Justice League

Well, the moment that diehard DC Comics fans have eagerly awaited most of their lives finally arrived this past week with the release of the feverishly anticipated Justice League film. The fans knew that the stakes were high; everything would be riding on the success or failure of the first ever cinematic team up of DC's greatest heroes, but the critical and commercial success of this past summer's Wonder Woman, the first ever film of its kind and the first film in the DCEU with a deliberately lighter, more inspirational tone than previous films, buoyed people's hope that the DC's cinematic universe was finally on the right track with audiences.

Given these hopes, it came as quite a shock when the initial reviews seemed to deem it a messy failure. Coupled with that came the revelation this past weekend that the film's domestic opening was just below the 100 million mark, decidedly lower than expected for such a long awaited and hotly debated superhero film. Despite these shortcomings, however, the film seems to be fairing very well in international markets with one statistic even showing that it beat Thor: Ragnarok's international opening. Additionally, despite having a dismal 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (who I've always thought were a bunch of hacks), the film has garnered an impressive 84% among over 100,000 viewers.

This early in the game, it remains to be seen if Justice League will come out of everything a winner or a loser, at least in terms of overall financial success, but for most fans such as myself, the film, although not perfect, seems to be a more than satisfactory introduction to the world's greatest superhero team. I myself loved the film, even more so upon a second (soon to be third viewing), but ultimately found myself wishing it was longer than its scant two hour runtime. When news of this runtime first broke, most fans were worried that the film would be rushed and unable to successfully juggle six main characters, three of whose backstories and personalities hadn't been established, get them to convincingly and organically unite to defeat a villain unfamiliar to casual viewers as well as bring Superman back in a convincing and satisfying way for fans who'd ardently followed his heroes journey starting with Man of Steel.

When Zack Snyder decided to step down from the film following the tragic suicide of his daughter and chose Joss Whedon to finish the film, many fans, no doubt hoping to cause upset, speculated that WB was unhappy with what Zack had done and hired Joss Whedon to fix the film. Although I never subscribed to this belief, it was disheartening when a series of changes were announced; chief among them the sudden replacement of the film's original composer, Junkie XL, who'd worked with Hans Zimmer on his memorably epic score for BvS, which included Wonder Woman's scathing theme, with Danny Elfman. Although Elfman had worked on Superhero films before, his complete overhaul of the film's score sent waves of worry among fans of Hans Zimmer's previous score.

The revelation of the significantly shortened runtime was even more worrying, especially when many fans were still reeling from the significant cuts made to Zack's original version of BvS, leading to a theatrical version which was paired down and considered, among other things, to be a narrative mess. Even Wonder Woman, the DCEU's first critical and commercial success and the model for the DCEU's lighter, more inspirational tone going forward, was 141 minutes and didn't have six main characters or nearly as many subplots and backstories to juggle.

Despite some of these worrying changes, I still went into the premiere with the same unwavering optimism for these films which I always maintain. The bottom line is that despite the short runtime, the film manages to accomplish exactly what it set out to do: bring these exceptional beings together into the League so they can use their unique abilities to defend Earth from the ravages of Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons. In this way, most of film seems like it was ripped directly from the pages of The New 52 Justice League: Origin, the most current version of the foundation of the League. I would've loved to have seen deeper explorations of the characters, particularly Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg's backstories, but the film does the best it can with the time it has and I know we'll get deeper exposition in the future films. Still, the interplay between these unique and iconic characters comes across pretty well in the film, providing loads of humor and some incredibly memorable moments. The chemistry between the team, even at this early point, is undeniable, most notably in the flirty tension between Bruce and Diana and the exchanges between the lovably geeky and excitable Flash and the more understandably somber Cyborg and gruff but charming Aquaman.

Much has been said about Steppenwolf being a bland, boring villain and while it's true he's not really compelling as far as comic book villains go, he serves the same basic purpose in the film that he does in the comics: to be a conqueror of worlds, leading a Darkseid Parademon army in the first wave of attack. Steppenwolf is really just the lead-in to Darkseid himself, who seems to have been rightly saved for the sequel. He may not be the infamous ruler of Apokolips, but you gotta admit Steppenwolf put up one hell of a fight, single-handedly defeating Amazons, Atlanteans (and even a Green Lantern) before meeting the League, who had their own struggles battling the Apokoliptian warrior.

Perhaps the biggest question keeping fans rabidly speculating in the months leading up to the film was when and how Superman was going to be brought back from the dead to rejoin his teammates. Everyone knew he was going to return, but the method was a mystery. Without spoiling anything, I can say that as a lifelong Superman fan (and huge fan of the DCEU Superman) I was quite satisfied with the way in which he's brought back, although I wish more time had been devoted to building up his return and his readjustment to life in a way which felt more organic and emotionally resonant. Scenes which could've been very emotionally reaffirming for fans of the DCEU Superman's story arc came across rushed at times and it would've been even more stirring with Hans Zimmer's original Man of Steel music, which was conspicuously absent. Still, just seeing Superman return better than ever as the fully formed character joining his comrades was rewarding.

All in all, Justice League is simply a more straightforward and fun comic book film, filled with dazzling action (which might've felt a bit less chaotic if the film was allowed to breathe more), loads of humor and several epic moments featuring these beloved superheroes in their essence. Unlike MOS or BvS, Justice League was always intended to be a lighter, more straightforward action film and in this respect, I believe it succeeds with flying colors. Many fans, myself included, are hoping that we'll get to see Snyder's original extended cut; there's even a petition online right now calling for this version to be released on DVD. The theatrical version is great, especially for a more mass appeal, but I can't help but feel it's only the tip of the iceberg compared to Snyder's original version which he'd been developing for years. I think true fans deserve to see as much of Snyder's original vision as possible, one which this fan likes to think will bring Superman's narrative arc to an even more satisfying conclusion as well as introduce the members of the Justice League in an even more memorable way. Either way, for the time being it's simply awesome to finally see the Justice League standing and fighting together for the first time ever on the big screen.