Justice League: My Film Review

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!!!

Justice League is a 2017 American superhero film that is based on DC Comics superhero team of the same name and was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is also the fifth installment in DC Extended Universe (DCEU).  A film directed by Zack Snyder, with screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon.  A superhero movie about how the six crime-busting lifesavers assemble to save the doomsday that’s gonna happen on the upcoming days of the Earth. 

The following super six are the following: 

(1) Playing as the alter ego of a billionaire Bruce Wayne aka Batman is the 2-Oscar award-winning American actor Ben Affleck (Bruce Wayne of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice/ Capt. Rafe McCawley of Pearl Harbor/ A.J. Frost of Armageddon/ Ned Allyn of Shakespeare in Love); 

(2) The Amazon princess of Themyscira Wonderwoman as played by 4-time award-winning Israeli actress Gal Gadot (Diana Prince of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice/ Diana of Wonderwoman/ Gisele of Fast & Furious /Natalie Jones of Keeping Up with the Joneses/ Kika of Asfur/ Yamit Bareli of Kathmandu); 

(3) The Kryptonian Superman comes back alive at this film and playing as a reprised role for a 2-time award-winning actor from Jersey, Channel Islands Henry Cavill (Clark Kent of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice/ Kal-El of Man of Steel/ Theseus of Immortals/ Charles Brandon of The Tudors/ Humphrey of Stardust/ The Hunter of Red Riding Hood/ Albert Mondego of The Count of Monte Cristo/ Napoleon Solo of The Man from UNCLE) ;

(4) Barry Allen aka The Flash as the fastest man alive also joins the league played by 11-time award -winning actor Ezra Miller (Barry Allen of Suicide Squad/ Credence Barebone of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them/ Patrick of The Perks of Being a Wallflower/ Leon Dupuis of Madame Bovary);

(5) A former athletic Victor Stone also took his spot as one of the members of the league. Also known as Cyborg, Victor Stone is played by an American actor Ray Fisher (Cyborg of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice/ Capt. Edward Dwight of The Astronaut Wives Club);

(6) And former Game of Thrones actor who played as the famous Khal Drogo and playing as the role of an Atlantean superhero Aquaman aka Arthur Curry. He is played by an award-winning actor from Honolulu; Hawaii Jason Momoa (Conan of Conan the Barbarian/ Ronon Dex of Stargate Atlantis/ Declan Harp of Frontier/ Spider of Once Upon a Time in Venice/ Jason Ioane of Baywatch).

This team of superheroes was all summoned by a billionaire and owner of Wayne Enterprises named Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego. Its his instinct that he could sense a coming doomsday on Earth when he saw one of the bat-like creatures that wandering around Gotham looking to feed for fears. Apparently, these eerie creatures are called as parademons, who became an army of Steppenwolf, a villain who works under Darkseid, a supervillain whose equivalent to Marvel is Thanos. Steppenwolf is played by a 7-time award-winning British actor Ciaran Hinds (Mance Ryder of Game of Thrones/ Claudius of Hamlet/ Pabbie of Frozen/ Tardos Mors of John Carter/ Roarke of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance/ Aberforth Dumbledore of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2/ Burke of Race to Witch Mountain/ Herod of The Nativity Story/ Firmin of The Phantom of the Opera/ Jonathan Reiss of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life). The 3 mother boxes were all after by Steppenwolf to form Unity, a channelling terraforming of the Earth by destroying the planet’s ecology and converting it to his homeworld.

Thousands of years ago, Steppenwolf made an attempt to gather all these mother boxes by battling against the unified army of Amazons, Atlanteans, Olympian gods, Green Lantern Corps and mankind. He failed to gather them all and now he’s back to try his luck in this movie once again by summoning the fear-feeding creatures called the parademons.

The film had an estimated production budget of $300 million, thus making it as one of the most expensive films ever produced. It was premiered on October 26, 2017 at Beijing, China and released in 2D, 3D, and IMAX in USA on November 17, 2017. Considered as the lowest of DCEU when it comes to gross income earning yet the film made roughly $655 million worldwide and $228 million alone in North America, against an estimated $750 million break-even point cost. The film will be having its sequel on 2019 as announced by Snyder.

Though this movie received a lots of mixed reviews from film critics, nevertheless, there are some who praised the action sequences and performances of Gal Gadot as Wonderwoman and Ezra Miller as The Flash. The villain, plot, writing, pacing, and overuse of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) lambasted the film and also the film’s tone itself has meet a polarized reception. Though some appreciated this film much better than previous DC films when it comes to lighter tone, yet there are also others find its inconsistency.

With the film’s grossing of $228.1 million in Canada and US on January 28, 2018, plus $427.8 million in other territories, and a worldwide opening of $278.8 million, the film made it as the 24th highest-earning movie of all time as of the latest ranking.

The film has been reviewed by different aggregator websites such as the following:

(1) Rotten Tomatoes — basing on 298 reviews, the film has 40% for approval rating with 5.3/10 as the average rating. According to their critical concensus, Justice League has leaps over a number of DC films, yet its single bound is not enough to shed the murky, thin characters, aesthetic and chaotic action that can continue to dog the franchise.

(2) Metacritic — uses a weighted average and assigned a film score of 45 out of 100 based on 52 critics, and indicated the film with mixed or average reviews.

(3) Cinemascore — gave an average grade of “B+” for an A+ to F scale

(4) PostTrak — scored the film 4/5 whilst surveying the audiences. 

In my own insights and review, this film is still one of the best DC movies I’ve ever watched. I can’t stop laughing at the humor naturally gestured by Ezra Miller as The Flash and can’t stop fantasizing (what?!) Gal Gadot’s superb and gorgeous moves which I find it super sexy for her as a female superheroine. She really nailed it this third time around starting from her stand-alone film Wonderwoman.

For me, this film has prove that DC has still lots to show under their sleeves, though some may ridiculed the whole cinematic runtime of this movie. Some fans got a little bit dismayed, yet expect more rooms for improvement on the next sequel of this movie on 2019.

Still a highly recommended movie for everyone who loves comic book characters. Congrats for the job well done for the successful release of this film. A lot of kudos to the DC Studios and the staffs working behind its production. Justice was already served and more to come on year 2019 for the next sequel.

If you haven’t watched this film yet, you can watch its trailer below: