The Problems
with Justice League (2017)
By Nabil Bakri
(All pictures belong to Warner Bros. except indicated with (*))
When The Avengers hit the theatres back in
2012, it united moviegoers world-wide in a fun-epic ride to feel the breeze of
the new norm in cinema, forcing all of us to embrace the new trend which is
superhero movies. Indeed it was started way back in 2008 with Iron Man and numerous superhero movies
had been released long before Marvel’s cinematic universe’s, but it is no doubt
that The Avengers is the game changer. If we look back to
the early 2010’s and the sunset of the previous decade (2000’s), we could find
many interesting movies that were released to offer the audience several new
trends for the future. It was the end of two massive sagas Harry Potter and The Twilight
Saga, it was the time in which the Narnia
series was in a huge trouble, and another epic movies of The Hobbit turned out to be not as successful as expected. The
world was witnessing the end of a trend and trying to grasp the idea of questioning
‘what’s next?’
In
2009, Cameron released Avatar and
offered us the magnificent use of 3D to accommodate the future of cinema. It
was quickly embraced by the majority of moviegoers world-wide along with the
introduction of Blu-ray 3D, but it was dismissed as quickly as its emergence.
Disney released I am Number Four (simply)
to face disappointing result, noting that such type of movie might not be a
good choice for the future trend. They also released John Carter (of Mars),
expecting it to be the next big saga, and Mars
Needs Moms, expecting it to be the next big thing in the world of animation
utilizing the motion capture technology, but turned out to be two of the most
disappointing box office bombs ever (and the efforts to monetize Prince of Persia and Tron: Legacy were also useless). So many
ideas, a lot of money being spilled, the trend is changing even faster thanks
to the widespread adoption of digitalizing as many things as possible, and
still no clear sign of the next trend in cinema. Dystopian films were quite
popular thanks to The Hunger Games
and Divergent, but it wasn’t until The Avengers that the world knew the
direction of cinema in the near-future. The movie was a game changer, it was a
sensation, it was, in a way, a pioneer.
Thus,
short after The Avengers, many superhero movies got the chance to entertain the
audience and it’s proven to be a huge success. It then evolved to something
more than just superhero movies, it was going to the direction of cinematic universes.
Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor, Captain America, and Spider-Man movies became titanic
triumphs as these stand-alone movies serve the purpose of the big picture which
is a rugged-complex cinematic universe. But wait, all of those heroes, they’re
from Marvel and none of them came from DC. What happened to DC? Wasn’t it DC
that made huge success with Super Man
(with Christopher Reeve), Batman
(both the live action and animated TV series with Adam West and Mark Hamill as
Joker, respectively, and Tim Burton’s films) wasn’t it DC that’s able to
reclaim the epic-ness of Batman after
major setbacks in Val Kilmer and Clooney’s Batman with Christopher Nolan’s
acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy? Well,
DC was quite passive during the aggressive expansion of Marvel back in the
early 2010’s even with the release of Man
of Steel in 2013, but with the release of Batman V Superman in 2016, DC was determined to catch up on their
absence during the initial hype of superhero cinematic universe. In 2017, DC
finally released the live action version of the most famous superhero league in
DC, the Justice League and unlike The Avengers that gained mostly positive
reviews and crazy-enormous amount of profits, Justice League was negatively criticised by many and it’s unable to
gain ‘that much’ profits compared to The
Avengers (or even fellow DC movies). And here’s what I think the reasons
why…
1. The movie is plagued by inconsistencies
There’s a clear shift of tone in Justice League that I noticed even after only 5-10 minutes into the
movie. The movie opens with the Batman tone, rather dark, but then shifted to a
seemingly more comical and ‘light’ tone when Wonder Woman appears. The
introductions of both heroes are quite problematic as well, they are extremely
similar, with Batman’s encounter with a villain has something to do with the
whole narrative while Wonder Woman’s encounter to a bunch of bad guys seems to
be added with the sole purpose to show Wonder Woman and it has nothing to do
with the narrative. It is actually okay to show the hero with the intention of simply
to show the hero doing some actions but keep in mind that we’ve seen Wonder
Woman in action in her stand-alone self-titled movie released a year prior. I
think it is odd when the movie shows these actions of Batman and Wonder Woman
but not the rest of the Justice League members which do not have their own
movies. Well to be fair, Batman does not have his exclusive movie, but Batman V
Superman shows me enough of Batman in action.
Justice League has a severe tone problem that’s
changing every time it introduces new character. The tone seems to follow
different character depending on who has the major contribution to the scene at
the time. The movie goes from serious to plain ‘light’ to comical to then back
again to serious which means that it is unable to make up its mind. No matter
how comical Flash is, his presence should not change the tone. It might be the
result of different tones in different DC movies, because unlike the overall
Marvel stand-alone movies that have arguably similar tone, Batman, Superman,
and Wonder-Woman seem to carry their own tones. Combine that with The Flash and
Cyborg, it becomes a total mess of inconsistencies. And it’s not just the tone
that’s inconsistent, but also the story, the pace, and characterizations.
