Justice League review

Well, whether we wanted it or not, Warner Bros have released the not-very-long-awaited “Justice League.” Of the film’s six central heroes (Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash) we’ve only been properly introduced to three of them.  This started with director and producer Zack Snyder’s 2011 “Man of Steel” and continued with last year’s misbegotten franchise booster-shot “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which teased a Wonder Woman cameo, who, earlier this summer, starred in what has so-far been the DC cinematic universe’s only coherent origin story.  Somewhere in all of that, we were also treated to the stylistically confused, tangential distraction known as “Suicide Squad,” which added nothing to the world of pop-culture other than insufferable Joker/Harley Quinn true-love memes and bad tattoo ideas.

But this is it; this what is what all that other non-sense was leading up to. This was supposed to be Warner’s live-action “Super Friends” that would rival the blockbuster assembly-line that is Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. How well did it accomplish this goal, you might ask? Well, unlike the bulk of the DCU’s previous efforts—“Wonder Woman” notwithstanding—“Justice League” makes narrative sense, insomuch that is has a beginning, a middle and an end, and for 10-15 minute increments the unintentional camp that comes from Snyder’s inability to understand cinema beyond its ornamental surfaces overlaps with the most base pleasantries that come with superhero genre storytelling.

A race of interdimensional locust people is brought upon our world by a demi-god warrior known as Steppenwolf who wants to transform our planet into an apocalyptic kingdom. Superman (Henry Cavill) is still dead, so Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) travels the globe to recruit the world’s strongest remaining meta-humans. These super-powered beings include the naive and socially-awkward Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller), the brutish sea-merchant and low-key water-god Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the surprisingly still-relevant Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), and the barely-necessary Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Together they must prevent Steppenwolf from weaponizing three magic cubes that generate enough raw energy to transform our planet.

“Justice League” isn’t totally unwatchable but within an era with endless, formulaic superhero flicks, it reeks of being too little, too early. The story is practically Mad-Libbed from stock comic-book movie tropes and since most of the previous entries in this franchise failed to give us compelling arcs for these characters—some of which we are only getting to know here—it becomes impossible to invest in the film’s message of togetherness. The screenplay is front-loaded with catch-ups and mini-origins, setting up each hero and giving them individual goals to accomplish by the film’s end. Because these characters are so loosely drawn and inconsequential to the plot, this ultimately feels like a waste of time and a slow lead up to the movie’s more pressing concerns with its villain and the possible resurrection of Superman—which, by the way, is not all that interesting either.

As far as action-spectacle goes, this is one of the sloppiest visual productions to have ever come from this director. I haven’t always responded positively to Snyder’s style of green-screen-driven art design, the slow-mo action sequences, or the artificial lighting schemes and color-correction that makes the bulk of his work look like high-budget Linkin Park videos, but even on that level, “Justice League” struggled to blend the actors into their CGI environments and hiding the unnatural physics behind the wire effects. Despite its bloated budget, this feels like discount Zack Snyder, and with a story as shallow and rehashed as this, the movie's effects deficit becomes all the more severe.

You may have heard that this film is better than expected (or even good) because it has a better sense of humor. Yes, unlike the dreadfully serious “Batman v Superman,” there’s Marvel-style jokes and quip-y dialogue (perhaps penned from quip-master himself, Joss Whedon, who stepped in to complete the last leg of the production) and occasionally Gal Gadot and Ezra Miller help to keep the group dynamics lively as they plod from one telegraphed set-piece to another, but as a piece of cinema there’s nothing here original or compelling enough to make up for the multi-car pileup that preceded and laid the foundation for its making.

Grade: D+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Justice League."

Wonder Woman review

Both critics and geeks have been justifiably nervous that the first female-fronted superhero film of our modern-day fanboy renaissance is being brought to us by Zach Snyder and Warner Bros’ DC Comics cinematic universe; the same universe that’s brought such us large-scale disappointments as “Man of Steel,” as well as last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad.” For many years, Marvel producer Kevin Feige was curiously noncommittal about the possibility of funding a female-driven entry into his web of interconnected action films, but in a rush to catch up with the successful Disney entity, Warners has released a “Wonder Woman” film that breaks the tradition of  their current output by being surprisingly good.

We were first introduced to Gal Gadot’s sword and shield wielding Amazonian as a peripheral character in “Batman v Superman,” but here director Patty Jenkins and screenwriter Allen Heinberg focuses in on her origin and gives us the emotional and philosophic context we need to truly care about the admittedly cheesy character. This time we meet Princess Diana as a trained warrior of the all-female demigod tribe created by Zeus to protect the human race. After the tribe has spent years hiding and training in their magically hidden island of Themyscira, awaiting for the day the Greek god Aries returns to finish them off, Diana discovers a human WWI spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) who crash lands in their ocean. When he tells her of the devastations and atrocities he’s fighting in his home-world, Diana travels back with him to find and kill a German military leader named Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston), who she suspects is a disguised Aires orchestrating the stage for human destruction.

Jenkins, who was previously attached to direct Marvel’s “Thor: The Dark World” before leaving the project over disagreements with the studio, has a firm hand on the pulpy tone of the source material. The first third of the film plays like a large-scale episode of “Zena: Warrior Princess” while the rest resembles the popcorn-flavored fantasy of adventure flicks like “Raiders of the Lost Arc” and “The Rocketeer.” These worlds are joined more seamlessly than one might think and the Jenkins’ focus on Diana/Wonder Woman as a sturdy center of consciousness allows us to accept and even admire her idealistic world-view when it comes to altruistic justice.

