Matt Reviews: Justice League

WARNING: SPOILERS

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Joss Whedon works on a movie where a group of heroes come together to stop a horned alien from obtaining a cube to invade Earth…

Following the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) put together a team of metahumans to take his place. They recruit Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), the Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) into their group as the alien general Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) sets out to find the three Mother Boxes that will help him conquer the Earth.

There is a lot of stuff in here that is better than previous entries in the DC Extended Universe (excluding Wonder Woman). The characters are, for the most part, better. Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot both still put in good performances as Batman and Wonder Woman, though this movie still continues to make Batman an occasional dick for no good reason. The Flash is a lot of fun, and provides most of the comic relief of the movie. Sometimes they try to hard with his bits, but overall, I found him to be the most likeable out of the bunch.  Aquaman gets a lot of good comedic moments in the film, and I enjoyed the bombastic “frat bro” personality they gave him that evoked his portrayal in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. With Wonder Woman basically being the stand-in for Thor, it was a relief that they didn’t also make Aquaman the (no pun intended) fish-out-of-water royalty from a different world.

Cyborg was a concern going into this movie, since the trailers didn’t show off his personality like with the Flash and Aquaman. But in the movie, he’s fine for the most part. He’s got some interesting drama going for him, though they do lay on the angst a little too hard in some places. He also gets some good scenes of team chemistry with the Flash and Superman, so there’s reason for me to want to see more of him. Though I kind of feel like the frat bro personality may have fit better with Cyborg than Aquaman, but that’s a nitpick.

Also, in his brief role, J.K. Simmons looks like he's gonna be a good Commissioner Gordon. 

Superman returns in this movie and, unfortunately, he’s still pretty dull. Most of his early scenes involve him and Lois, so we have to slog through that same boring, chemistry-devoid romance they’ve been trying to force-feed us since Man of Steel. But to this film’s credit, they are trying to create a different Superman here, and it’s to their benefit. Superman in Man of Steel and Batman V Superman was mopey and depressing, clashing with his stance of being a beacon of hope. Here, they make him more of the boy scout we’re used to, with him cracking jokes, smiling more, and even challenging the Flash to a friendly race in a post-credit scene. He’s still not a well-written or interesting character, but this is definitely an improvement and a stepping-stone to hopefully better things.

Ares called. He wants his helmet back.

Speaking of boring characters, Steppenwolf is one of the blandest, most forgettable villains I’ve seen in a superhero movie. He’s got a boring, uninspired design with that same Zack Snyder grey-on-grey color scheme, and his performance is so generic that he could have been played by any deep-voiced British actor. His plan is the boring, generic “I need to build this thing so that I can take over/destroy the world”, which results in yet another climax filled with confusing and boring CGI effects. He has no personality except for “occasionally talks to the Mother Boxes like they’re his mother", which is never explained and is just weird rather than interesting. As much as I detested Batman V Superman’s version of Lex Luthor (and he’s still pretty annoying in the brief time we see him in a post-credit scene), at least he was memorable and had some sort of personality. It was an annoying personality that betrayed the character he was supposed to play, but at least he didn’t feel like a hand-me-down from Thor: The Dark World.

The plot isn’t great either. The pacing is weird, and it doesn’t really explain a whole lot in places. It touches on bits of the new heroes’ backstories, but they all feel like there was supposed to be a solo movie for each hero before this to set everything up. But the only things that were set up previously are the stuff with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, so everything else just feels rushed and confusing, even to be people who have seen the other movies. Unlike The Avengers, it doesn’t feel as satisfying when the heroes come together since we barely know most of them. 

There are a lot of moments where the heroes aren’t sure something will work, they don’t have a lot of evidence that it will work, and then it works anyway without a hitch. A prime example is when the heroes plan to resurrect Superman. Batman wants to use the spaceship goop that created Doomsday combined with a Mother Box, he has no evidence that it will work except for some vaguely defined science fiction BS, and then miraculously, Superman is resurrected. The heroes don’t face any real challenges getting there (except for Superman going crazy, which comes after the resurrection), so it all feels too easy, like the film just handed them the solution to move things along. I feel like it would have been better for the story if the resurrection failed at first, making the Justice League realize they can't rely on Superman to fix their problems and have to come together despite that. Then, when Steppenwolf is kicking their asses, Superman shows up in their darkest hour, and the theater goes nuts. It would have been a much more impactful way to bring him back, and would have sidestepped the incredibly forced fight between the League and Supes.

Also, for the love of God, can these movies stop treating Superman like he’s Jesus? I feel like a third of the lines in this movie talk about how “great” Superman was and how his death made the entire world a worse place somehow. It’s even a plot point that Superman’s death somehow allowed Steppenwolf to invade Earth, since the fear caused by the Man of Steel’s death fueled his Parademons (because they apparently feed on fear, which is never really explained or elaborated upon). Also, didn’t half the world hate him in the previous movie? He couldn’t have been that much of a beacon of hope if Batman was willing to kill him until he said his mother’s name.

OH GOD THEY RESURRECTED HIM WRONG! PUT HIM BACK IN THE GROUND!

