Film Justice League

[SalfordRed18]

It's quite meh.

Cheers for the spoiler, its only just come out!

 

[afrocentricity]

Is this what a guilty pleasure is? I’ve loved all of Snyders DC films, MoS, BvS and now this

It is. I can relate 100%...

Cheers for the spoiler, its only just come out!

Yea fcuker spoiled me too. Cant say I'm shocked at that spoiler tho...

 

[Sylar]

Kinda weird you guys are coming into this thread after its been released without watching the movie. Not sure what you were expecting to see?

 

[ADJUDICATOR]

Kinda weird you guys are coming into this thread after its been released without watching the movie. Not sure what you were expecting to see?

Opinions of how the movie matches up to expectations and whether it's worth a recommendation or the trip/time/money.

 

[simonhch]

$20m worth especially, or whatever the final figure was. Implies they lost a grip of it really quite badly. And they can't just blame Snyder for that, either.

The quote I read about the Snyder cut was “unwatchable”, and when he stepped down, WB freaked out and reshot a bunch of it.

Tbh, looks like a fecked up production from start to finish. Both from the choice of the original director, who everyone knew was awful, to the decision to reshoot a bunch in a completely different tone.

Shame really. Superman is one of my favourite all time characters. Would love to see him in a good movie.

 

[reelworld]

Tbf, the 3rd film is pretty pants, narratively. But what’s mitigates that slightly is how masterfully made it is. The fact it relied on thousands of extras and huge expensive practical props does somewhat offset the daftness of its script. Especially as the previous films had laid enough thematic and character groundwork to create a certain degree of investment in the goings on, however silly they were.

I mean, when all those thousands of people charge towards each other on Wall Street, you’re not thinking how barmy the situation that lead them there is, because the scene has enough tangible weight and dramatic tension within itself to carry you through... When a weightless CGI pixie floats around a cartoon colour graded sky to vanquish a faceless evil pixel monster, you’re naturally less invested in the scene, and more likely to question the bonkers plotting that preceded it.

What Marvel do well is balance their tensionless CGI end-battles with well established character drama. But if you have neither the personal investment, nor the cinematic heft, you’ve got little more than an empty computer game cut scene.

And saying “hey, it’s just comics”’ doesnt fly either, as even when you read comics you’re automatically adding this gravitas and poignance to the panels in your head. Just as you imagine the voices, or the unspoken thoughts, like you would with any book. When someone just puts the panels on screen with a bunch of floaty CGI, they’re not “brining it to life” as much as they’re taking away any nuance it may have had.



BvS had one of the biggest second week drops offs ever, for reference.

Great post.

I do argue that MoS actually try to explore the character groundwork for Superman, it's just they didn't do it very well.

 

[Sylar]

Why? Wonder Woman was shite, everybody just loves it because Gal Gadot and because female director= women empowerment or something

in your opinion. Mass opinion goes against that which kinda is more important.
Kinda like how I could think JL is the GOAT movie, but ultimately doesnt matter as opposed to the mass who will be viewing / watching / paying for it.
The final act was pretty much CGI filled end of world comic book stuff. But the rest of the movie was fun and had the right balance of action, dialogue and yes Gal is hot.

I dont think DCU needs a full reboot. Its got to a point where 5 movies have been made already and some are in the works.
They just need to sit down, get rid of Snyder imo as his vision is not working. And get a competent director to plan out the rest of the vision, story and stick to it. In fact I bet the story going forward isnt even the worst on paper, its just the execution has been horrid so far. (imo BvS was 2 movies squashed into one).
The fact that JL is a 2 hour movie and still had lots of scenes cut shows they are trying to cram in too much and not letting it breath.

 

[Norris]

Saw it on the weekend. Thought it was a fun movie. It was probably a little inconsistent interms of pacing and yes, the editing and CGI weren't great and the humour seemed a little over the top, but as a popcorn movie, it ticked most of the boxes in terms of entertainment.

