Now this is the Justice League movie I was waiting for. Despite a number of minor flaws, not the least of which is the excessive length, the Justice League are gathered and fight against the immortal threat of Darkseid and his agent on this Earth Steppenwolf with the appropriate seriousness of purpose and the proper attitude to exerting mayhem. Having said that I don't wish to suggest that I want my heroes bloody, but neither do I want my heroes to turn away from what needs doing in the moment it needs that doing. Heroism is doing what is hard in hard times and all too often in narratives we feed our heroes easy outs to allow them to keep the stains off their colorful garments.
Now about the length of this beast, I'd say it's best to approach as do the creators and think of hit as a mini-series. This one has six parts and an elaborate epilogue and there's plenty of meat in all the episodes, enough really for any normal movie most likely. This is story with a heavy lift and needs to introduce seven heroes at the very least, get them together in a somewhat reasonable fashion, feature them in fights in which they both lose and win before they ultimately win the day, if it is only the day. And to be heroes they need a proper villain and at long long last Darkseid has come to call and he's fucking magnificent in this screen treatment, glowering and deadly and every creepy dire thing I always imagined him to be. Lex Luther and Joker are chaff in the wind next to the likes of Darkseid and it's best the heroes know it.
Some will anguish that much of the lighter banter which highlighted the previous version of this story is missing and truth told I missed a few funny bits here and there, especially Aquaman's lasso confessions, but when I grokked what Snyder was doing, making these heroes, even the light-hearted Flash, a tad darker I accepted the changes as necessary. So many fans want these DC movies to be just like the Marvel ones, and sure the Marvels have found a secret of success, but I've always cottoned to the darker tone of the DC films and when they veer off into a lighter zone something usually falls a tad flat.
It was treat to see the Martian Manhunter and to realize I'd been seeing him for some time was nifty as well. Trying to capture all the action in the "Age of Heroes" battle when Darkseid was first repelled was a job in and of itself. So much goes on there that it could feed out to several movies. And that's the greatness of this material, the density of the universe in which the drama is played out has grown and evolved for over eighty years and the richness is when handled deftly is like good wine. I wish this movie was considered canon, and maybe in time it will be. I know that I'd love to have a copy of it when it ever becomes available in my area.
And that wraps up my month-long look at all things DC. DC won't be going away in the month of July, but will be joined by a wide range of other comic book companies and characters. Looking forward to it.
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I feel like the time was used intelligently. Considering how sprawling it is, it's amazing that the story is so clearly and deliberately told. Snyder talked about streaming it as a series, but apparently that would've entailed writing new contracts for everyone, which might've terrified WB.
ReplyDeleteSnyder does divide it up into neat chapters, so it would lend itself to serialization quite easily from a technical standpoint.
DeleteIt was a sprawling, disorganized, cluttered, over-confident mess of an attempt. The constant immaculately framed money-shots were all pure payoff but without the necessary buildup to earn the moments.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it was a thousand times better than Whedon's ridiculous patch-job.