I guess this is what you get when a movie has a studio mandated two hour cap, excessive studio micromanagement,  two directors, and extensive reshoots.  The end product of this mess is a mess in and of itself.  Justice League is simply a bad movie with a thin script featuring underdeveloped main characters, a bad villain, and so much terrible CGI (this movie seemed to spend 300 million dollars poorly given they couldn’t even CGI out Henry Cavill’s mustache in the reshoots).

These problems were clearly the largest issues with the movie.  It had an admittedly tall task of having to introduce many characters who had almost no screentime before this film (the emails in Batman v Superman barely count).  The result is that Cyborg, Aquaman, and the Flash have an extremely limited backstory, making it difficult to truly care about their wellbeing when the action starts.  The movie clearly needed more than the two hours that it was required to fit within.  

The villain in this movie, Steppenwolf, is extremely disappointing.  He is the posterchild of the overuse of CGI in this movie, since his character is an entirely CGI monster. This takes away a lot of the human emotion and character development that the best villains boast (Joker, Loki, etc.).  Also, his motivations are extremely unclear. He ends up feeling like another villain out for generic world domination, which has become extremely dull and overused in the clog of superhero movies that have come out in the past couple years. The final battle with Steppenwolf is a mess and it really looks like something out of a videogame.  The movie also inexplicably focuses on only one family’s struggle in the town where this battle is happening, which undercuts the gravity of the situation.  

As far as positives,  I thought the chemistry between the main characters was great.  They really do feel like a team, and they all play off of each other well.  All of the lead actors turn in great performances, albeit with the weak script they were working with.  This is a much easier watch than the horrendous Batman v Superman, since it is far lighter and features more humor, but not all of these jokes work well, and overall as a movie it still has numerous issues.  

Grade:  C-

Sources: Vanity Fair, Variety, Collider, Mashable 

Photo Source: Olja Antic via Flickr