Less than 30 days ago I watched Marvel’s Thor Ragnarok, which is surprisingly very very entertaining, I’m talking if its compares to its two previous movies, and ended up with me losing my faith in the upcoming DC comics’ Justice League. I’m thinking that Thor Ragnarok just hit the ball straight out of the park, not only that they set a new level, but invent a new concept of how to bring comic book superheroes to the cinematic world; and there’s no way in hell that the next DC comics’ movie is going to be that good.Sure DC had their heyday with Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but after that, personally I think, things went south for Warner Bros. Despite the success of Wonder Woman, I still had my doubt on the Justice League. Marvel took a decade to assemble the Avengers, the studio introduce each characters through years of process to make the audience familiar to the kind of Loki, infinity stones and Groot to the “muggle” of comic world out there. Now DC comics is trying to introduce their version super friends after three movies? You see how pessimistic I am right? But apparently Justice League surprised me.
Less than 12 hours ago I watched Justice League and my prediction was spot on. It was not as entertaining as Thor Ragnarok, but it somehow it impressed me more compare to Thor Ragnarok. It still has that Zack Snyder’s gloomy and blue-yellowish color through out the movie, apparently DC is still into darker tone. As for the cast, I had my doubt the first time I saw the cast line up, but I was wrong. This is the perfect cast for Justice League movie. I can see how they put effort to bring the big three characters to live according to comic book. Supes is full of hope, Diana is still struggling with her idealism and her past, and last, Batman, although he looks like he’s on something the whole movie, but he’s starting to reflect the Batman version of comic book, the insecure one; the only human in the league without super power. However, I get a sense that because DC is trying to focus on the big three, the other Justice League member’s character left a bit under develop. As if they only associates the Flash as the funny one, Aquaman as the muscle, and Cyborg as the geeky one. I’m expecting the presence of Green Lantern on the next Justice League movie, it’s no JLA without the emerald knights; also Martian Manhunter. In the end, the cast and their role really do impress me.
Plot-wise, I would have to go with average. While Marvel’s movie is full of twist, DC is plain. They need to improve by adding drama to create curiosity and enthusiast for the audience. However, in the bigger picture, I sense that DC is trying to introduce its superheroes after this big movie, while its contrary for in the Marvel world. They build the characters through time heading to the first Avengers movie. For me personally, its a gambling move. What if Justice League failed? It would be a very hard homework to leverage the audience trust towards the DC’s movies in the future. Fortunately, it works, all the sins from BvS and Suicide Squad is paid, at least 3/4 of it. This leaves another good impression for me.
As for the script, DC is still left far behind Marvel creative team. I understand the challenge of combining stories from comic books to create a new storyline, but DC need to learn a lot from Marvel for this case. I like the tale scene (amazon, atlantian, lanterns, human, and gods), but I still find few scenes with bad script that makes the scene existence is unnecessary in the movie. DC have to learn to make the combination and transition as smooth as possible. Remember the infinity stones as the bigger storyline, with small chapter as Shield vs Hydra, Howard Stark assassination, civil war, etc? DC can’t just come up with merging one of the best story in DC comics history, The World Without Superman & The Return of Superman, with the Mother Boxes plot, it has to be more smooth. But if I compare it to BvS & Suicide Squad, Justice League is way ahead of its previous movies. Can’t imagine if they use the identity crisis or flashpoint story line. This part does not impress me.
Good cast, good plot, average script, how about the cinematography? To be honest, I’m not a big fan of alien entity (tentacles, weird shape spaceship) that has been going on since the man of steel, and apparently still appearing in thus movie. But again, if we compare to previous DC movies, this movie improves a lot. They learn from their mistakes, and for that I lift my hat off to them. Another impression por moi.
Overall this is a good movie. I never give “good” statement to any of DC movies before, but this one is exceptional. As I mentioned, they learned from their mistakes and improve it. They gamble and it works. There’s still few things that they can improve in the future, but if this is where the direction of DC comics movies going forward, then I think they still have a chance to be equal with Marvel Cinematic Universe. My faith in my childhood hero movie (Superman) is back. My verdict 4/5.
Note:
There’s two credit scene, so sit your ass down. The second one is epic.
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