"Justice League: War" Surprisingly Good

 

    This movie was.... surprisingly good? I remember seeing a tweet not too long ago basically disparaging the New 52. Which is kind of fair. They had some pretty bizarre storylines, and for an era that was supposed to be a reset it just made everything messier. They also made fun of the first justice league cover from that time, which was a story that this movie adapted. I have to say though, I honestly kind of enjoyed this film, significantly more than I thought I would. Like it's not my favourite, but considering it barely clocks in over an hour, it's a good time for a starting point. Let's talk about it.

        Don't get me wrong, I don't have complaints about this film, but the list is surprisingly shorter than I thought. First of all, this Cyborg design is ugly. I always preferred Martian Manhunter and was never a big fan of moving Cyborg up to the big leagues since I liked him in the Teen Titans, but if you're going to promote him at least give him a good design. Also, Shazam is kind of a fraud. You are 12, should realistically be the second or third most powerful member here, and all you did was call Wonder Woman hot and charge some batteries. Honestly? I don't even like Shazam as a founding member of the league, I'd say I even prefer Cyborg over him. 

    On a slightly more serious note, I kind of hate that they sidelined Batman and Superman for the fight against Darkseid. Two of your most popular characters and they only show up to join the team once the fight is almost over. On that same note, some of the characterizations are a little off. Wonder Woman is a little too clueless for my liking, like I know she's only starting to become integrated in the world of humans, but surely Steve has already shown her some things. Hal Jordan as the comedic relief oddly works, but it was a bit much at times, He definitely gets his big hits in but that scene where the parademons just start beating on him was pretty sad man. and Superman is a little too edgy/evil for my liking. 

    Actually, can they stop with any and all romantic undertones between Superman and Wonder Woman. Legitimately one of my least favourite pairings anytime I see it. Other than that this movie was good though, particularly the group dynamics. I quite enjoyed the interactions between some of the characters, specifically Batman, Green Lantern and Flash. Really it was mostly GL and Batman, who had way more screentime together in this film than I remembered, but it worked and I kind of enjoyed the bickering between them. I can't say many other relationships of the league during this movie was explored. Obviously, they had a lot of characters to explore, but the kinship between Shazam and Cyborg was nice.

    I also liked that the rest of the JL members were not completely useless against Darkseid. Honestly, a part of me felt like they could have done fine without Superman and Batman. Which is actually a very good thing. I hate when you're watching one of these superhero movies and they are very clearly just waiting for the main powerhouse to come in and stop the bad guy by doing 80% of the work. I'd say the work was pretty equally shared though. I thought Cyborg and Shazam did a little less, but they did their parts, and both the Flash and GL were surprisingly more effective against Darkseid than I thought they would be.

Final Score: 75/100

    They need to stop doing 3D CGI in these films man. It is killing me how hilarious they are. The scene where Cyborg sends them all back to Apokolips and you just see "default model parademons" spinning without ever flailing their limbs once is hilarious. You're just watching these cubes be sucked up. The animation was definitely better than in The Flashpoint Paradox, I'll tell you that much though. I don't know how long it'll take me to go through all of these DCAMU films, but as someone who always thought they looked cool as a child, it's kind of nice to see they still hold up fairly well.