Well Honesty, Truth, Right or Wrong, everything is a slave to circumstances and depends upon individual perspective. Therefore I can't claim my review to be the absolute truth. It's my take on the movie after all. But I'll try to be as honest and unbiased as I can.
For those who click on a thread just to have a glance or have no time for long reviews, I'll say this before writing the lengthy verison of my assessment, Don't give a shit about what critics are saying, Don't let RT decide things for you, Go watch this movie. It's very enjoyable, not a bad movie at all and if you don't see it, chances are you'll miss the amazing fan service they've done on this one and chances are you might even regret it later. Watching freshly released CBMs at the theatre is a joy of its own.
Ok now let's get into details shall we. " Spoiler Alert " for those who haven't seen it. And for those who have, let's discuss details.
The basic idea behind it if you go into details, Is that Steppenwolf has been exiled for a while. He has lost his godhood. Well not his powers but his position and respect. This may have happened when he was defeated in his first full fledged invasion on Earth. Diana said, Steppenwolf became mad in his grief when he failed. This time he didn't do a full fledged invasion. He was clandestinely collecting the mother boxes and was gonna use them to terraform earth into Apokolips and earn his rightful position as a New God back, maybe from Darksied, he mentioned him once. Steppenwolf seems to worship the mother boxes in some way. He was treating them like something divine which is ironic because he's a god himself. He called them mother. He didn't even want Cyborg touching them saying cyborg was unworthy or something. The mother boxes are a personification of power, which leads me to believe that, maybe just maybe, the boxes are connected to the Source itself somehow. The boxes could supply any amount of power, could do anything. Maybe they are DCEU version of Infinity stones. Also, he mentioned Diana to have blood of the old gods and he was a new god. He said, old gods are no more and so he was gonna end Diana too. Personally I liked how the Gods were handled, from the looks to the history. They were tall and imposing. Steppenwolf was like 7 and a half feet tall. Barry and Batman were intimidated by his height. The old Greek Gods were taller than the human beings, amazons and the atlanteans too from what we saw at the pre historic battle. There's no doubt they are doing the New and Old God theme. The possibilities are endless from here. I liked how there was no blue sky beam of destruction this time like most cbms do.
If you ask me whats good, then I'll say the characters. Everybody has their moment to shine. The humour was well done, didn't feel forced or overdone at all. The visuals, the scenes were picture perfect which isn't strange, its Snyder. The action was one of the best in cbms, if not the best. Personally I think MoS has a tad better action than this in terms of intensity. But JL had more epic moments. The whole theatre packed with people started howling in excitement when they saw the Superman vs JL sequence. It was tremendously good. The short sequence from Themyscira is great. The sequence at Gotham harbour was well done. Steppenwolf kicked ass of everyone, every where. He was unstoppable. The sequence at the end was good too albeit short. It was more fan service than serious action with consequences. Once superman joined, Steppenwolf the guy who was unstoppable a while ago, became a ragdoll for Clark to beat. Yeah that's how it is. I'll discuss this more later.
Regarding the characters individually, I think baring Aquaman and Steppenwolf himself, others were more or less well done. Well, Superman had two movies already, Batman had one but is very popular, Diana had one and so she was doing fine. The other three too had good moments but personally, I felt like Arthur didn't get much screen time or development. Neither did Steppenwolf. He was just there for the battle scenes and we got a brief description of him from the prehistoric scene. Cyborg had good moments and his arc is understandable. Barry had good momemts with his dad. But to understand the three new characters, you have to see BvS. To understand Steppenwolf, you have to see BvS UE. That was a major problem for many.
JL is gold for Superman fans. He finally felt like how Superman should be. Smiled more and basically looked chilled out. I don't understand his power levels though. Was the increase due to the fact that he was resurrected by Mother Box. He was equal and even more powerful than the whole league combined in terms of firepower, strength and speed. Ragdolled everyone. Barry was barely faster than him. When Henry was shirtless, everyone was screaming. Doesn't he have like a godly physique. I envy that man so much, its not even funny anymore. The best looking body anyone could ever have.
Gal Gadot did well. And I wouldn't say her character was nerfed in power. Clark was always physically superior. She was willing to kill him when she fought him yet hesitated to go all out. Even her headbutts with Clark was causing shockwaves. She more or less held her own against Steppenwolf but only managed to hold him for that long in the second battle because of Aquaman. Yet they were losing. She also saved Aquaman from getting injured when a massive concrete block fell on him after Steppenwolf kicked his ass. Aquaman was good too. Jason did well, very well actually, exceeded my expectations. He seemed similar to Diana physically but didn't have her fighting experience or the great equipment she had, yet managed to battle Steppenwolf for a considerable amount of time. He even stabbed him once with his trident and had good durability, didn't die from all the ragdolling Steppenwolf did. Cyborg was probabaly physically weaker to them a bit, but could hack any technology, even make batman's jet go hypersonic when they travelled to Russia from US within a short amount of time. He could form weapons from his hands, even duplicated the Kryptonian metal that Clark had to access the scout ship. He had a shield that could deflect heat vision for a few minutes. Barry was a rookie but still was doing great by the end. Took out many parademons instantly. He still has a long way to go though and almost died when Steppenwolf ragdolled him in the last sequence. Batman didn't get specific action sequences like the warehouse scene. This time he couldn't do much cuz even the parademons were superhuman. Batman could barely hold his won against a few physically. He still had his moments to shine though.
Steppenwolf wasn't that bad. I mean there have been worse CGI villains. He was certainly better than Ultron or Dormammu. He felt powerful until Superman returned. He kicked ass of everyone. His voice was intimidating. Ciaran Hinds did a fantastic job. He didn't have any special abilities apart from his physicals, his battle skill and his axe. I'd say he's about as strong as MCU Hulk. He was definitely stronger than Diana and Arthur combined. The characters were basically well done.
Well you must be wondering what's bad in the movie. Time for some nitpicking then.
First of all Its very tough to notice the bad, the plotholes when you're watching it in a theatre filled with hundreds of other adrenaline infused fans screaming at the top of their lungs in almost every scene.
When I was driving back home, the weak points finally became more evident The first disappointing thing is the extremely short runtime. I mean what were these guys even thinking. It's like their executives and moviemakers have a thing for making blunders one way or the other The movie could seriously use 15-20 minutes more, develop the characters and villain a bit more and not cut that prehistoric battle scene. I'll never forgive them for making that scene so short. It was so epic, so comic book accurate and it didn't even last a minute. The green lantern was so cool. His costume was like a hologram. Steppenwolf one shotted him though. Second problem I have is with Superman's face. Seriously was it really a $300 million dollar movie. During the opening scene his face looked weird. The other times it was watchable and improved by the end. The overall CGI quality is not top notch. Not bad but not MoS or BvS level. Third is with JL itself. Why did they release it this year. They could've done Aquaman this year, gone for more character development, shown Steppenwolf's arrival at the end and JL could've been done next year. What a waste. Also the movie has some plotholes. Superman's resurrection, his suit fixing itself, continuity differences regarding Cyborg's birth and stuff like that.
At the end though, it was a fun movie. A solid 2 hours of entertainment featuring some of the most comic book accurate and epic action sequences ever. The characters were well acted. Their interaction was great, the humour was well done, not forced. It was a really enjoyable flick. If only it were longer, it could've been better and would perhaps recieve good ratings. The audience ratings should be good though.
I'll rate it 7/10
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