Justice League (2017)

The Justice Cartoons from 2001 to 2006 are great..
and some of the movie cartoons they came out with..
One evil superman killed Metallo..
All the colors of this movie make me kinda gag.

 

Just got back from seeing it and I really enjoyed it. Liked it much better than BvS, but still like WW much better than JL.

Keeping the movie at 2 hours does make it seemed rush in parts, especially in regards to the introductions/backgrounds of The Flash and Cyborg.

Spoiler

Basically we are told that The Flash was struck by lightning and that is how he got his powers and that his father is in prison. Cyborg was an ex-football player who died in a explosion and was rebuilt by his dad.

For me, Wonder Woman was again the highlight, like she was in BvS. Also, Superman finally shows in this movie what it really means to be Superman and everyone else, including the other heroes, are just inferior.

The short cutscene after the movie ended (30 seconds or so into the end credits) was fun.


One thing I did not know. I didn't know that Aquaman could fly and had superpowers while on land.

 

Wait, so Aquaman can fly now!? So ANOTHER page is taken from Marvel with this depiction of Aquaman. Namor/Submariner can fly (ever wonder how strong those little wings on his ankles must be!?). And if you Google Jae Lee/Namor you'll see exactly what the inspiration for this guys look was!

 

I wouldn't quite call it flying.

More like leaping while holding his trident and riding with the "wind".

 

He wouldn't stay, he's done with it. He just wants to get out of it, nothing could make him stay.

 

Or

 

True. There's also a quick tease of Green Lantern, which just makes the omission more glaring.

Not sure we're missing anything when people are already moaning and complaining about superhero movie "overload", but of course the DCEU is going to miss something with not everybody's story being told, unlike the Marvel method.

Also true. Hard to get an ensemble movie as smooth as The Avengers without having several movies beforehand. Still, the introductions were nicely done for how quick they were.

 

So we just got back from seeing Justice League, and while I was prepared to really hate it (by the dozens of bad reviews out there), I have to say... it wasn't haaaarible. It wasn't very good, either, but it had a few genuine laughs, and the technical work was generally very good. I think it had more natural color overall than the last few Zach Snyder movies, that's for sure. Not great, but entertaining on a certain level.

I think if you go into it with very low expectations, it's not too terrible. It's not very good, but somewhere between "mediocre" and "barely good." Not very good, not great, not awful. I think this critic gets it about right:

'Justice League' is not bad as 'Batman v Superman': EW review

 

6/10?

 

No, I would go 3.5 out of 10.

 

I thought it was decent but even with joss Whedon's involvement, it didn't quite add up to the quality of "The Avengers".

 

I totally agree with that. For me, I'd put The Avengers at about a 7.5 or even an 8 on the scale of 1-10 (as a big action superhero film).

BTW, here's a very interesting story on all the shots in the May 2017 Justice League trailer that are suddenly not in the current movie:

16 Scenes In the 'Justice League' Trailers That Were Not In the Movie

 

Isn't 3.5/10 awful then?

 

It's a step above awful. It's "mediocre." All very subjective.

 

Isn't that the way it is with everything? If I pay $6 to kill an afternoon at a matinee I have totally different expectations than if I pay $15 for a 3D show.

I haven't seen a movie in 3D since the Hobbit movies so I've been amazed by any piece of crap Hollywood throws my way lately.

 

My lowest score would be 5/10.
But, tbat would be for location scenery in 1950s/1960s UK films( Obviously more if the film's excels for other reasons)I may buy a DVD /Blu Ray for that alone. Generally my collection consists of a 7/10 score ratings and above. I have rated about 6000 films on IMDB, recent ones Blade Runner 2049 I gave a 6/10 rating, Fargo Tv series 9/10 ( maybe even 10/10 its that good).Wonder Woman 7/10.

 

I paid 20$ for Thor :Ragnarok.
Well $25 that included a beer( first time). Enhanced the movie experience, though had to go to bathroom halfway thru the film. Score? 7/10 ( 7.5).