The effects are pretty bad. Steppenwolf is entirely CGI, and he looks like he stepped out of a God of War cutscene. Cyborg’s robotic half is pretty unconvincing, and I’m just not a fan of his design overall. Due to commitments with filming Mission Impossible 6, Henry Cavill wasn’t allowed to shave his thick mustache when it came to the Justice League reshoots. They had to – no joke – edit out his mustache with CGI, and it’s painfully obvious which scenes with him are reshoots since the CGI warps his face into some weird mouth-thing (see above). The sets all look fake too, and I’ll bet that most of this movie was shot on a green screen. At least the Dark Knight movies and the MCU use real locations to ground their fantastic settings into some sort of reality. Here, nothing feels real. To this film’s credit, I do actually like the design of Gotham City, and how it looks reminisce of the Batman: Arkham games. It’s too bad that the CGI looks like it came from the Arkham games, too.

The film had two directors due to the tragic suicide of Zack Snyder’s daughter forcing him to step down from production, leaving Joss Whedon to take over during reshoots. As much as I love Whedon’s quippy writing style – which worked well in the Avengers movies – it doesn’t always mesh well here. It’s not as jarring as it should have been – what with the film mixing two near polar opposite directing styles – but a lot of the time, the humor in this movie isn’t really integrated naturally.

Justice League is not a great movie. However, it was not as bad as it could have been. I went into this movie with lowered expectations given what had come before, so naturally, I wasn’t as disappointed as I could have been. It’s definitely better than Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and Suicide Squad, but no where as good as Wonder Woman. Then again, I’m convinced Wonder Woman was a weird fluke and today’s DC will never reach that high again.

Justice League is a lot brighter and more hopeful than previous DCEU entries, with more likable heroes and some neat action scenes. It’s not great. It’s not terrible. It’s just okay. But given how angry I got over Batman V Superman, “just okay” is a major improvement. I’ll take “just okay” over “Jesse Eisenluthor peeing in a mason jar” any day.

Remember when this franchise's tagline was "Unite the Seven"?

Final verdict: 5/10.

So can we all agree that Suicide Squad definitely feels like it belongs in a separate cinematic universe? Even with the gradual shift to a lighter tone in the universe, it still feels weirdly out of place.

Matt Reviews - Thor: Ragnarok

WARNING: SPOILERS

This movie had me as soon as the trailers played Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”

Asgard faces its greatest threat yet when the death of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) releases his villainous daughter Hela (Cate Blanchett) from her imprisonment. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) are banished to the other end of the universe, where Thor is forced to be a gladiator and fights against a familiar and surprising face: the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). The two Avengers join forces once more, this time joined by Loki and fellow Asgadian Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) to make their way back to Asgard and stop Hela’s wave of death.

This movie is such a blast from beginning to end. I’ve never really disliked the other Thor movies (even though I think Thor: The Dark World is probably the weakest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), but this movie made me realize that the other movies had problems that were hindering it from becoming the Thor movie I really wanted. Specifically, it takes away Earth as a major set piece, allowing the film to take place entirely in space and become more of its own thing. And it gets rid of the human characters in favor of a more interesting supporting cast.

Thor has become a more wise-cracking hero (most likely due to spending so much time with mortals like Tony Stark) with a new awkward charm about him, which serves to make him more human and likeable. Even though this movie is called Thor: Ragnarok, the Hulk gets a lot of time to shine. The Jolly Green Giant has come a long way since we last saw him, now being able to speak better due to not turning back into Banner for two years. Him and Thor have a lot of good scenes together that show a new softness to the Hulk that we’ve never really seen before in these movies.

Loki returns in full force as well. In previous movies (especially The Dark World), Loki was the best character in the film, and the emphasis placed on his fan appeal winded up making him steal the spotlight from some of the other characters (most egregiously Malekith, the actual main villain of The Dark World). Here, Loki is still a great character, Tom Hiddleston puts another memorable performance, and he gets some more character development, but his presence doesn’t overshadow the other characters in the film. Which is good, since the movie introduces some new cast members that need their fair share of attention.

Eat your heart out, Batman V Superman.

Hela is our main villain. With Marvel being on a recent good track record regarding more memorable villains (see Zemo, Ego, and the Vulture), how does Hela play out? She’s pretty good, but they honestly could have done more. Cate Blanchett’s performance is one of the best things about this character, as well as her untamed badassery when it comes to her fight scenes. As the “Goddess of Death”, they could have given Hela the standard “shoots a wave of death out of her hands” powers (which seemed to be the case in the trailers), but they instead elect to show her massacring Asgardgian soldiers with her bare hands and weird knife-summoning powers. It’s a damn cool fight scene, and she even gets another one later when she fights Thor hand-to-hand.

