When you have a league of your favourite superheroes, all in one big film, as a maker you have a lot of things to keep in mind. But the basic idea would be to entertain the crowd and keep them hooked to the screen and at the edge of the seat. Have the makers and director Zack Snyder done justice to this idea through their big Hollywood venture Justice League? Read further.
With numerous important characters, this multi-starrer basically deals with our superheroes fighting against Steppenwolf (leading an army of Parademons) and his mission to destroy the world through an alien invasion. Well, this conflict is not something old to superhero films and in Justice League too, we have this as the base plot.
The film starts off with separate introductions of the various characters Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg. The casting is on point and Ben Affleck as Batman along with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman are impressive while Ezra Miller as the Flash adds the much needed comic relief.
Gal Gadot is elegant, beautiful and stylish, and has a meaty role to play. She has pulled off a stellar performance with her screen presence. The two (Batman and Wonder Woman) set out to find the right team to battle Steppenwolf and his forces, and keep the mother boxes away from him, before he latches onto the power that could destroy the world. This counter-mission by our superheroes becomes even harder in the absence of Superman. How all this boils down to a face off between the two sides forms the rest of the plot. Ray Fisher’s character Cyborg, has been written pretty well and reminds us of Ben Grimm from Fantastic Four.
Director Zack Snyder has tried hard to fit in the much needed mass moments, quirky counters, comic dialogues and also keep up with the core plot. However, in trying to do all of these in a convincing manner, the screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon gets diluted as the film takes course.
Scenes between Batman and Flash are funny and an underwater action scene between Aquaman and Steppenwolf deserves a mention. Superman’s re-entry assures a high point in the film and so does his chemistry with Flash. But the number of high points in Justice League can be counted easily and if there were more of these, it would have been a lot more of an edge of the seat superhero movie.
The technicalities that include cinematography by Fabian Wagner, edit by David, Richard and Martin, are impressive with a lot of effort put in for the visuals effects. Since the action scenes are over the top in movies like these, a lot of homework has to be done in order to choreograph them in a convincing manner. Kudos to the team for pulling this off. Music by Danny Elfman is not jarring and helps elevate certain scenes.
But the problem lies in the overall product. Despite timely mass moments, comedy scenes, action blocks, superman’s return, the overall conflict is definitely something which could have been stronger and the screenplay tighter. Nevertheless, this Justice League film would be loved by all the DC comic fans and can be watched by the general film audiences as well, for the Justice team’s work, which is just about there.