 

The 3D was converted by Genr8 of Vancouver, and I thought it looked surprisingly good. It's amazing when you consider they have to basically cut out and separate every image within the frame (every person, every background, every vehicle, even individual flames and dust particles) in Nuke software, then create apparent depth with Maya, and finally put all of the images back together again in 3D and have it work while the shot is moving. It's extraordinary, and there were some 3D shots in there that I thought were extremely effective. I also didn't think it was too dark, which is my usual complaint with 3D projection.

BTW, noted Hollywood writer and industry pundit Mark Evanier has some very thoughtful comments about Justice League, and I think he liked it slightly more than I did:

I decided to stop fighting the movie I was watching for what it wasn't and looking for what I could enjoy for what it is. From that point on, I had a pretty good time. If you're of my age and/or you have grand affection for earlier versions of these heroes, you might try what I did. You don't have to renounce that affection but maybe you can put it aside for the duration of the movie and also stop looking for realism in a movie where even the heroes' muscles are CGI-enhanced. If you can't, don't go…no matter how awesome the after-party promises to be.

https://www.newsfromme.com/2017/11/17/justice-for-all/

I agree with Mark to the extent that if you go in knowing that it's not going to be 1/10th as good as (say) the 1978 Richard Donner Superman film -- which I think had a lot of heart, believable action, and a less-stupid plot -- the new Justice League movie is not horrible. It's an OK 2-hour diversion, but not profound, not awe-inspiring, not hilarious, not that exciting, but it's alright. I would give the recent Thor movie at least a 5, maybe a little higher, so it was a much better experience overall, a lot more fun, and a lot more surprises.

Mark does make this incisive comment:

Also, I have a problem with CGI special effects in a live-action movie. Once I'm too aware that that's what I'm watching, I'm watching a cartoon. Everyone in it might just as well have been created on a Wacom tablet. ...Justice League is full of incredible action scenes, done about as well as effects animators can do them these days. But only once in a while did I feel it had any actual people in it.

And as much as I have good friends who work in the VFX industry and are amazing artists who do their best under difficult conditions... I concede Mark's point and totally agree with it. There is a point with all these films where they feel like we're watching plastic "video game" images, and it's no longer about people. It's a troubling trend, but it's been going on for a long time, at least 20 years. I don't see this stopping.

 

That's what made Mad Max Fury Road such a tremendous movie: the CGI were believable and were almost invisible.

 

Well having just come back from seeing Justice League, all I can say is...

For a $300m (reportedly) film featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, that was dire. It looked like a cartoon for the most part, not to mention edited with a meat cleaver... if the comic-book movie bubble does ever burst, it's films like this that'll stick the pin in. Poor Gal Gadot, she deserves so much better than this utter crud.

That is all.

 

That would be great, as the poster 'tag-line/quote'!

 

Stand alone Wonder Woman movies are the ideal vehicle for her, if she has any say at all, she needs to stay out of these ensemble flicks with 15 superheroes.

 

I even noticed which scenes were shot with Cavill with his mustache digitally removed. His face looked...."different" (weird).

The other issue I had was the lack of a compelling villain. The CGI for the villain wasn't very good to my eyes either.

 

Well put.
What I enjoy engaging with is the idea of the human struggle over seemingly insurmountable odds whether it's a person, concept or object. I can relate to that. Ok this is every type of movie but it applies specifically to superhero movies. Isn't that why we attached to the comics/cartoons/movies as children?
Superhero movies are vulnerable to losing their audience with too much plasticity in the characters. I think this type of movie suffers from the cool shot factor. But we all know it is created by many people at a desk and for me that means nothing - there is no real risk. Once my mind gets tired of continuous battles where nobody is injured, destroyed or killed I lose a sense of danger. Batman jumping from one highrise to another highrise, accomplishing his task then pulled out by a hook attached to a plane in Hong Kong is a type of drama. Thousands upon thousands of things battling in the Lord of the Ring movies with no blood and no consequence or Superman bashing a character through a building over and over with no connection to the thousands of people in those buildings is not. Both have CGI (minimal in the Batman example but still).
So this may not be quite what you are talking about Vidiot though I get your point fully. Movies, at some point have to remember that having cool shots that no one else has done is like any addiction. It always ends poorly.