Justice League

     Ok, so here's the deal with Justice League: there were moments where I enjoyed the movie. The inner child in me got giddy with excitement to see my favorite heroes come together on the big screen and to see their world come to life. HOWEVER, those moments of enjoyment were separated by long sections of exposition and bad filmmaking. 
     Get ready for the majority of the first act having you sit through not one and not two but three seemingly separate stories GETTING STARTED instead of actually setting up the plot of one story LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO DO. I just don't get the logic of introducing and explaining three absolutely different characters in one film. Honestly, if DC had just made movies for Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg, we wouldn't have to spend so long learning about them and trying to get emotionally connected with them. "Hey, guys, you think we should show what makes each hero special by giving them their own story arc and standalone film before we make Justice League?" "Nope! We'll introduce Flash and his parent problems along with the speedforce, Aquaman and his mommy issues and his deal with Atlantis, and Cyborg's struggles with being a robot and coming to terms with who he is--all in one movie!" It was information overload. 
     Oh, and Wonder Woman had to literally tell us who Steppenwolfe is, what he's after, and what Mother Boxes are, instead of just--oh I don't know--showing us, LIKE MOVIES ARE SUPPOSED TO DO! I mean, it seriously irritates the snot out of me how bad the scripts and edits are for these films. (There's a guy who somehow follows Batman from rooftop to rooftop in 2.5 seconds just to name one continuity mistake.) And the pacing of the film doesn't flow like it should because they spend the majority of the three acts explaining EVERYTHING. I literally wanted to yell, "Stop talking and do something!" 
     The first rule of storytelling is "show don't tell," and the film is great when the heroes are actually doing heroic things. I just wanted to hand the producers a copy of the book Save the Cat! in the hopes that they learn how scripts are suppose to be written. The book talks about "double mumbo jumbo," where a movie introduces multiple origins of "magic." For instance, the movie Signs asks "us to balance in our minds...a debate about whether or not God and little green men exist" (p. 128). The author argues that having both science fiction and religion in one movie introduces us to two completely different types of "magic," and it gets confusing. I suppose Justice League has "quadruple mumbo jumbo" according to the book, though I believe multiple myths and magics can coexist only if they have their own individual stories before they collide in a crossover film. 
     Sadly, the film separates the good parts in long strides with so much boring exposition. In fact, movies originally didn't talk, and they told great and emotional stories through their moving pictures. Apparently, Warner Bros forgot what makes movies special--that they tell stories visually not verbally. On top of all of that, they spend another good chunk of the film trying to fix the mistakes of the movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it slows down the story even more. 
     Like I said, there were some good parts, but overall, this is another clunky execution to catch up with Marvel. At this point, I'm afraid these movies still reek from the stench of Batman v Superman's garbage that the only hope DC has for the future is to burn their franchise to the ground and begin from scratch.

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