Gadot and Pine also bring a lot of life and pathos to their characters and unlike the DC’s recent cinematic output, this film allows for scenes to breathe and build to moments of action and suspense instead of always rushing to the next big set-piece. Much like Kenneth Branagh’s first “Thor” movie, “Wonder Woman” also includes fish-out-of-water humor as the warrior princess tries to wrap her head around the peculiarities of turn of the century Europe. 

Given that so much of this movie is entertaining and easy to invest in, it’s unfortunate that Patty Jenkins attended Zach Snyder‘s school of hyper-stylized action direction.  The battle sequences are filmed using his signature slow-mo-speed-up technique, occasionally pausing the action to frame corny, self-satisfied, music-video glory shots. The final battle between Wonder Woman and Aries separates Diana from the emotionally-driven war sequences, only so that the film can pay off the genre fans with an overpowered comic-book boss-battle, wherein the foes are shooting lightning out of their hands and trucks and building are flung back and forth. With that noted, it’s a common mistake for these kinds of movies to over-climax and I can’t fault Jenkins, who’s never directed a film on this budget, for sliding into an easy aesthetic trope.

“Wonder Woman” knows what works in the superhero origin drama and it plays its cards carefully. Unlike the previous entries in the misbegotten DCU, it doesn’t try to cram in loads of exposition and tangential DC Comics world-building for the sole purpose of setting up future sequels, remembering to succeed on its own as a standalone adventure. Many will write about the gender politics of the film and it is significant that this movie exists as it does for young girls to root for a hero of their own, though Pine and Gadot’s awkwardly suggestive banter sometimes undercuts the strong feminist themes. The film is a hair too long and slips into headache-inducing destruction by its end, but too much of it works too well for me to criticize the picture for simply leaning into familiar genre tropes.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Jun-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Wonder Woman."

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review

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Many were worried that Warner Bros’ rush to compete with Disney/Marvel’s brand of interconnected comic-book movie franchises would lead to something too ambitious and too concerned with setting up future projects to really stand on its own. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” suffers from all of that and it’s so much worse than we could have expected. 

Spawned as semi-sequel to 2013’s “Man of Steel,” director Zack Snyder was given the directive by the studio to create a movie-universe that could churn out many of its own sequels and spinoffs. Therefore, it needed to continue Snyder’s Superman narrative, introduce a new conceptual take on Batman--now played by “Daredevil” star Ben Affleck--establish a foundation for the forthcoming Justice League film and somehow wrangle all of these ideas in one succinct way. “Batman v Superman” is anything but succinct, in fact, it’s an incomprehensible Frankenstein of a movie. 

The film begins with a montage recapping Batman’s origin story, in case you somehow forgot it from the previous six Batman flicks. It ends with Bruce watching a skyscraper he owns in Metropolis destroyed during Superman’s battle with General Zod; the same orgiastic destruction sequence that concluded “Man of Steel” and put off a lot of viewers with its clumsy 9/11 evocations. Henry Cavill’s Superman/Clark Kent is now seen as hero by some and a danger by others, which has further developed his Christ complex that eventually leads him into problems by the third act. Said danger comes in the form of Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) who’s discovered Superman’s only weakness, Kryptonite, as well as functioning Kryptonian technology at the bottom of the ocean. Through a convoluted and frustrating plot involving Russian gangsters, encrypted spy decoding, classified bullets, crippled Zod survivors and Lois Lane always managing to be at the wrong place at the right time, Lex manages to get Batman and Superman to fight. Oh yeah, and for some indiscernible reason, Gal Gadot makes an appearance as Wonder Woman, complete with her own corny heavy metal theme. 

This movie barely makes any sense. Plot threads are started and then later abandoned and the character’s motivations are solely dictated by which set-piece they need to get to next, but those who’ve followed Snyder’s past work (“300,” “Watchmen,” “Sucker Punch”) should know that story has never been the director’s strong suit. Generally speaking, suits seem to be his strong suit – costume and production design is where his interests have always gravitated and the more narrative or emotional heavy lifting he is asked to do the harder he fails as a storyteller. 

Certainly “Man of Steel” had its problems but at least the movie held together and Cavill really fit the part as Superman. Here both he and Affleck look visibly bored on screen, as does Amy Adams, whose Lois Lane has been relegated to a paging device to make Superman appear whenever she needs to be rescued. Eisenberg is devouring the scenery and embracing the unintended camp of it all, but even he comes off as overly manic compared to the stone-faced zombies he’s trying (usually, too hard) to play against.  

With all of the different studio notes and competing plots shoved into this two and half hour edit, the movie's been patched into a messy collage of incongruent scenes and story elements that shift back and forth like an extended recap that plays before the next season of a television show. Snyder likes to highlight his epic comic-book-y tableaus and there’s enough ‘cool’ imagery to cut together an exciting trailer but even the fanboys will be hard-pressed to defend this labored clunker, as it fails to anchor enough emotional grounding to make any fight worth investing in.   

Grade: D -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March-2016

Listen to more discussion about "Batman v Superman" on this week's Jabber and the Drone Podcast.