My friend and I have something of a tradition the last few years to message each other every Wednesday and excitedly talk about the new comic books of the week. The problem we have recently is that there’s not an awful lot out at the moment that either of us are getting that excited about. The last time we had a proper conversation about comic books was when Batman proposed to Catwoman. Otherwise our conversations have been brief, just stating that there’s a few nice variants out or that one of us is really interested in something and the other isn’t (which is normally me, when a certain webbed-heroine swings into my eBay shopping cart every month. More of that next week, probably). So, since I wanted to write SOMETHING comic book related, as it’s Wednesday, I decided to do a blog entry about the movies instead, and when I think about comic book movies today there’s only one subject that springs to mind: why I’m worried about Justice League.
Let me start out by saying that I hope I’m wrong about everything I’m worried about. I hope this film knocks it out of the park. DC need to start scoring some big points with the DCEU after all, because so far they’ve… not exactly been that good. Let me make one exception to that statement, and that is to say that I cannot say enough nice things about Wonder Woman. There have been some fantastic movies this year but that one is in the running for my favourite movie so far in 2017. It’s tough competition though, not only from other super hero movies but also from War for the Planet of the Apes, which I absolutely loved. If Justice League turns out to be even half as good as Wonder Woman was then I’ll hold my hands up and proclaim I was wrong about everything and worried for nothing. But the fact is that as much as I want to get excited about it… I’m really worried it’s going to be worse than Batman vs. Superman, which was not only an epic disappointment but actually makes my list of the WORST comic book movies of the last few years.
This isn’t going to be me slandering Zack Synder nonstop. I have nothing against the guy. I’ve liked quite a few of his films. I’ve just not liked anything he’s done for DC so far. One of my best friends may be reading this right now and cursing my name for saying that, but I’ve got to be honest. Man of Steel is an ok movie. I won’t say I hated it, but I can’t say I liked it either. I wanted to, I really did, but all those reasons that people give for disliking this film are, unfortunately, just true. It was one of the dullest (in terms of colour palette) films, like the entire team enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s Batman films TOO much and decided to use the same colour palette. On top of that there are points in the movie that just make me cringe, like his father’s death scene which just made such little sense. Ok, so he had to die for the sake of the Superman mythos, I get that, but that was honestly the best way they could come up with for it? It made no sense and honestly was just stupid. Then there’s the battle scene at the end, which I know everyone talks about – and Batman vs Superman tried way too hard to compensate for – but once again the criticism is true.
I get the fact that these are god-like beings fighting. That’s my biggest criticism of Superman in the first place, being that he is TOO god-like and his power-set just means that he could destroy half a city in a brawl with an enemy and still it meant nothing to me. But it’s not only the collateral damage there either, it’s the fact that they did destroy half a city in their battle and still I just can’t bring myself to even care. Superman was never in any real danger. There was never any chance of him, or any of the main cast, dying. And to watch him kill Zod because Zod may have killed a few innocents, when Superman and Zod have just smashed half a city to pieces and killed tens of thousands of others, just felt like they were trying to make it this dramatic and heart wrenching decision when it just… wasn’t. There were good points in the movie as well, I’d be a liar if I said there weren’t, but when the big dramatic finale of the film fails in such a spectacular way it’s hard to look back on the film with anything but a sense of disappointment for what it could have been.
Then we skip forward to Batman vs. Superman, and yet again that feeling of disappointment is all I have when I think about this film. I can’t blame Zack Synder for that, I blame the writers for it if anything considering – again – this film could have been something special and it just wasn’t. It could have been a momentous moment of cinema history with the big-screen debut of Wonder Woman, the first ever appearance of DC’s Trinity on screen together, a battle between two of the most iconic characters not just in comic-book history but in pop-culture history, but instead we got a complete train-wreck of a film with almost no redeeming features. The best thing about this film was Wonder Woman, and I have to think that if she’d actually gotten any serious screen-time in it then that probably would have killed her as well, because it sure as hell killed Batman. The character of Batman, known throughout comic books as ‘The World’s Greatest Detective’, was a moron who got played the entire film, and who spent the entire film developing a grudge against an all-powerful alien (remember, if there’s even a 1% chance he could turn against them then blah, blah, blah) who instantly forgot every reason we’d been fed for him hating Superman because he found out their mothers had the same name! Thank god Lex’s mother isn’t also called Martha or Batman would be breaking him out of prison for them to go on a billionaire’s cruise together.