I hadn't watched any of the previous DC movies like Suicide Squad or Wonder Woman or even BvS (But I did know the end), considering all that, it was a good watch.

 

[Witchking]

Disappointing. Think Batman seemed the weakest of the lot and superman just manhandled the bad guy. The cgi was crap. Think Bale was way better as the bat. The villains are getting worse and worse.

 

[JoaquinJoaquin]

Why? Wonder Woman was shite, everybody just loves it because Gal Gadot and because female director= women empowerment or something

I wouldn't say Wonder Woman was shite, But it is overrated for sure so I get where you're coming from.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

I wouldn't say Wonder Woman was shite, But it is overrated for sure so I get where you're coming from.

Yeah it was definitely overrated but it was in general a good superhero film but for me anyway pales in comparison to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

 

[Sylar]

Disappointing. Think Batman seemed the weakest of the lot and superman just manhandled the bad guy. The cgi was crap. Think Bale was way better as the bat. The villains are getting worse and worse.

I actually have no issues with that. Superman is like the strongest dude, and should be doing that to non top tier villains.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Superman is pretty much a god and it’s referenced in the comics that he holds back for a lot of the people he fights. Doomsday or Darkseid really the only ones he can really open up with. There is a story arc of it somewhere in the DC world him chatting to someone during a fight.

Spoiler

so for him to squash Steppenwolf not much of an issue. In general a hack job was done on the film. It could and should be so much better and there are many conflicting reports of WB saying it needs to be cut down to a 2hr limit, more humour so on.

I really just wish they would make these more themed for adults. 15 -18 but then I guess the real money is in merch and families taking 10-14 year olds to see it and so on.

 

[Ubik]

I actually have no issues with that. Superman is like the strongest dude, and should be doing that to non top tier villains.

Think that's the problem though, when the shtick of a film is the guy being dead but miraculously comes back at the end to easily dispatch the bad guy, it's a bit Superman ex machina.

 

[Borden]

Great post.

I do argue that MoS actually try to explore the character groundwork for Superman, it's just they didn't do it very well.

Yep. It also didn’t help that the entire second half of the movie was just invincible people fighting and destroying everything around them. 5 minutes of that would have sufficed.

Snyder knows how to shoot a scene, but he doesn’t have a clue about character development and getting you to care about the characters, or how to build tension, which makes his films emotionally sterile and soulless.

I did like Watchmen though.

 

[Sylar]

Think that's the problem though, when the shtick of a film is the guy being dead but miraculously comes back at the end to easily dispatch the bad guy, it's a bit Superman ex machina.

But again, it all depends on expectations. I would have been disappointed had Superman struggled against him.
I had no issues with that part of the movie. I thought him coming back and him being lost could have been a good point to go on much longer than it did (but i guess in a movie its hard to do, in a TV series it defo could have lasted longer)

 

[T_Model101]

Saw this today, actually quite enjoyed it. My God, did the DC universe need an injection of humour and the tone brightened somewhat

 

[Di Maria's angel]

Saw this today, actually quite enjoyed it. My God, did the DC universe need an injection of humour and the tone brightened somewhat

Was this even the problem? Suicide Squad used quite a bit of humour and BvS wasn't bad because of the lack of it.

 

[Rake]

Just saw it, it was quite decent and felt like it was over in an instant. Definitely room for improvement though. The change of directors really showed quite a few times during the movie. The CGI was terrible at places, they should really work on that for the upcoming movies... Maybe changed SFX companies or something. Some parts were laughable.

Spoiler

Superman was as powerful as he should be. Don't know why people are complaining. They found a semi-decent way to bring him back. It think that in the 2 previous movies we saw a somewhat "weaker" version of him and that is why people are surprised by the stuff he does. If anything, I was pissed by the terrible CGI which absolutely ruined a few scenes since i was laughing hard when I should have been moved..

