Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/22/the-justice-league-honest-trai.html
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Yeah.
I had completely forgotten this movie existed.
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Brutal.
Somehow they made a DC movie worse than Batman vs Superman?
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It was a quite serviceable and entertaining movie that did its best under an incredibly short reshoot schedule and did a great job of introducing The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg, with Wonder Woman being bad-ass as always. Unfortunately it had a terrible villain and didn’t do a good job of handling either Superman or Batman as characters. The strangest thing about it was watching what was supposed to be the epic climactic film of the DC Universe and it feeling like a minor live-action episode of the Justice League cartoon.
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The scary thing is…there were parts of BvS and parts of JL that I like. I want to like these films, I want them to be good…but WB just does not know how to make these characters into a movie at all!
Marvel films did it right from day one…they use the marvel comics writers to help shape the world. They use the source material to shape the characters (origins, motivations, etc). The film directors don’t go overboard trying to put their “thumbprint” on the films and let the characters and stories evolve naturally.
WB has done the EXACT OPPOSITE. They let the Directors and writers at WB shape these worlds and hog tie the characters into what they think the development should look like. This is why the DC animated films are so good, because DC actually handles them.
UGH. I hate WB for ruining these characters. I like Supes (never have loved him). I am a huge Bats and Wonder Woman and Aquaman fanboy. Affleck and Gadot are great in their renditions and they are fairly accurate to my expectations from the comics. Obviously Mamoa did a completely different Aquaman, but I ended up enjoying him a lot on the screen, his version worked quite well ultimately against the others. Cyborg was a whole bunch of meh, and Flash was HORRID. He was worse than Cavill’s digital lip.
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Completely agree. It had a weak third act but so does EVERY. SINGLE. MOVIE. that ends in a climactic CGI fight… which seems to be all of mainstream cinema these days.
I am perplexed at how the MCU gets so much acclaim for pedestrian, drawn-out serialising when these DC movies (which occasionally at least try to do something mildly different) seem to be universally loathed. I even liked BvS, but that could be 'cos of a childhood affection for The Dark Knight Returns, from which it borrowed quite a bit (and which I still think, slavishly frame-by-framed, would make the greatest superhero flick EVAH!)
Now that I think about it, Man of Steel was, admittedly, dull as ditchwater.
tl;dr Christoper Reeve RIP…
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I wanted to like BvS but it took so damn long to get anywhere, and again a comic-strip movie came down to a small group of people punching a CGI monster.
DC certainly lacks the light, fun touch of the Marvel movies, maybe you’re right, maybe it is a directorial issue. DC movies just don’t seem to fit together properly.
I did like Wonder Woman, I’m a huge fan of the Linda Carter era TV show, and Gal Gadot was pretty good too, but somehow she was made to play second fiddle to Chris Pine in World War One? More mish-mashery DC. Stop it!
We don’t need another costume design, we need DC to show us a plot we haven’t seen before.
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People pay money to go to these movies?
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Saves me some time.
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Thankfully, Marvel quite often takes risks and produces movies that aren’t in the least bit pedestrian or rote. I don’t think anybody who’s seen Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther would say they’re just the same sort of movie or at all pedestrian.
I actually respected what they tried to do with BvS, in making an intentionally grim, dark, slow film about how much it sometimes really sucks to be a superhero – it wasn’t a fun movie, or a crowd-pleasing popcorn flick, but it tried doing something really different that felt like the dark, grim comics such as Dark Knight Returns, as you say.
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I would say show us a plot we HAVE seen before…from the comics. Which is exactly what marvel has done.
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Time to turn the DC cinematic universe over to Patty Jenkins. I know she’s busy, but that needs to be her life now, because she’s the only director they have who can make them not suck. She made WW for half the budget of JL, and it earned $160 million more.
Yes, unfortunately, which is why studios keep pumping out quarter-billion dollar train wrecks like this debacle. If audiences reward bad movies, bad movies is what they’ll get.
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Ah, THAT! Pick a story that actually resonated with the fans and make it a live-action showpiece, rather than a committee-led piece designed by fanboys and financial types? Sir, you are dreaming! 
Personally, I’d quite like to see a good Year One or Killing Joke movie and I bet I’m not alone in that.
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Fair enough, I haven’t seen either of those. My most recent one was Dr. Strange, and that felt seriously well-trod. Oh, and the Guardians movies, which also underwhelmed.
It may come down to the old hype effect: I heard BvS was an abomination ==> pleasantly surprised. I heard GotG was the new Firefly/SW OT ==> deflated disappointment.
De gustibus non est disputandum, and all that.
Nah, the JL cartoon was actually good.
You’re not alone. But it needs good directors, DC veteran writers (as @anon61833566 suggested), and producers who won’t let it derail to keep their bonuses. Otherwise the best source material available won’t help them.
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Good being the operative word here. They’ve done full-length animated versions of both recently, but despite the best voice talent and some good writers behind them, neither one elevated the source material. Mediocre animation and some extremely questionable additions to the story didn’t help.
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Exactly the reason this report on a new Iain M. Banks adaptation today makes me a little wary: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2333693
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Definitely NOT.
And Man of Steel was loosely based on Superman: Birthright, but it only borrowed a couple of elements. They should have just done the actual series. Or done All Star Superman, minus its ending.
I know I am dreaming. Because the studio execs outside of Marvel seem to not know how to keep their noses out of things and let the movie makers do theior thing and let the money roll in.
Even Wonder Woman which was awesome compared to other DC films…was still at best middle of the road compared to Marvel’s universe.
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Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t even bear that much resemblance to the first two Thor movies (thank gods).
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Oh boy, Consider Phlebas isn’t the most challenging plot structure in the Culture universe, but it’s up there. I’d much prefer they tackle something easier like The Player of Games. Count me nervous too.
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