in a lot of departments.
The Story was decent. It gave purpose to all of the characters coming together when they did. The use of the Mother Cubes in various aspects of the plot was a great idea. Instead of them just being the thing the heroes are trying to keep away from the bad guy, we were shown what the Cubes can do and that gave more depth to why they were important. One of the reasons the plot fell short, though, is because they tried to cram a whole lot into this movie. They made this similar mistake in Dawn of Justice. There were too many origin stories trying to told all in one movie. It was almost like they were trying to catch up to what Marvel has built over a decade in the course of a few movies. I just don’t think there was enough setup for Cyborg, Flash, and Aquaman for audiences to care about them that much in this movie and we’re not getting Flash and Cyborg’s potential solo movies until 2020. Even with the little background we were given, I really liked this version of Aquaman. He was just cool. I mean, that’s mainly because Jason Momoa is the epitome of cool, but the way they wrote this character helped that along. I didn’t get enough of Flash’s character to form much of an opinion on him. He was kind of goofy, but he seemed like he was essentially the same flash I know from the comics and animated series, they just made him younger. Of all the characters in this movie, they really focused on Cyborg’s origins the most. They connected him to one the most important things in the story, also known as the Mother Cubes, thus solidifying his place in the plot. Unfortunately, what they didn’t do was make me care about these characters. I know I don’t speak for everyone, but for me, I just haven’t seen enough of this version of these heros to care. If they had given us their origin stories before this film that might be different story. I know the DCEU is trying to do something different from what Marvel has done, but I just really need to see more of these characters. Maybe that was their goal all along; to try and make us want to see more of these characters?
They decided to leave out Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern, which was only slightly disappointing. They were important to the founding of the Justice League in some versions the origin story in the comics, but for the sake of this film leaving them out was a good decision. If they had added them it would have been new character overload. They barely left room for character development as it is, so their absence was not too much of a problem. It actually benefited the cinematic universe and allows for a more natural growth. These two characters can now be added into the League with, hopefully, more backstory. There are a few versions of the origin story. They seem to be using the Prime Earth DC Universe version of the formation of The Justice League. If we go by this version, the only missing hero in the movie is Green Lantern. The rest of the founding members are the same and Martian Manhunter doesn’t join the League until later on. The main villain in the movie, Steppenwolf, replaces the original’s villain Darkseid, but gave him ultimately the same goal. Steppenwolf, in the Prime Earth version of Justice League, is actually a significant part of Darkseid’s evil team and is around when The League first forms. In the comics the Parademons are essential to the reason the founding heroes get together in the first place. Batman meets Green Lantern tracking them through Gotham, and though we don’t see this played out exactly in the film, we do see something similar with only Batman tracking them.
If you haven’t seen the movie this may be spoilery, so here’s your warning:
SPOILER ALERT
Though I am not a huge fan of Ben Affleck’s Batman or Henry Cavill’s Superman, I did enjoy their interactions with the other characters. One of the best parts of the film was when The Flash is trying to attack a confused, angry, and recently resurrected Superman. Superman is able to move as fast as The Flash and it surprises him. That one little look they share made that scene so much funnier. One of the things I didn’t like, and it threw me so far off guard that it was a distraction, was the CG effects. There were some weird CG issues in this movie. Some of the first scenes of the movie include some weird CG proportional distortion in Batman’s fight. It wasn’t all of the effects of course, but there were some significant mishaps. What really bothered me was Henry Cavill’s face. I did a Google search after seeing the movie and found out that Justice League had to do some reshoots. Cavill was in the middle of filming a Mission Impossible movie at the time of the reshoots and he had a mustache for that movie. Long story short, the studio for M:I 6 wouldn’t let him shave it so Warner had to CG it out resulting in a weird looking face for seemed like 50% of Superman’s shots. So, basically, Henry Cavill’s face almost ruined the movie for me.
END SPOILER
Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Flash make this movie really enjoyable and it’s a shame we didn’t get to learn enough about the latter two in this movie and we have to wait to learn more. Aquaman is cool and aloof, Flash is witty and clever, and Wonder Woman is just as fantastic as we remember from her solo film. These three carry this movie and they are definitely three redeeming factors. They bring the fun and the entertainment to the DCEU and I can’t wait to see what Warner is going to do with all of these characters.