 

[GBBQ]

I'm not really into DC comics so is Steppenwolf a major player? Just seems that if you have your big ensemble movie in a movie series (that has misfired multiple times to date) that you might put someone instantly recognizable (to the masses) in as the bad guy. If you taker a gamble on someone lesser known then it needs to be done in a memorable way, instead we get CGI 70s band man. Terrible.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

I'm not really into DC comics so is Steppenwolf a major player? Just seems that if you have your big ensemble movie in a movie series (that has misfired multiple times to date) that you might put someone instantly recognizable (to the masses) in as the bad guy. If you taker a gamble on someone lesser known then it needs to be done in a memorable way, instead we get CGI 70s band man. Terrible.

No, hes not. Seems like they wanted a Marvel style, alien villain. Darkseid would have been better although I imagine he'll arrive later in the universes timeline. They've used a lot of the main villains, though. Scarecrow, Joker, Bane, Ra's, Zod, Luthor in recent years and SS introduced us to a lot more. Guess they wanted something different. Looks like they're going forward with the Injustice League given the introduction of Deathstroke.

 

[Zarlak]

I'm not really into DC comics so is Steppenwolf a major player? Just seems that if you have your big ensemble movie in a movie series (that has misfired multiple times to date) that you might put someone instantly recognizable (to the masses) in as the bad guy. If you taker a gamble on someone lesser known then it needs to be done in a memorable way, instead we get CGI 70s band man. Terrible.

Nah he's not, he's just a set up for Darkseid like Marvel did with slowly building towards Thanos.

 

[Sylar]

See, thats why I had no issue with Steppenwolf. He was big enough to cause issues to the main cast but not big enough for Superman to toy around with. Im hoping we get more light Superman going forward now that hes bron again.
And hopefully Affleck stays as Batman cos I think hes a good batman. Just his bruce wayne is meh when compared to Bale.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

See, thats why I had no issue with Steppenwolf. He was big enough to cause issues to the main cast but not big enough for Superman to toy around with. Im hoping we get more light Superman going forward now that hes bron again.
And hopefully Affleck stays as Batman cos I think hes a good batman. Just his bruce wayne is meh when compared to Bale.

Pretty sure that's not happening.

 

[Sylar]

Pretty sure that's not happening.

I know, hes already talking about phasing out.
DC should just go balls out to get people talking and in the next movie we all of a sudden see Idris Elba as batman acting like hes always been Bruce Wayne.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

I know, hes already talking about phasing out.
DC should just go balls out to get people talking and in the next movie we all of a sudden see Idris Elba as batman acting like hes always been Bruce Wayne.

That would be awesome. However, isn't he "contracted" with Marvel? Wouldn't that affect whether he could take a role with WB and DC?

 

[Sylar]

That would be awesome. However, isn't he "contracted" with Marvel? Wouldn't that affect whether he could take a role with WB and DC?

Yeah I think he is haha.
they should just do something crazy though. Replace affleck with somebody who is the total opposite of him. And even in the promotions act like hes always been there. The actor can go
"we were a bit disappointed with BvS and it wasnt my best movie, but the next should blow it out of the water".

 

[Di Maria's angel]

Yeah I think he is haha.
they should just do something crazy though. Replace affleck with somebody who is the total opposite of him. And even in the promotions act like hes always been there. The actor can go
"we were a bit disappointed with BvS and it wasnt my best movie, but the next should blow it out of the water".

Rumours are its Jake Gyllenhaal. I think the best thing Warner Brothers could do is fire Snyder and probably even the writers. His directing style is shit and the stories produced are even worse.

 

[Minkaro]

I thought it was disappointing. Non-spoilery reasons being that the villain was crap, and as much as I like Ben Affleck, I'm just not buying him as Batman.

I did like Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa in their respective roles though, so I'll probably watch their solo movies.

 

[Rooney1987]

It’s done nearly $300 million in 3 days at the global box office. DCEU is far from dead.

They just need a rethink.