Justice League is the perfect example of Walt Disney’s regret in making the
film Alice in Wonderland saying that
due to multiple creative minds mashing up their ideas together, the final
result isn’t as good as expected and in fact, it’s a mess. It is difficult to
watch how different Batman is from who he is in Batman V Superman, it is difficult to watch Wonder Woman and also
Superman, it is difficult to witness their personality changes in Justice
League. That problem does not happen in The
Avengers where Tony acts just like himself in the Iron Man and Captain America, well, he acts like himself in The First Avenger, and all of the
characters act the way they’re supposed to. They do not change their
personalities through different movies unless the change is completely
meaningful and necessary and it is guaranteed that the change in personality
will be smooth and evolving alongside the release of newer Marvel movies (Agent
Coulson).
When I first saw Barry Allen (The Flash), I thought
that they might put the character as a more serious Flash in order to match the
tone of seriousness that lies on DC’s shoulders since The Man of Steel, strengthened by Batman V Superman. It seemed that what happens to Barry won’t allow
him to act as comical as the character is Justice
League Animated Series. But of course, I was wrong. In just Mary Poppin’s
‘SNAP’, Barry forgets about his troubles and acts as if none of his problems
even existed. The similar situation happens to Aquaman and the Cyborg. This
movie shoves us seemingly complicated and multifaceted characters and
back-stories but spoofs us by saying, “Never mind, it’s actually not that
complicated”, as if the director changed his mind or something.
2. We Need More Info!
How does Aquaman become Aquaman? How does The Flash
become The Flash? And how does the Cyborg become the Cyborg? Justice League
gives us new super heroes without that subtle explanation and understanding the
way we understand the involvement of Black Widow, Nick Fury, and Hawk Eye in
The Avengers despite the absence of their stand-alone/exclusive movies. We know
how Batman and Wonder Woman came to be the way we know how Tony Stark and Thor
came to be, through their exclusive movies explaining their origins. But even
with the nonexistence of stand-alone movies of other SHIELD heroes, we
understand their involvements nonetheless. But with Justice League, it seems
that there is no specific reason for Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg to be there.
Heck, even the reason for establishing the Justice League in the first place is
not so convincing.
There is also a huge void in the matter of the villain
Steppenwolf’s story. We all know that he is the villain, but we also need to
know his reason to become a villain. The simple explanation that he is bad is
not enough, we need to see him as a complex character instead of as plain as
‘villain stereotype’. Even though I criticize Age of Ultron as inferior compared to The Avengers, I got to admit that I got to witness the development
of Ultron’s character. I know what propels him to become evil. Understanding
the villain is as important as understanding the hero. I need to know
everything about the character to know his/her strength and his/her
limitations. But again, this is the problem DC made since day one with
Superman. Even though Man of Steel
explains a lot about Clark Kent, I seem to fail to grasp what his true
abilities are and what his limitations are because it seems that he has limitations
in both Man of Steel and Batman V Superman, but not in Justice
League. This is the character that ‘should’ worry about Batman who asks “Do you
bleed”, so in facing Steppenwolf he has to be more careful and of course, it’s
not that simple and why oh why Superman seems to be multiple times stronger
than he was in previous films.
What about a random family the director picked to give
us the perspective of the overall civilians? Why this family in particular? The
scenes with this family is also problematic since not only they show a lack of
reason why they should be included in the final cut, but they distract the
focus of the film. The existence of this family drags my attention from the
heroes away because the scene is set to feel like it’s going to be very
important. But in the end, they’re just a bunch of innocent people the heroes
got to save. I am afraid that this point, too, adds another note for the film’s
inconsistencies by dividing the focus of the film between the heroes and the
civilians randomly chosen for no critical reason whatsoever. If the family isn’t
really critical to affect the overall plot, it’s better to treat them as plain
civilians the way The Avengers show
civilians and even Transformers (Michael
Bay) know it better not to get too involved in the lives of the civilians and
maintain the focus to the main characters. If we look back at Star Wars, we don’t need to know any
random family in Alderaan to grasp the enormity of the event because what’s
important to the story is Princess Leia’s reaction. Another example comes from
Storm Troopers, telling us that we don’t need to know any of those soldiers
personally because in the end, they’re not the focus of the story. The Force Awakens shows us a trooper but
the revelation is there to eventually change the overall plot, the troop is
critical for the story and he is not just another guy in white armour waiting
to be blasted to death by the rebels.
