We posting reviews?
So I caught it, and found it average as hell. Taking up what the Godling said, the movie’s just there. It lacks an effective build-up, because characters are spread thin in the first half (I find Aquaman the most guilty of this). For comparison I actually watched IT with my brother the day before, and while the catharsis in the third act is felt better with some of the kids over others, it still feels earned/present with all of them. Justice League, not so much.
Part of this is Steppenwolf being bland as fukk. He doesn’t challenge any of the group, so fighting him is just obligatory in saving the world. He had a throwaway line of being compelled to conquer to earn his place, but there’s really nothing else to him. I thought he was going to be at least a sick action character, with an axe of doom but nah. Some moments but eh. Too much of typical menacing dialogue (though it worked for a little, will come back to that). Also his death ripped off an iconic villain’s (cue winking money counter gif).
Now the CG. I tried to keep faith in the beginning, especially with Cyborg which I thought was well done when he kept to the hoodie and only showed his face. But then it quickly got ridiculous, with CGI Kryptonian ship corridors, CGI plane hangars, CGI cornfields. Cornfields! It needed more practical effects, and Superman’s animated lips were straight terrible, made worse by their constant presence (I feel like there were two scenes where he didn’t have them). He was OP though, straight embarrassed the competition. Also I ended up finding Cyborg’s design crap. When he’s flying in the ‘My man!’ shot, I kept thinking he flies like Flappy Bird.
The team itself had enjoyable comradery that would’ve felt a lot better if there were more preceding movies. I think the movie itself knows this, as they tried to make the most of the WW hype with all the Steve references but the Amazonian action scene was one of the more compelling scenes (life or death tag) since we knew Hippolyta. Then when Steppenwolf takes on Diana later on, his callback taunt was a bit of a bright spot for me. Compare it to the Atlantis invasion, which interesting technically, felt random as hell. Still there is chemistry between multiple pairings (Supes/Flash is the most entertaining for me), but the ‘growing pains’ conflict felt non-existent so coming together as a team was eh.
Lastly to me it also lacked a great scene. No Koba riding on the humans in Dawn…Pota, or entering the Pennywise house for the first time in IT. Nothing particularly memorable. I honestly don’t hate it, but have no urge to watch it again. If anything, I want to see Snyder’s full product but I doubt it would have enough character development for me.