Film of the Week: Justice League

I would be lying if I said that I was hyped for this film. The reputation of the other two films, Man of Steel and Batman Vs Superman, hasn’t helped people with hoping this to be good. However, after watching it, I have to admit Warner Brothers have learnt from their past mistakes, but there is still a bit of work still to be done.

In the politest way possible, this film is blunt. Batman Vs Superman was inundated with too many storylines and subplots that overshadowed the main plot and prevented it from developing in the way it should have done, so when eventually the main story was allowed to step into the foreground, there was hardly any time left to do anything significant – the battle between Batman and Superman only lasted about five minutes, something that I’m sure we can all agree was disappointing. Justice League gets rid of all the subplots and only focuses on the story. It’s also the shortest film compared to the previous two, at 121 minutes long without credits. With five superheroes, each need to be introduced, and with a story that needs to be established, it does exactly that – there’s no messing around.

It goes straight into the introductions, then straight into the story, carries out the story with a few bits of exposition to flesh out the characters, carries on with the story, defeats the enemy, and then end the film. It’s straightforward, it doesn’t mess around. However, there is something off about it, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s as if there is something missing, yet as I was sitting there in the cinema, studying what was happening, and I couldn’t fault it. All the pieces were there, there wasn’t too much action, there wasn’t too much exposition, there wasn’t too much drifting off course, there was just enough of each. They had so much to do within a short runtime, they couldn’t play around as much as they could with Batman Vs Superman, and I believe that is what is off about the film. It’s not necessarily a perfect film or a too perfect film, but it is a film that has all the pieces in the right place, a surprise after expecting it to follow suite from the previous two. It’s a film that, in other words, does exactly what it says on the tin. We’re not exploring someone else’s plan when we’re supposed to be watching to superheroes battle it out with each other.

The trailers, once again, featured scenes that weren’t in the theatrical cut, and it’s guaranteed that there’s going to be a director’s cut, which would extend the running time by a considerable amount, and that would probably be better than the theatrical cut. The fact that Justice League’s theatrical cut was incredibly straightforward with hardly any room to manoeuvre, that’s what is off. That’s what this film lacks. Warner Brothers went from having too much room to play around with to being confined in a small room where you can only do what you’re tasked to do – in other words, they went from one extreme to another. Although I haven’t seen the director’s cut, my instincts are telling me that if they had released that as the theatrical cut, it would have been a better film.

In conclusion:

It’s good for what it is, but it needs a bit more.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)