Michael Corvin

Saw it earlier and I enjoyed it but it wasn't great, and that falls squarely on the shitty villain and weak plot. Steppenwolf just outright sucked. Hollywood needs to get over this "we can do CGI characters!" thinking. No. No you can't. He looked like a video game character. Someone could have totally acted in makeup and it would have gone a long way to improving the character. Then you have waves and waves of video game Parademons. I just didn't give a shit about this threat in the least. This is a movie you should be walking out of thinking "holy shit! That kicked ass!" but nope. The final battle fell short of accomplishing that goal.

On to the characters. One of my main complaints with any superhero film is when they lose their roots in being heroes. Sure they're trying to save the world, but where are all the civilians? Metropolis is supposed to be like New York, but it was a fucking ghost town. You had one cop when Clark fought the team and even then it was obvious he was just there so there would be a vehicle they could have Clark slam Batman into. Steppenwolf had the few prisoners and then the whole Russian family thing fell flat. That being said I LOVED that Superman's first thought when joining the battle was civilians. THAT'S my Superman.

• Superman - Cavill's always been serviceable but he hasn't really played "Superman" until this film so I've never felt one way or another about him in the role. After seeing him as the Superman we all know, I want Man of Steel 2. They finally got the character correct, even with a nice and bright suit.
  
• Wonder Woman - Gadot is clearly the secret sauce of the DCEU. She steals every scene she's in and her action sequences always deliver.
  
• Batman/Wayne - I liked Affleck in his first outing, but I loved him here. He's grown into the role and would love to see him continue. It'd be a shame to lose him now that everything is finally gelling. He's solid in both roles.
  
• The Flash - Delivered and kept the the movie from being too dour. Miller was fine, however Gustin could have pulled off the same exact performance. How does an orphan afford all that computer equipment and who developed his suit? The suit wasn't as bad in action as it was in promotional pics. I think he was missing one truly kick-ass sequence like Quicksilver in X-men. They came close in the final battle, but it still fell short.
  
• Aquaman - Seemed like he got the short end of the stick here. What Momoa had to play with worked though. He was badass and had some decent bits. He definitely dispelled any pre-conceived notions about him being the weakest member of the team. Sitting on the lasso was hilarious and possibly the best 'bit' of the movie. Followed closely by Batman's "I'm definitely bleeding somewhere" line.
  
• Cyborg - better than expected. I actually wouldn't mind seeing more of his story. Fisher did a good job but the costume was ridiculous. He looked like a reject from Transformers. Just being half a head and the rest robotic is silly to me. The suit finally getting a more stable design at the end had promise.

So the characters are the glue holding the whole shebang together and keeping the whole thing from falling apart. They're DC's bread and butter. They've finally got them all 'right' so building from here should be easy as long as they dump Snyder. Just get a decent villain and decent plot and they are good to go. It would have been nice if Whedon was the director from the beginning.

Lastly, the music wasn't quite the unseen character I was hoping for. Williams' theme was used in the right place but it was far too subtle. I totally missed Batman's theme. The overall score was decent, but the high point was the scene with Clark vs. the team. Excellent work by Elfman there.

Supermallet

Watching some of Snyder’s films have definitely felt like being repeatedly kicked in the balls. And part of me is pissed that he so badly bungled the current movie versions of iconic characters, at the one time they’d have the best chance of being done right with the current popularity of superhero films that I expect to eventually burn out.

Mike86

It’s a little ironic that some of the people who have had the most issues with the DCEU liked this film more than others. Maybe because the expectations were so low for me and I assume for others who felt like I did.

Damed

Haven't seen it yet (haven't seen BvS yet either) - but have to wonder how much of the "getting the characters right finally" overall feeling is a direct result of Whedon's reworking the film

dex14

Well, you liked The Amazing Spider-Man 2 too, so maybe it’s lack of taste

fumanstan

I'd say it's a combination of Whedon plus WB probably aiming for a lighter tone anyway (from the earlier teaser/trailers) even with Snyder still at the helm. I'm not sure why it's ironic.

Those made the movie more fun, even if the overall plot still feels so messy.

DJariya

Just got back from a full house showing.

I'll keep my thoughts relatively short.

Liked:

Wonder Woman - Gal Gadot always lights up the screen. Probably the best character of this universe so far. I look forward to her next solo movie. Plus, Gadot looks damn good in everything she wore in this movie.

Batman - I think Ben is starting to grow into this character. Hell, this is only the 2nd full movie he's played Wayne/Batman. It would be a shame if he bails and they do a recast this soon.

Superman - Probably the best portrayal of Superman by Henry Cavill in this new DC Universe. Also, seemed like the colors of his suit were lightened up instead of the really dark and gloomy colors.

The Flash - I have to admit, he was very amusing. I liked Ezra Miller's take on the character and how it differentiated itself from Gustin's take on the TV show. Brought some fun and humor.

Aquaman - His introduction was kind of short changed, but I thought he brought some personality and attitude.