The film spent so much time introducing plots that it did absolutely nothing with, had by far the stupidest version of Lex Luthor we’ve ever seen in television or comics, had one of it’s main characters spending the whole film moping that people didn’t all love him while apparently stalking his girlfriend so he could be there every possible time she needed him (but is apparently cool with anyone else being in trouble, as long as they’re not sleeping with him) and the other main character go on weird Ghost Rider/Punisher-like sprees of evil while also being a vigilante that nobody seems to know anything about… even though there’s also a giant fucking Bat signal on the roof of the police station?! Seriously, don’t they call him the “Bat vigilante” at some point, or something similar, when he’s meant to have been around for something like 15 fucking years?! They simultaneously have a mysterious vigilante who everyone is shocked by, while also having all these stupid Easter eggs to imply that he’s been doing this for years. Which one is it? Does everyone in Gotham know about him, but nobody in Metropolis ever heard of him before now… even though Gotham is apparently a suburb of Metropolis? And that’s another thing: why the hell are the cities NEXT TO EACH OTHER? Was there even anything in between them or did they just literally run into each other on the map?
That isn’t even all my problems with Batman vs Superman either, that’s just a small taste of how I honestly believe they worked so hard to cram random stuff into the film that they didn’t actually stop at any stage to ask themselves if any of it made any sense or even told a cohesive story (spoiler: it doesn’t). So, when we now have the sequel to both of these films, which started off “ok, a bit disappointing” and slipped to “so terrible I can’t even force myself to watch it again”, am I really meant to be cheerfully optimistic that the third one is going to suddenly take a giant leap in a positive direction? I suppose judging it based on how we got to this point is a little unfair. It’s possible that they’ve learned from their mistakes and the criticisms and Justice League is going to address every single one of them (without ACTUALLY addressing them, like Batman vs Superman tried to do with the ridiculous references to the destruction of Metropolis and then us being told by about twelve different characters that destroying THIS bit of the city is ok because there’s nobody working there). I hope it’s the case that they’ve learned and they’re about to deliver something that blows us away… but then today I saw a YouTube video in my recommended videos (which is hardly the greatest source of information I’ll grant you) the title of which claimed the first cut of Justice League was booed by the people who watched it. That… doesn’t inspire confidence.
I hope that’s wrong. I hope they haven’t even completed a first cut yet. But given the epic disappointments that have been Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman and even Suicide Squad (don’t get me started on the things I dislike about Suicide Squad, even if it was the least-bad of the films I just listed) I’m not sure that saying I shouldn’t pre-judge the film is a valid argument. I wouldn’t pre-judge it either if I had something good to work with that inspired confidence in me, but so far the trailers haven’t really gotten me that confident, and I know people are buying the merchandise already and I’m worried that they’ll ultimately end up regretting it. That may not be the case, and the merchandise may be the most collectible things of the year by the time Christmas comes around and everything everywhere is sold out… but I’m not sure I have the faith enough to believe that based on the available evidence, by which I mean the trailers.
So, let’s talk about the trailers, shall we? I won’t deny that I got excited to see the first trailer when it came out. I had a little “ooh” in excitement when I was given the link, and hurried to watch it on my iPhone at work… and then hoped it was just the fact that I was at work and watched it on an iPhone screen that gave me a sinking feeling about it. My first thought was that the CGI wasn’t all that. Cyborg in the trailers LOOKS like a CGI character, and that’s never a good thing. Not when you look at the trailers for War for the Planet of the Apes, and even Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, and the CGI characters seem seamless and lifelike, and then you have Cyborg who looks a little unfinished and improperly rendered. That’s a pretty harsh reason to discount the whole film though, right? So, I tried to push past it, only to see the Batman in the trailers thus far is a giant fucking douche. He was a moron in Batman vs. Superman, but in the trailers for Justice League he just seems like a douche. The whole “I’m rich” thing with Flash is obviously meant to be funny, but it doesn’t come off as funny. Much like the bit with Batman and Commissioner Gordon doesn’t come off as particularly funny either. I’m sure it’s meant to be… but it’s just not.
Then there’s the colours in the trailer. So, remember how BEAUTIFUL Wonder Woman looked on the island with the lush scenery, gorgeous beaches and amazing visuals? Sure you do. Man, that island really DID look like paradise. Now go watch the beginning of the Justice League trailer. We get a shot of Bruce standing on a cliff looking down at some grass that’s just stuck with me this whole time because… the grass isn’t even green. The grass is kind of blue, because once again the colours are so washed out and dull that I’m worried I’ll need to bring a torch to shine at the screen in the cinema just to provide some kind of light source in the room, because it won’t be coming from the projector! Even Wonder Woman’s costume, which looks AMAZING in her own film, looks blander due to the complete lack of a colour palette in the trailers. That doesn’t many any of the characters look particularly appealing to me.
