Justice League (2017)

4:3 didn't bother me too much, it was initially a big what the hell? moment, but the first... 90-110 minutes were pretty damn engaging. 65" flat OLED, sitting pretty close to it, so I only really noticed a couple times where I wished it would have been 16:9 - like when Supes is standing in the corn fields and some of the wide angle city shots.

So... My take, from a tone perspective, this is consistent throughout, sooo much better and cohesive. It works exactly as Snyder wants it, and you can tell he was balls deep in the production here. This movie is Snyder through and through. For better or worse.

It's also less...dark? Visually. The whole first half is fairly well lit. It's only dark when it needs to be instead of what felt like the whole original version.

The audio was annoying me at points. I had to crank it up to catch the vocal audio in some scenes because the shit isn't normalized across the entire thing. A good handful of times it felt too quiet. I'm sure this would be much less of an issue, like Tenet, if I was home by myself and could crank the audio full blast the whole time.

They got rid of all the dumb. It's a much, muuuch better movie because of that fact alone. That's not to say it is a great movie, either. I didn't particularly care for Cyborg, though I did enjoy a lot that he, and most of the characters, got fleshed out quite a bit. Just enough to warrant not needing a wholly separate origin movie. The extended moments were quite nice, for the most part. You get to see a lot more of the fucking Justice League, and not just a Superman Lives movie.

Flash was also silly, but that's his character. The only dumb part was putting a hotdog in his pocket. The fuck was that. Quintessential New York food, but it could have been gyro meat in a paper wrap and been way less... Perverted? Overall, his character also got a lot more fleshed out, and his screen time wasn't entirely wasteful. Iris West should have been a dude. I'm glad they cut the scene where he saves Wonder Woman and ends up on top of her. If he's gay, let him be gay, shit. Idgaf.

Wonder Woman seemed toned down, but only because everyone else got so much extra time, when in reality she had a few extra scenes and lines. Her appearances were more cohesive to the story, and didn't seem to popup out of no where. She also got to be a badass and wasn't just getting her ass kicked the whole time.

Aquaman was toned way down. He had a lot of dumb voice over lines that were removed. His extra time with Batman was done well. Felt like Man of Steel in a way, with Supes and the fishing shit. Shame they removed his moment sitting on the lasso, would have tied into the line he had with Flash about not caring, "I didn't say that", but oh well. His moments with man abuser weren't too terrible. Seeing Willem Dafoe again was cool. Tied his world into things so much better. Ripping a shirt off every time he approached water was for the ladies. I get it. Enjoy. Dudes ripped. Whatever.

Ben Affleck got fucking raped on screentime with the Trash Cut. Whedon straight wasted all of those scenes, and BA does a great job with his reintegration. The extra scene they filmed for the Trash Cut where he's in a stripped down batsuit was removed - that scene was pointless. All the original content of him gathering the team makes the film flow soooo much better from one moment to the next. He gets to be a badass, like everyone, but his weaknesses weren't entirely ignored. Felt more authentic. His lines and performance otherwise was pretty stand out if I'm being honest.

The scenes with Lois really, really make the movie drag ass at times. But putting those back in makes her appearance when Superman comes back make a lot more sense. Martian Manhunter spot was clever. And he surprisingly didn't look like shit. Not a big fan of the actor portraying him. He wasn't great in Man of Steel, something about the way he voices lines just doesn't sound quite right. Fortunately it's just a passing moment that flows to the next scene without feeling like an ambiguous interruption.

I wanted more Superman, but what we got was 100x better. Just straight up being a badass. And he still didn't overshadow the rest. Everyone got their hits in. The ending battle was so, so, so much better.

Steppenwolf, holy shit he's an entirely different character. Whoever let the original CGI pass should be kicked in the dick. Same with his dialog and voice modulation. That said, his spiky toddler teeth and face still seemed a little unfinished compared to his badass armor. Otherwise, he is probably the most improved part of the whole thing. Darkseid was ok. Desaad could have been better. Grandma was a weird cameo, but I guess she was pretty fuckin weird in the comics, too.

The whole last 30 minutes should have been cut. Leave it with the nice homage to their fathers, maybe add one of Clark Kent talking about Jonathan Kent. There's no sequel coming that isn't a time line fuckery with Flash, and alternate universe Batman/Aquaman/WW. The whole scene with Joker wasn't bad, per se, it just didn't fit. The scene with Manhunter fit, but not a story thread they're going to be able to continue.

Overall, I'd give it a 2.5-3/5. Not great, not terrible. Acceptable. Compared to the original cut, they'd have to make a whole different thematic movie to do better. The beginning battles, end battles, and intermittent story novel segments. Could have easily been a segmented miniseries. Though with how content is released these days, I'm glad we just got all of it at once. If this was on Netflix, they'd definitely break it up into the separate Acts.

Sidenote, my daughter raced up the stairs to put on her Wonder Woman outfit after the intro scene, and got pretty hype from the Amazons. She's 3.

Chukzombi said:

yeah i didnt catch all of it, the volume levels vary in range and i didnt have it super high because it was late at night. the point though was that it was a stupid thing for her to say. moreso as its someone else's kid. the principal runs the school, he isnt the one to ask that question anyway and hacking into the school's PC is a big deal.

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That scene was the worst one overall. Fucking white man, black kid who dindu nuffin.

You know you need to change your list of applicable roles when Diane Lane is looking comparable.

This to me is the biggest example of DC spectacularly mismanaging their IP on this medium. This could have been a fantastic 2-4 movies and I think it's a worthwhile slog even if you didn't like the original theatrical version. There's a lot to really enjoy here.

Chukzombi said:

is that what it was supposed to be? i wasnt even looking at it as a race thing, the black amazonians stuck out in that regard, but the stupid mother who cant even fucking drive was a dumbfuck for engaging in any kind of questioning the principal. he just looked at her like, what the fuck is this shit?

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Tell me you didn't see the principal as some smug white guy and her line as some woke zinger gotcha moment.

I mean, I get what they were going for. He's supposed to be a good, kind, caring, insanely smart dude. But this scene ruins it with his dindu mother and emphasis on "white inaction".

Not to mention the shit behind the scenes with the actor. I couldn't help but see his character as the smug, annoying "do-gooder" in real life. He did alright otherwise, just tainted his character with irl politics.