Didn't like:

Steppenwolf -- What a lame villain. Stupid name too. That sounds like some bad 80's hair band. The character felt like some bad Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings reject rather than a comic villain.

The lack of danger/threat - This was probably one of my biggest issues. You didn't feel any sense of danger/peril in this movie. Frankly it seemed like aside from our heroes, we didn't see anyone in danger/peril aside from that one European family. I mean how was this overlooked?

Too much relying on green screen backdrops. I felt like that whole final act was shot on some sound stage with all the backdrops and effects inserted into post over green screen.


Overall, I had a good time. Not a great movie, but a fun movie. It could have used an extra 20-25 minutes to flesh things out. Maybe we'll see that version on the BD.

And yes, I stayed for the 2 bonus scenes. The Flash/Superman race was cool. I did like the 2nd one with Luthor and the Deathstroke, which seems to be setting up the sequel to this. Whether that happens is another story.

I'd give this a B


BTW, how the hell would they explain Clark being resurrected from the dead? People went to his funeral who aren't in the know that he's Superman.

Also, just thought of something that the DC Film Universe doesn't jive with the TV shows. In the TV shows, Metropolis/National City (Superman/Supergirl) exist in a different "Earth" compared to where The Flash exists. In the movies, they all seem to exist in the same world.

Why So Blu?

Deathstroke is getting his own film. I think Gareth Evans is directing.

DJariya

Yes, I'm aware of that. I posted the thread about it.

I'm saying that Luthor recruiting him seems to be setting up the sequel to Justice League.

Spiderbite

http://www.thewrap.com/justice-leagu...rwater-battle/

Too long to post here but goes over a lot of the problems and is spot on.

Shannon Nutt

Well, if you believe the Reddit posting about all the scenes that were deleted from the film, there was apparently a scene where Lois brings Clark back to the Daily Planet and tells Perry White that he's Superman. I guess an excuse was made for the rest of the staff (although, you're right -
he had an open-casket funeral back in Smallville, so someone's got a lot of explaining to do!).

slop101

Amazing that the 3rd movie for (mostly) solo B-list Marvel superhero will end up having beaten a movie featuring 4 of DC's biggest heroes together.

Double_Oh_7

The fact that a movie with ALL the major DC superheroes couldn't crack 100M its first weekend is embarrassing.

E Unit

I think every Marvel solo movie thus far will have bested this one. Makes Wonder Woman a true outlier to this just about sunk franchise.

PhantomStranger

I wonder who decided Steppenwolf would be the villain? That film executive just lost his job after this weekend.

They should have saved Doomsday for this movie.

Sonic

Wow this is pure comedy. I'm gonna have to watch JL soon to get a good laugh. I haven't had a good movie laugh in a long time.

TheMovieman

When this was going to be a two-part movie, Steppenwolf would be the villain in part one leading way to Darkseid's arrival for the second part. But with the course correction and the fact Darkseid so closely resembled Marvel's Thanos, they dropped the idea and condensed it to a self contained movie. Plus, splitting movies into two parts had fallen out of favor with the public.

IMO, Warner knew going in this wasn't going to do well (they there own internal numbers going in) and probably are writing it off, thus why the story about focusing on solo movies going forward.

majorjoe23

They were actually a pretty cool 60s-70s band (Born to be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride).

DJariya

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(comics)

Wow, so Steppenwolf was actually a DC comics character?

I didn’t like the villain, but do the guys here who hated the character know him from the comic or just hated how he was portrayed on screen?

Mike86

I know of him from the comics. He was pretty piss poor in the film. Honestly even though I liked the film he and the Parademons didn’t feel like enough of a threat to unite the Justice League.

Why So Blu?

Steppenwolf is Darkseid's uncle.

Mike86

He came across really weak though. The threat really didn’t feel that great in my opinion. Heck as bad as Doomsday was I’d almost say he felt more threatening. Steppenwolf has to be one of the most generic villains I’ve ever seen and there’s really nothing memorable about him. Zod is really the only decent DCEU villain in my opinion.

Obi-Wanma

That's just some crap that they came up with for TV so that the respective creative staffs didn't have to worry about what was going on with the other show when plotting their own. In the comics, all the characters are in the same world.

fumanstan

I wasn't familiar with Steppenwolf at all as a casual comic book guy and someone that likes some/most of the cartoons. He definitely didn't seem like much of a threat, and Superman in particular seemed to be able to dispose of him easily too.

Eric F

BvS ruined a lot of possible things they could have done here. They can't do a movie based around the Trinity storyline, they couldn't use Doomsday, the only thing they could have done was use Darkseid. Yes, Thanos resembles Darkseid, but they should have gone that direction anyways. That's what happens when you take 15yrs to produce a movie.

Now they're probably going to have to give up on the team-up movies (at least for a while). So, movies like The Green Lantern Corps can't exist in a vacuum. We already had a standalone GL movie, and we're not likely to see another.