The problem with Hela is that she’s set up as Odin’s firstborn daughter and the secret sister of Thor and Loki, yet these aspects aren’t touched on all that much. Odin’s plot-convenient death is what causes her appearance, so that means the two never get to share scenes that deal with Odin imprisoning her and all that stuff about the Nine Realms being built on death and destruction. She and Thor are separated for most of the movie until the climax, meaning that they can’t have any interactions as brother and sister. This kind of antagonistic sibling relationship works with Thor and Loki because they share a lot of scenes together in previous movies as well as this one that deal with the fallout of a sibling becoming your worst enemy. Because Thor and Hela barely share any of the movie together, they can’t build on that relationship, and the climax feels less like “Thor fighting an evil family member” and more like “Thor fights another powerful villain.” But Hela is in no way a bad villain, and the movie definitely makes her memorable.

The other new characters are pretty good additions as well. The Grandmaster, played by Jeff Goldblum, is another antagonist in this movie. He’s basically playing himself, just in weird space makeup and flashy clothes. He’s amazingly over-the-top and weird in every scene he’s in, and as a, uh, uh, uh, Jeff Goldblum, uh, fan, I’m very grateful he was in this movie, and I really hope he returns in the MCU at some point. Korg the rock-man was another standout character, voiced by the director of the movie Taika Waititi. He’s charming, funny, and utterly likeable, making any scene he’s in always something memorable. But the best new character has to be Valkyrie. She’s got a troubled past of watching her fellow Valkyries be slaughtered by Hela, which turned her into an alcoholic scrapper working for the Grandmaster. She goes through probably the best character development in the movie, and has some good chemistry with Thor and the Hulk. Plus, she’s a badass lady warrior, and badass lady warriors are always welcome in my superhero movies (especially since this one decided to shelve Lady Sif for some reason).

Doctor Strange also has a cameo in this movie that probably could have been cut, but I’m not mad he was in it. His entire purpose in the movie seems to be just to build the world of the MCU more and establish a connection between heroes and franchises, much like Falcon’s appearance in Ant-Man. His role of being the person to lead Thor and Loki to Odin (and therefore the rest of the plot) could have really been taken by anyone (even Loki himself), and his portion of the film where he abducts Loki and freaks Thor out with his magical abilities does seem like a bit of a detour from the main film, but it didn’t ruin the entire movie for me. I do however wish that they had brought the good doctor back later in the film, maybe to help in the climax to some degree, like what the movie did with Surtur.

God bless this man.

The movie is more lighthearted and jokey than the previous Thor movies, which allows the movie to be one big bombastic romp throughout. As I’ve stated in previous reviews, some of the more recent Marvel films seem to rely a little too much on comedy and silliness at times, but I’ve never seen it as a huge problem. (Compared to the grimdark movies that started out DC’s cinematic universe, I was grateful.) However, there are a few points in this movie where the jokes could have definitely been dialed back to let other scenes have their emotional weight. For example, the destruction of Asgard is set up as a punchline to one of Korg’s quips, and then it immediately expects me to feel sad by cutting to a bunch of Asgardians watching their home die. Could we not let the destruction of an entire world be left as a serious moment?

The set designs are beautiful, and a lot more memorable than anything in the previous Thor movies. Sakaar and the Grandmaster’s arena all have this beautifully bright and colorful sci-fi aesthetic to it that calls to mind the work of classic comic book artist Jack Kirby. It’s a major step up from The Dark World, where when Thor visits another world, it’s primary characteristic is “gray.” Even Asgard looks brighter and newer in this movie, and we get to see more of it than we ever did in previous movies, almost as if it’s trying to counteract the other places we get to visit.

The soundtrack is one of the best in any MCU movie. The previous Thor movies elected for bombastic, high fantasy-esque music. Ragnarok still has some of that, but mixes it in with retro synth pop that still manages to feel big and epic. The film is scored by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, and given that the film draws a lot of inspiration from Marvel’s cosmic stories of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, this feels appropriate. Also, the climax is partially scored by the aforementioned “Immigrant Song.” Meaning that we get heart-pounding classic rock playing over a suped-up Thor and Valkyrie fighting the undead, Hulk battling a giant wolf, and Skurge the Executioner making his last stand wielding two AK-47’s. Bad. Ass.

 If you want a definition for the term “epicly awesome”, look no further than Thor: Ragnarok. It’s got memorable and likeable characters, beautiful set designs and cinematography, a fun, balls-to-the-wall atmosphere, a killer soundtrack, a Jeff Goldblum out of touch with reality, and one of the best climaxes in an MCU movie to date. The fight against Hela escalates so much that the heroes have to BRING THE APOCALYPSE ITSLEF to destroy Asgard and finally defeat Hela. Top that, Infinity War! The problems I did have with this movie were mostly minor, and none of them ruined the film for me. It’s the best Thor movie, but it’s also surprisingly the best Hulk movie.

Mortal Kombat (2017): Starring Chris Hemsworth as Raiden.

Previously, I had thought the first Thor was the best of them. But Thor 3 makes Thor 1 look like Thor 2.

Final verdict: 9/10.

Now I can't wait for Infinity War to show the Avengers reacting to the changes in status quo over the past three years. Tony and Steve are at odds, Hulk's semi-intelligent, Thor's missing an eye and Mjolnir and Asgard's destroyed, and now there's this talking raccoon from space...