You're right far from dead however it is worrying from a Warner Bros point of view. Considering this is the first time Justice League is on screen and it has made the lowest of all the recent DC films at opening weekend. After a very positively received Wonder Women who leads the film.

After reshoots it's costing well over 300mil and add to the 150mil on marketing. It has to make well over 750mil worldwide to turn a profit and looking at opening weekend it's won't.

However the word of mouth for this is different, even though Rotten Tomatoes score isn't great I think most movie fans do seem to be enjoying this. Also it's Thanksgiving weekend in the US so hopefully makes some cash then.

 

[Garethw]

Rumours are its Jake Gyllenhaal. I think the best thing Warner Brothers could do is fire Snyder and probably even the writers. His directing style is shit and the stories produced are even worse.

I don’t think that Snyder will be within a 100 mike radius of any future DC film.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

I'm struggling to understand how this film cost $300 million to make. No doubt there will be a four hour Ultimate Edition that comes out a few months after the original Blu-Ray release.

Warning: my useless opinions alert

I'm also getting sick of watching Snyder films - I'm actually drained from it. Visually they're quite nice to look at (green screen aside) but he has no understanding of plot or character development. He's an "ideas man"; have a big battle scene here and frame this shot so it looks awesome in the trailer, oh and don't forget to put this line of dialogue in because it'll make the trailer look better as well. He doesn't even understand the basic principals of how storytelling works. In what universe does it make sense to have the origins/solo movies after the ensemble film? Because this ensemble movie spends quite a bit of time trying to shape its primary characters, which would be okay if they hadn't already started work on the individual Aquaman and Flash films. Put the origin films out first and then you can release the ensemble one, that way you can actually focus on making the ensemble film its own piece. If I'm watching something I don't like seeing the plot being forced to one side so that I can get exposition flung at me in order to advertise the next few movies that someone plans to make. It makes everything feel chopped together. Suicide Squad was worse for this but that's not saying much.

I know it's a lazy comparison to make, but the MCU did the ensemble universe right. They started with the individual films, developed their main characters, and then put them into an ensemble movie that from the very beginning focused on the main plot. And you didn't even need to have seen the Thor/Captain America films to understand what was going on, because the writing was tightly focused on one singular arc that it allowed breathing space for fun and interesting dialogue between people. Before I watched the first Avengers movie I hadn't seen Thor, so when Loki appeared I didn't know who he was and hadn't seen Cap either so I had no idea what the Tesseract did. But because of the way his first scene was shot, I knew right away "Okay, so he's clearly a powerful guy, he's not nice and that cube he's after has a lot of power." I understood the main antagonist, his goals and what the Avengers would be doing in this film, and all of this was done in the first five minutes with minimal exposition. In Justice League it took thirty minutes to get a feeling for what the film would be about, and yet it required some heavy handed writing to explain what was going on because thematically and visually the film jumped around from set piece to set piece (aka movie trailer highlights). It doesn't help that the main villain has little to no background (besides a momentum halting flashback) and is quite bland - much in the same way to how the Witch was explained in Suicide Squad. Snyder seems to confuse character development with purely explaining backstories. I'd also appreciate some more show and less tell.

After Wonder Woman, which for me managed to keep a relatively linear story arc that didn't distract from the development of themes and characters, I had hopes that mistakes from Watchmen, Man of Steel and BvS had been learned. Instead we have yet another mess of a film with no real direction.

Says the award winning creator of Dr. Suli M.D....

 

[GBBQ]

I'm struggling to understand how this film cost $300 million to make. No doubt there will be a four hour Ultimate Edition that comes out a few months after the original Blu-Ray release.

