Movie review: DC does Justice to the League

Justice League hit the Big Screen in Pakistan on November 24. The DC Comics phenomena featured Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fiscer) and Superman (Henry Cavill).

Warning spoilers ahead 

The story begins months after the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday. Supervillain Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), along with his army of ‘Parademons’ is heading towards Earth to retrieve three Mother Boxes whose energy can be used to conquer the planet. With no Superman around, Batman and Wonder Woman are seen struggling to put together a team that could offer some resistance to the upcoming threat.

The league eventually is formed, but with no Man of Steel around, they are helpless. Finally, Cyborg and Batman decide to use the power of the remaining 'Mother Box', (Steppenwolf acquiring the other two), to resurrect Superman. The experiment is successful, but with his memory not completely restored, the plan temporarily backfires. The Kryptonian goes on a rampage, attacking all League members and nearly killing Batman, until Bat's contingency plan; Lois Lane appears and helps calm him down.

The film has enough drama and action to keep you hooked to your seat but it does have a feel of an unfinished work. With the lacklustre nature of the previous DC Films, it felt Justice League would be a total failure, but the cast had potential and I, for one, was entertained by them. What we, as DC fans, need to understand is, to give these characters time to build up for something meaningful in the future. Marvel’s Avengers for example, were not created in one night, it took a steady build up. Justice League is the beginning of something big in the DC Cinematic Universe and with the critically acclaimed Wonder Woman, it has proved that not all hope is lost.

Ezra Miller as The Flash and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, were the two that impressed the most. Some action sequences involving Wonder Woman were easy on the eye; Miller does fit into the Flash role rather nicely adding much-needed humour and is, in many ways, the unsung hero of the film.

One thing that was really disappointing was the performance of Batman. Yes for the second straight movie, Ben Affleck fails to live up to the lofty standards of the Dark Knight. Although this could still be a ploy and a setting for something big, Affleck really looks out of place. At times he looked completely stale; he just doesn’t have the aura or the 'dark humour' that is so synonymous with the character. He is probably the most high tech savvy Batman ever, but he lacks personality and charisma and he would need to take it up a notch in order to bring prestige back to the Batman Character. Director Zack Snyder has made Batman look too human; The Dark Knight is just not dark enough, fearful enough, charismatic enough and badass enough in his movies so far.

Another problem noticed with the film was deleting of ‘crucial’ scenes. There was a confrontation between Steppenwolf and his nephew Darkseid. After being defeated by the League, Steppenwolf is killed upon reaching Apokolips planet. A scene where Steppenwolf tries to manipulate Superman into joining his forces was also removed. Darkseid considered one of the greatest DC Supervillains ever, is rumoured to appear in the upcoming films. It would have been a good thing had he gotten a brief introduction; sadly Darkseid wasn’t even included in the post-credits.

It surely is difficult to pull off a film of such a magnitude, buzzing with Superheroes, and when your line-up includes two of the ‘Greatest of all time’, Superman and Batman, there is a chance of others being completely overshadowed. While watching the film, one doesn’t get bored with any particular character as members were treated equally, though the pendulum swung slightly in favour of Superman when he was resurrected.

One just hopes for this pattern to continue in the upcoming movies, as it was evident in this film that you cannot save the world alone.

Justice League is a must watch for those who have been DC fans, and if one is not, watching this movie would make him one.