"This isn't the plan. This is the team."
Hello everyone!
That being said, however, I again state that I'm not someone who's going to play favourites and go from one camp to the other trying to infuriate people.
I really don't care about this so called "rivalry". I like Thor but I also like Superman, so if I want to watch both movies and see Chris Hemsworth and Henry Cavill rocking it on screen, well, that's about everything that should be said on the matter.
Still, it took me a little bit to get to the hero team-up DC dreamed up as their answer for the Avengers. I think I'm still jaded after trying - and failing - with Batman vs Superman.
Wonder Woman restored my faith somewhat though and I figured I might as well give Justice League a try, too.
I'd seen news online that the film wasn't one of the best received, and that DC is again struggling to find its stride in comparison to Marvel's movie-making machine, which I think is unfair. Leave them some room to breathe! They need to develop their own style, after all.
For me, I was mostly just annoyed before the movie even came out, because it was announced that the DCEU would have nothing to do with the television shows, as opposed to how Marvel does it (for those less Marvel-savvy: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is an amazing show tie-in with the cinematic universe, and other of their shows keep going in the same vein). This, to me, seemed like a bizarre decision since I've been convinced, or at least the internet has convinced me, that the TV shows based on the DC comics are actually more successful and more numerous than Marvel's. In fact, it could potentially be argued that it was the advent of superhero TV shows, with the proud Arrow flagship, that even heralded a new dawn for the DC movies and a sure footing to give them an extra boost.
But then the decision came, and all of a sudden Slade Wilson had to be written out of Arrow because they needed the character in the movie universe and there was some conflict of interest somewhere, which I find interesting because by that same logic the entire Flash television show should have been cancelled by now since Barry Allen exists in two forms, with Ezra Miller cast for Justice League.
I don't know. It's just not a situation I can understand, and I probably never will, but I do know there's been a lot of commentary regarding the split, and I haven't seen much of it being positive.
Back to the movie, however.
Justice League picks up immediately where BvS ended, which is post-Superman death. I found it hypocritical (and therefore showing today's society at its best) how there were black banners with Superman's House of El symbol displayed around the globe, when back in BvS the world suddenly turned against him. But, you know, we humans are fickle creatures.
Before we can truly dive into the movie, however, we're treated to more scenes with the Amazons: on Themyscira, there's a weird box under constant supervision and guard, but unfortunately it gets stolen by a horned dude who calls it 'Mother' and who sounds like he may need a visit to a nut house because he kills a bunch of Amazons and then tells the Queen that they'll love him in the end.
Er, mate, has no one ever told you killing your friends won't make you new friends?
But anyway.
Hippolyta lights the sacred fire and thus warns Diana (Wonder Woman, portrayed by Gadot) that the Amazon's worst fears have come to pass. This prompts Diana to go hunt down the one and only Bruce Wayne, who's been busy batting about Gotham (see what I did there) and chasing after weird-looking things that feed off people's fears. Diana explains what they are: Parademons.
Parademons actually used to be regular beings until the horned dude got to them. Horned Dude is named Steppenwolf, but I prefer Horned Dude for obvious reasons.
Diana tells Bruce that, as the Amazons tell it, Horned Dude had already been on Earth once before; he was a conqueror who used three Mother Boxes (NOW I get the Mother thing) to form a Unity which eroded away the entire existence of any planet they were on to transform them into the hellish version of Horned Dude's own. But on Earth, he met resistance: a Last Alliance of Men and Elves marched against ...
Whoops, wrong fandom.
Men, Amazons, Olympian Gods, the Green Lantern Corps and the Atlanteans fought against Horned Dude and the Parademons, defeating him - which may or may not have caused his mental breakdown. Because, you know, losing JUST MAKES YOU MAD. In the literal sense of the word.
The Mother Boxes were separated, one given to the Amazons, one to the Atlanteans, and the third to Men to hide, but Superman's death triggered them to wake up and now Horned Dude is back to regain favour with someone called Darkseid, his master.
Diana and Bruce go to persuade other metahumans to join the cause, but while Diana fails to get Victor Stone to join, the Cyborg (who should have died but his father used the Mother Box to make him into the machine he is) promises to look out for the threat and warn them. He kind of changes his mind about joining after his father and other S.T.A.R. Labs employees get taken by Horned Dude, though. Meanwhile, Bruce fails epically with Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa, who had to be FREEZING in all that water), but does recruit an enthusiastic Barry Allen, who has zero purpose in life other than trying to get his father released from prison (and every Flash fan around the globe groans in union because WE'VE ALREADY COVERED THAT IN THE SHOW)..
