I cannot think of a film I wanted to see less than Justice League. Everything about the project sounded alarm bells; from the
tin-eared track record of Zack Snyder to the traducing of cherished characters
to the general lack of competent execution of what we must now call the DC
Extended Universe (DCEU). Every trailer, every clip, every public utterance confirmed
me in my resolve. Yet there I was on opening day, having paid for a ticket, and
waiting for the lights to go down.
Guess what? It doesn’t suck. That may sound like
damning with faint praise, but I could have said it’s the second best movie in
the DCEU which is just the same I suppose. But to be honest there is enough to
like in this film to make it worth the money.
One of the first comics I ever read was Justice League of America # 28. The US cover
date was June 1964 but Lord knows when it made it to Springburn. Anyway, I
couldn’t have been more than 8 and I thought it was the coolest thing I had
ever read; all of those great superheroes in one place and so exciting! I haven’t
missed an issue since; if there is such a thing as comic book DNA then the JLA
is in mine. That’s why against my better judgement there I was waiting to be
entertained.
With the exception of Wonder Woman (2017), I haven’t enjoyed a single film in the DCEU,
largely because they’ve all been made under the creative aegis of Zack Snyder.
As such they are full of bad CGI, barely literate scripts, and a casual sexism
and borderline racism that is very worrying given the target audience is teenage
boys. For several reasons Snyder had to leave Justice League midway through production and Joss Whedon was
drafted in as a backstop. The resulting film is something of a Frankenstein production
but there is enough life in Whedon’s contribution to offset the pervasive
necrosis of Snyder’s work.
What’s wrong with it? The general heavy-handedness;
the cringe-making opening; the fact that each of the characters is introduced in
their own little mini-movie; the fact that it takes a full hour – half its
running time – to get everyone back together. The villain, Steppenwolf, is dreadful
and looks like a World of Warcraft
reject, the plot is a contrivance to get Superman back on the playing field,
and some of the characterisation is way off. Aquaman is the King of Atlantis
not some aquatic oaf and The Flash is the foundation hero of the Silver Age of
Comics, not some whiney emo snowflake. I could go on but those are just some of
the lowlights.
So why go see it? There are lovely character touches
which, unless Snyder has had a conversion to rival Paul the evangelist, are plainly
the work of Whedon. For the first time in ages this is a DC movie which is
relatively kid-friendly.
Wonder Woman is once again wonderful, there’s a
nice moment with her lasso of truth and Aquaman. Diane Lane is super as Martha
Kent and let’s face it they owe her after Batman
vs. Superman (2016). There is subtlety and nuance here which has been spectacularly
absent from the previous films. Also, it looks like Whedon ‘gets’ Superman.
Even with the wooden Henry Cavill this is the best screen characterisation of
the Man of Steel in years.
The story also shows signs of being changed for
the better. This is ostensibly based on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World series with the all-pervasive threat of Darkseid Lord
of Apokolips ready to conquer the universe with the omnipotent Mother Box. The
components are hidden in separate locations including Atlantis and Themyscira,
so the Justice League is involved in protecting them. This is the sort of thud
and blunder stuff which would have been meat and drink to Snyder. Steppenwolf is
Darkeid’s uncle but happily he seems to exist in isolation here. There’s
extensive use of narration over the origin sequences which suggests we are not
going down the Apokolips route for which we should be grateful.
Whedon seems determined to lighten the mood. In
the good old days DC was the primary colour universe of fantastical and frankly
preposterous stories; Marvel was where you went for your grim and gritty
naturalism. In publishing, DC have had recent success with their back to basics
‘Rebirth’ exercise, which focuses on heroism and adventure and it looks like
the films are going the same way.
This is a bit like turning an oil tanker; it’ll
take time. However, under Whedon it looks like the manoeuvre has begun and with
the newly-appointed co-chair of DC Films Geoff Johns – who learned his craft
from Richard Donner – the ship appears to be finally heading in the right
direction.
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