Let’s not stop there though, let’s talk about the whole “gun down everything in sight” aspect of this version of Batman. Is this meant to be exciting? Am I meant to be shaking in anticipation to watch this version of Batman mow down everything in his way with machine guns? I mean, that’s at least good continuity considering that’s all he did in Batman vs. Superman too, wasn’t it? There was the fight scene in the warehouse, which was utterly incredible, but other than that it was Batman with guns just killing indiscriminately and running people off the road… because that’s the kind of hero we need in our lives! It looks like more of the same. And considering I want to be excited for Aquaman (I seriously love Jason Momoa… and you can interpret that however you want because I mean it in every possible way) but I’m worried that seeing him in this film is going to ruin the potential debut and future marketability of Aquaman as its own franchise. In fact, based just on the trailer I’m worried so much about the future marketability of the characters that I’m scared Flash is going to be dragged down by this as well, and this is coming from someone who ADORES the Arrowverse spin-off TV show, the character, and was just this past weekend singing the praises of the version from the old Justice League/Justice League Unlimited animated show.
Based just on the trailers, and what’s been reported in the media about Joss Whedon being brought in “to finish the film” and then apparently doing reshoots and lord knows what else, is it wrong that I’m scared that this film is going to be just as much of a clusterfuck of a film as Batman vs. Superman? Is it wrong that I’m worried that the focus of the film is going to be all over the place, with characters getting variable screen-time and randomly inconsistent origin stories (much like Suicide Squad gave us)? You have no idea how much I want to be wrong about everything I’ve written. I want to sit down in the cinema and be treated to a movie that just blows me away (like Wonder Woman did, because I was scared going into that film and left wanting to buy a ticket and watch it a second time straight away). I want to see a film that I want to watch on repeat before buying the Blu-ray the day it’s out, sitting down with my sound bar up high and my lights down low to enjoy the whole thing again, and then go and find people on the street to randomly tell them to rush to the store and buy their own copy. I want this to be the best film of the year, and even better than Avengers was for Marvel… but I just don’t believe it will be, and that saddens me.
Bruce: I’m a douche!
I hope that with Joss Whedon brought in he’ll be given the time, money and capability to make changes that’ll brighten the film up visually, change the sense of humour (or lack thereof) that we’ve seen in the trailers thus far, and improve upon the appearance of the characters (especially Cyborg. Man, I want him to look cool so much… but the trailers don’t inspire me for that). I don’t think that even Joss will be able to do that though. You have no idea how much I love that man (this time not physically… although that said…) and how much I respect his previous projects, but I don’t think there’s anyone alive who can turn around my opinion of this film right now. Unless something very dramatic changes in the next few months I’m going to sit down in that cinema, hold my breath and hope that it’s better than I’m dreading it will be. And if it is, maybe that’ll be enough. If it’s “ok” or even “good-ish” then maybe that’ll be an epic win for the DCEU, and they can move forward into the solo films (and Wonder Woman 2, which I want so badly I want to travel forward in time just to watch it… dammit Barry, why can’t you be real?) and Justice League 2 and find something that truly works for the movies and sets them apart from the failed efforts before now. I want this to be the case… but I’m just not convinced it will be.
So, that’s my reasons for being worried about Justice League. Say what you will, tell me I’m wrong about everything and actually YOU really like dark movies with no colour in them that have no humour and the main characters come off as complete douches and hey, if that’s your thing more power to you. To each their own, right? Who am I to judge your tastes? But I’ve made my case for why I’m worried, and only time will tell if that worry is completely unjustified or not.
Random slightly-related note: why the hell hasn’t Wonder Woman made more money? $797m worldwide ain’t nothing to be scoffed at, don’t get me wrong, but “The Fate of the Furious” made $1.238 BILLION and compared to that, $797m just doesn’t feel right for such an incredible film. Hell, it’s not too far above Dead Men Tell No Tales and that film wasn’t anywhere near as good as it. What happened, people? Why didn’t you pay to go see it? You should have. At least buy the Blu-ray. Or better yet, buy ME the Blu-ray. What? A girl can dream, can’t she?