Warning: my useless opinions alert

I'm also getting sick of watching Snyder films - I'm actually drained from it. Visually they're quite nice to look at (green screen aside) but he has no understanding of plot or character development. He's an "ideas man"; have a big battle scene here and frame this shot so it looks awesome in the trailer, oh and don't forget to put this line of dialogue in because it'll make the trailer look better as well. He doesn't even understand the basic principals of how storytelling works. In what universe does it make sense to have the origins/solo movies after the ensemble film? Because this ensemble movie spends quite a bit of time trying to shape its primary characters, which would be okay if they hadn't already started work on the individual Aquaman and Flash films. Put the origin films out first and then you can release the ensemble one, that way you can actually focus on making the ensemble film its own piece. If I'm watching something I don't like seeing the plot being forced to one side so that I can get exposition flung at me in order to advertise the next few movies that someone plans to make. It makes everything feel chopped together. Suicide Squad was worse for this but that's not saying much.

I know it's a lazy comparison to make, but the MCU did the ensemble universe right. They started with the individual films, developed their main characters, and then put them into an ensemble movie that from the very beginning focused on the main plot. And you didn't even need to have seen the Thor/Captain America films to understand what was going on, because the writing was tightly focused on one singular arc that it allowed breathing space for fun and interesting dialogue between people. Before I watched the first Avengers movie I hadn't seen Thor, so when Loki appeared I didn't know who he was and hadn't seen Cap either so I had no idea what the Tesseract did. But because of the way his first scene was shot, I knew right away "Okay, so he's clearly a powerful guy, he's not nice and that cube he's after has a lot of power." I understood the main antagonist, his goals and what the Avengers would be doing in this film, and all of this was done in the first five minutes with minimal exposition. In Justice League it took thirty minutes to get a feeling for what the film would be about, and yet it required some heavy handed writing to explain what was going on because thematically and visually the film jumped around from set piece to set piece (aka movie trailer highlights). It doesn't help that the main villain has little to no background (besides a momentum halting flashback) and is quite bland - much in the same way to how the Witch was explained in Suicide Squad. Snyder seems to confuse character development with purely explaining backstories. I'd also appreciate some more show and less tell.

After Wonder Woman, which for me managed to keep a relatively linear story arc that didn't distract from the development of themes and characters, I had hopes that mistakes from Watchmen, Man of Steel and BvS had been learned. Instead we have yet another mess of a film with no real direction.

Says the award winning creator of Dr. Suli M.D....

In terms of the money i think a lot will have to do with the reshoots by Joss Whedon.

Their biggest problem is that both DC and MCU are so similar. Just looking up Steppenwolf on wikipedia I saw he was created by Jack Kirby (who created The Avengers for Marvel with Stan Lee). So many of the characters are similar and it really was a case of whoever got the ensemble movie to the screen first was going to win (just by the pure spectacle of all of them together).

 

[Di Maria's angel]

I'm struggling to understand how this film cost $300 million to make. No doubt there will be a four hour Ultimate Edition that comes out a few months after the original Blu-Ray release.

Warning: my useless opinions alert

I'm also getting sick of watching Snyder films - I'm actually drained from it. Visually they're quite nice to look at (green screen aside) but he has no understanding of plot or character development. He's an "ideas man"; have a big battle scene here and frame this shot so it looks awesome in the trailer, oh and don't forget to put this line of dialogue in because it'll make the trailer look better as well. He doesn't even understand the basic principals of how storytelling works. In what universe does it make sense to have the origins/solo movies after the ensemble film? Because this ensemble movie spends quite a bit of time trying to shape its primary characters, which would be okay if they hadn't already started work on the individual Aquaman and Flash films. Put the origin films out first and then you can release the ensemble one, that way you can actually focus on making the ensemble film its own piece. If I'm watching something I don't like seeing the plot being forced to one side so that I can get exposition flung at me in order to advertise the next few movies that someone plans to make. It makes everything feel chopped together. Suicide Squad was worse for this but that's not saying much.