3. Bad CGI
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| (*) copyright UNIVERSAL/AMBLIN 1993 |
Hollywood is currently in the phase of overusing CGI. Gone the days filmmakers worked tirelessly to find the perfect spots for their films, perfect contractors to build perfect sets, perfect engineers to create perfect animatronics. The use of CGI used to be a tool to achieve something impossible to gain in real life. CGI was supposed to be there to fill in the gaps, so even though Spielberg could use all CGI dinosaurs, he still mainly used robots and combine the shots with CGI only when it’s impossible to achieve using real-life robots. The same technique has been done countlessly throughout the 90’s and 2000s with the facts that Sony built a full-scale robot of a lion for Jumanji while they also used CG lion, Cameron combined CGI technology with a full-scale Titanic replica, Gladiator, Harry Potter, and even The Chronicles of Narnia combine the use of CG with practical effects. Heck even in The Lord of the Rings we can definitely tell that the forest is real and it’s not actors stand before green screens in a studio to then later on they added CGI trees to the final cut.
CGI is cool, but if it is very possible to film a
sequence without CGI in a real set, it’s better to use the real set. Sometimes
practical effects are just better than CGI, just take a look at CGI Beast in
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
compared to the look of Minotaurs in Narnia.
The use of CGI is so massive today, studios don’t even bother to take the crews
to a rain forest to shoot the picture, they’d rather stay in studios to then
add CGI forest to the final cut. And again, CGI is awesome, unless when it isn’t,
and that’s the case in Justice League. Many of its shots look incredibly fake
and sometimes not 100% finished, like the project is being rushed or something.
The trees, the rooms, and even the villain, all look fake while they can just
use practical effects or, putting more effort to fully render the final cut
just like what Cameron did with Avatar released
almost a decade prior to Justice League.
4. STOP Trying to Mimic (and Duplicate) The Avengers
I admit that I was excited to watch Justice League.
It’s because I think Batman V Superman
is a decent movie and I always consider myself as more of a DC fan instead of
Marvel. The release of Batman V Superman
gives me a fresh perspective of a superhero movie, something darker and more
serious, something more ‘DC’, an alternative to Marvel that’s becoming too
massive and obviously propelled by the sole intention to make quick cash. But
despite all of the controversies of how Marvel (Ooops, Disney!) make money
through expanding a cinematic universe, there’s a simple line differentiating
Marvel from DC, that Marvel is good for your cozy time with popcorn while DC
requires you to think, to connect the dots, to get involved with all the
seriousness. But Justice League seems to be DC’s desperate move to duplicate
the success of The Avengers with so
many similarities and obvious intention to duplicate, to compete with Marvel
instead of to stand as a different kind of superhero movie, an alternative that
the majority of moviegoers desperately
need.
A. Why
Aquaman?
There are many superheroes in the DC universe belong
to Justice League. But why they have to choose Aquaman? And why with several
existing designs of Aquaman, they got to choose the one that looks pretty
similar to Thor? Same hair, similar look, similar attitude, similar many
things. Why? Why don’t they choose Green Lantern or The Martian? What about
Hawk Girl? And if they still choose Aquaman, why can’t they use different
design thus making him different from Thor? If his abilities are to control
water and talk to fish, why would Batman need him desperately? Yes, one of the
mother core is hidden in the Atlantis, but that doesn’t mean Aquaman should
join the force and that’s enough, completely ignoring other heroes. If
Steppenwolf is ‘that’ powerful and he’s not fighting underwater, wouldn’t it be
more logical to ask the help from the Green Lanterns? And, in the beginning,
the Green Lanterns seem to help human in the battle, but why none of them show up
during the present war against Steppenwolf?
B. Yes,
I know Tesseract
Why should they make the evil device looks so similar
to the evil device in The Avengers? Why not making the artefact more exotic
like the ark in Indiana Jones or make it round or heart-shaped, anything but
square? We’ve seen magnificent squares not only The Avengers but also in the
Transformers films. Even if it is the original design of the core, the director
should have the power called ‘creative license’ to change the design.
C. Afraid
of His Own Army
In the end, Loki is afraid to his own allies. Wait,
Steppenwolf also afraid of his own allies? What? What? This is just
coincidence, right, the similarities?
What I want to say is that DC is different from Marvel
and it should be different. It’s frustrating to see how a supposedly-darker
tone of DC is shifting to much-much lighter of that in The Avengers. That difference is what making DC special, it’s an
alternative to Marvel, and by making it as Marvel as possible makes the line
between the two vanishes to the thin air. What’s the point of making two
different universes if they, eventually, are the same? If there’s should be
less comedy in Justice League, then there should be less comedy. If Batman
should has no sense of humour, let him be serious all the time, but again, do
not change the tone, do not try to mimic something that is essentially
different, and it should be different.
***/end
copyright (c) Nabil Bakri
2018 Nabil Bakri Platinum
All rights reserved.
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