Justice League may be a Frankenstein....but it's not monstrous

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.

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool - but they might win awards

I’ve always been slightly underwhelmed by Annette Bening as an actor. Her initial impact in The Grifters (1990) or Bugsy (1991) was incendiary. Here was an actor to capture the imagination; the eye went to whatever she was doing. Lately though, for me, she’s been coasting through a series of unaccountably well-regarded roles in films like The Kids are Alright (2010) or Twentieth Century Women (2016), where she is the very embodiment of first world problems.

However, in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Bening gives what may be the best performance of her career in what may be her most challenging role to date. It is a nuanced, layered, heartfelt performance which is only matched in its ability by that of her co-star Jamie Bell.

The film is the strange but true story of the Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame who, her Hollywood career in decline, came to Britain to appear on stage cashing in on her reflected glory. While in London she met Peter Turner, a struggling young Liverpool actor, and they formed a brief but intense relationship which lasted until she eventually succumbed to illness. In between she spent her time with him and his family in his parents’ council house in Liverpool.

This is unfathomable in our age of instant celebrity but, in the pre-Google era, it is entirely convincing that Peter would have to tipped off by a movie buff barman about the status of his date.

It’s a remarkable story and all the more remarkable for the normality with which it is handled by director Paul McGuigan. Gloria does not lord it over everyone in fact, apart from a tendency to treat Peter as a personal assistant at times, she settles in quite well to this working-class lifestyle. It’s implied, through two monstrously effective cameos from Vanessa Redgrave and Frances Barber, that her own family life was something of a nightmare and by contrast the couthy charm of the Turners presents a Scouse paradise.

But at the heart of this film is a tender and touching love story underpinned by two glorious performances. Bening gives a subtlety textured performance in a demanding role. She has to play Gloria as a movie star coming to terms with her decline, she also has to play an ordinary woman coming to terms with her frailty, as well as playing a four-times married woman coming to terms with being in love for the first time in her life. It would be easy to give it the full Norma Desmond here but Bening’s performance is restrained and generous.

The generosity is reciprocated by director McGuigan who shows a real flair for this kind of material after a career dominated by action fare, albeit well-made. There is a moment at the start of the third act, without giving too much away, where Gloria’s fate is revealed, and an apparently inexplicable decision is explained. McGuigan gives Bening the space to flesh out this unreliable narrative with a performance of enormous tenderness which allows her to display the full intensity of her talent. It is a genuine star turn/.

Jamie Bell, reunited with his screen mum Julie Walters for the first time since Billy Elliott (2000), is not overshadowed. This is a rare opportunity for him to play someone roughly his own age in non-fantasy circumstances. He and Bening move together like a Swiss watch with a performance that complements hers completely without ever losing anything of himself.

While we are handing out compliments, a word of praise for the art department. The film tells its story in flash backs and flash forwards and Eve Stewart’s production design is key to allowing the story to unfold seamlessly despite its fragmented structure.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool has taken a long time to get to the screen. The book was written thirty years ago, and I remember conversations with a leading Scottish film maker twenty years ago about his plans to film it. That filmmaker is not quite so prominent now but there is a certain symmetry in McGuigan, another leading Scottish filmmaker, eventually bringing it to the screen.

It has been worth the wait and, with the right support, this film should be a serious contender in the end of year awards races.