I know it's a lazy comparison to make, but the MCU did the ensemble universe right. They started with the individual films, developed their main characters, and then put them into an ensemble movie that from the very beginning focused on the main plot. And you didn't even need to have seen the Thor/Captain America films to understand what was going on, because the writing was tightly focused on one singular arc that it allowed breathing space for fun and interesting dialogue between people. Before I watched the first Avengers movie I hadn't seen Thor, so when Loki appeared I didn't know who he was and hadn't seen Cap either so I had no idea what the Tesseract did. But because of the way his first scene was shot, I knew right away "Okay, so he's clearly a powerful guy, he's not nice and that cube he's after has a lot of power." I understood the main antagonist, his goals and what the Avengers would be doing in this film, and all of this was done in the first five minutes with minimal exposition. In Justice League it took thirty minutes to get a feeling for what the film would be about, and yet it required some heavy handed writing to explain what was going on because thematically and visually the film jumped around from set piece to set piece (aka movie trailer highlights). It doesn't help that the main villain has little to no background (besides a momentum halting flashback) and is quite bland - much in the same way to how the Witch was explained in Suicide Squad. Snyder seems to confuse character development with purely explaining backstories. I'd also appreciate some more show and less tell.

After Wonder Woman, which for me managed to keep a relatively linear story arc that didn't distract from the development of themes and characters, I had hopes that mistakes from Watchmen, Man of Steel and BvS had been learned. Instead we have yet another mess of a film with no real direction.

Says the award winning creator of Dr. Suli M.D....

Just to comment on your first paragraph - this movie seemed like 90% CGI and shot infront of a green screen - I cant think of many scenes which were set in the open/real world. I imagine that in itself was very costly. Avengers, on the other hand, had a budget of $220m.

To comment on your 2nd paragraph, I think WB would have pushed for a JL film especially since they're lagging behind MCU. They could have made this work but the film had to be edging into a classic Bollywood style 3 hour movie. One problem was that they rushed straight into "a disaster is coming" and 5 minutes later the Avengers... I mean, Justice League assembled. Snyder easily could have a spent an hour showing us each character and cover their development - even flashbacks would have helped such as showing us how Barry became an orphan. Although this would then spoil The Flash origin movie - its fecked up tbh.

I wont blame him for choosing to direct this film, it was simply the way in which he did it. He seems too hell bent on CGI-ing everything and removing all realism. Even the scene in which we see Gordon speaking to the league was filmed infront of a green screen, like come on Snyder, film that on a fecking roof top, you moron.

 

[Sylar]

After Wonder Woman, which for me managed to keep a relatively linear story arc that didn't distract from the development of themes and characters, I had hopes that mistakes from Watchmen, Man of Steel and BvS had been learned. Instead we have yet another mess of a film with no real direction.

directed by different people I believe. I think Snyder had a hand in writing WW, but it was shot by Jenkins and you could tell the difference.

 

[Garethw]

I’ve heard that a scene with Darkseid and a green lantern post credit sequence were completely cut out by Whedon.

I hope they release the 2 hour 50 minute cut that got slimmed down by WB. The extended cut of Batman V Superman was far better than the cinema version.

 

[Garethw]

It sounds like this was originally supposed to be a two part film which would have allowed for far more character development etc.

 

[Ubik]

I’ve heard that a scene with Darkseid and a green lantern post credit sequence were completely cut out by Whedon.

I hope they release the 2 hour 50 minute cut that got slimmed down by WB. The extended cut of Batman V Superman was far better than the cinema version.

I don't think a superhero film has any business being nearly three hours long personally, but cutting out key universe-building elements like that would be dumb from Whedon. Unless they just looked rubbish, which is possible.

 

[Welsh Wonder]

I don't think a superhero film has any business being nearly three hours long personally, but cutting out key universe-building elements like that would be dumb from Whedon. Unless they just looked rubbish, which is possible.

I read somewhere that the studio mandated that the movie be no longer than 2 hours, which would explain the amount of scenes apparently cut.

 

[Sylar]

Studios getting involved is never a good thing. I still remember that FF4 reboot eep