Friday, November 17, 2017

JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017)

© by Gerald So | 2:00 a.m.

Just back from watching with three fellow superfans.

Sometime after Batman vs. Superman, we find Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince recruiting Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg to team up against Jack Kirby's Steppenwolf and the Parademons of Apokolips, ancient enemies of the Amazons, Atlanteans, and humans.

Team-up movies face a number of challenges solo movies don't, most obviously to make the stakes high enough to warrant the team-up and to divvy screen time fairly among the heroes and villains. I'm glad to say the new League recruits left distinctive impressions true to their characters. This movie will make them new fans. I already liked Ben Affleck's older Batman and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, and they continued to deliver.

All that said, Superman is the reason I've watched Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman, and Justice League. If and how he rejoined the battle were important to me, and I think someone (or someones) bobbled the ball. I'd read comments by Henry Cavill that moviegoers would see the classic champion we know and love, but his transition from death to that was too abrupt for my liking.

And finally, Steppenwolf and the Parademons are your standard, otherworldly (less realistic) army of manufactured evil, but they were adequately shown to be too powerful for any one hero to beat, quite possibly too powerful for a team without Superman to beat.

On the large scale, Justice League is more cohesive than Batman vs. Superman, but doesn't surpass Wonder Woman in any way. However, its smaller, character moments are well thought out and worth fans' time.

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