JUSTICE LEAGUE

Good filmmaking might have helped, but that’s nowhere to be found, all the more baffling when the best thing the previous DC films had going for them were their visuals. The cinematography is badly framed, the production design is messy, the editing robs the film of any focus, and the visual effects look cheap as hell. Rather than learning from the criticism that the other films were too dark and developing both the tone and look, they’ve just dialled the colour up and made it "funnier" - or at least what a committee of people determined to save face after the reviews both ‘BvS’ and ‘Suicide Squad’ got would deem funny. There’s no singular creative vision on the film, rendering it a tonal mess, obnoxiously loud and hideously dumb beyond belief. There were moments in this film so staggeringly stupid that I actually gasped, either because they were unfunny, grossly non-canon or just outright sexist. Even Danny Elfman’s score is a shocker, emphasising the film’s embarrassing need for approval by referencing the original classic Superman and Batman themes for no reason whatsoever. I've never missed Hans Zimmer more. It even has Wonder Woman's theme without the guitar. I mean, what even is the fucking point?

There’s also little reason to comment on the performances, because there are barely any performances to begin with. Ben Affleck looks weary and devastated, having wandered into a franchise he clearly wants to find any way to get out of, and Gal Gadot maintains the bravest of faces while watching all the important work she and Patty Jenkins had done for female representation disappear before her eyes. Ezra Miller tries his best but can’t overcome the fact Barry has basically been written as a joke, and Ray Fisher has literally nothing whatsoever to work with. At least Jason Momoa and Henry Cavill look like they’re having fun and making the most of a bad situation (yeah, spoiler alert, Superman comes back and how he does is thunderously stupid and the bad CG to erase Cavill’s moustache needs to be seen to be believed). Worst of all, I want to find whoever made five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams speak this atrocious dialogue and have them imprisoned, because making Amy Adams look this bad is a crime against humanity. Her best moment is fondling Cavill’s chest because it’s a damn pretty chest and she’s clearly getting any joy she possibly can out of this.

So whose fault is this? It’s hard to say. The production was having major problems before the tragic circumstances that led to Zack Snyder’s departure as director, and even with his flaws, his visual sense is sorely missed here. Whedon tries too hard to make the whole thing fit his aesthetic (which didn’t work with ‘The Avengers’ either, yet he’s still peddling this same flavour of bullshit). I suspect the blame lies with more than one person, rather the cacophony of voices so desperate to make a hit that ticked all the boxes that the film itself drowned in all the noise, and what we get is this impotent rubbish.

‘Justice League’ is a bad film. There isn’t even a great film hidden in there somewhere, it’s just bad from beginning to end. I found myself genuinely embarrassed watching it. The Batman and Superman narratives have been driven into the ground, and The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman could not have been introduced in a more incompetent manner. Just declare the whole thing a failure and let Gadot and Jenkins make their own Wonder Woman franchise. It would spare us having to go through this painful waste of time all over again.