Fun fact: in the scene where Barry finds Bruce in his secret lair, one of the TV screens in the background shows a girl group dancing and singing. I managed to deduce they were Asian per ethnicity, and on a lark showed some screencaps to my sister, an avid K-Pop fan. She identified the group as Black Pink (let's ignore that she also said they could have found another group to stick in the background).
While this is happening, Horned Dude goes after box number two, which is still under guard in Atlantis, but Curry was warned something would happen because of a Parademon sighting, and hightails it to his home kingdom where Mera (Amber Heard) is busy being bad-ass and killing it, but she's no match for Horned Dude and he takes off with the box. We learn that Curry's mother left him with his human father, which he never forgave her for, and it doesn't help that Mera keeps talking about how good the Queen was to her.
But Horned Dude did the job in sending Curry to join the others, who meanwhile have located said Horned Dude and are fighting him to the best of their abilities (this includes but isn't limited to Batman using a crawling vehicle that literally CRAWLS it's so slow, Flash poking Wonder Woman's sword to her and tripping over his own feet, and Curry stopping an influx of water with his powers). They manage to send Horned Dude on his way, but only just, and Batman decides they need help.
They need Superman.
After Cyborg reveals how the Mother Box was used to make him who he is today after the fatal accident, Batman decides to do the same with Clark Kent's body in the Kryptonian ship. The Mother Box should have just enough boost to kickstart him back to life. Wonder Woman and Aquaman aren't 100% on board, but Bat's running out of options - and humanity needs hope. Or, you know, Superman.
Side-note: Flash and Aquaman will totally cover for Wonder Woman if she kills Batman in a fit of rage. Moving on.
Good news! The plan works. Bad news - Superman doesn't have his memories.
Or, rather, he doesn't have the GOOD memories. He knows just fine that Batman tried to kill him - and because Cyborg isn't fully in control of his own machine body, he accidentally fires a missile at Superman, pissing him off and prompting him to fight the other heroes.
At which point, despite it being hero against hero, I'm cheering because FINALLY someone somewhere remembered that, when you have a character so obviously more powerful than everyone else, you have to SHOW that power from time to time. Superman easily keeping up with everyone, Flash included, is amazing.
Batman pulls the contingency plan: Lois Lane, who talks Superman down and he takes her back to Smallville, where he can attempt to recover.
Meanwhile, I'm laughing like an idiot at how easily Superman just tossed Batman aside. The only thing missing was the missile flight sound and a big boom at the landing, but Ben Affleck's 'Yep, something's bleeding' comment from the crater works, too.
RED ALERT! While everyone's busy with Superman, Horned Dude comes and steals the third box. OOPS. Now it's off to Russia - because where else would you want to take over the world from? The only place more obvious would be Chernobyl - to make sure the planet doesn't die. The team would still have had a hard time of it (pitchfork jokes aside) if Superman didn't join the party midway through to help Flash evacuate the city (and while Barry's proud at getting one truck to safety Clark is carrying an entire block of flats) and eventually help Cyborg separate the Mother Boxes (also to kick Horned Dude's ass a little; what did I say before about super strength?). Horned Dude wails and stamps a little, but, overcome by fear, he's prime meat for his own Parademons until they're all teleported away.
Afterwards, Bruce helps Clark's mother get her house back (he has this compulsion for buying banks), and he and Diana decide to organise a base of operations for the Justice League, with room for more members. Wonder Woman steps back into the spotlight as a hero, Cyborg continues to experiment with his abilities at S.T.A.R. Labs, and Aquaman returns to Atlantis. Meanwhile, the Flash gets a job at the Central City Police Department. And while we're all celebrating, Superman and Flash race towards the Pacific coast to see who's faster (because, why not?) and, in a post-credit scene, Lex Luthor escapes from Arkham Asylum to recruit Slade Wilson into their very own league.
I can't say this was the stuff movie dreams are made of - but it made me laugh, giggle and chortle, which is more than I can say about half the DCEU movies. The lighter tone certainly helped considering it's all usually doom and gloom. And while I could never take Horned Dude seriously - COME ON - I suppose he might have just been a set-up for a much bigger villain along the road.
And hey, so long as we get movies about these individual heros later, I'm game!
xx
*images and video not mine
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