Justice League (2017)

Even before I actually started reading comic books on a regular basis, I loved DC Comics. I grew up watching DC's characters in cartoons, TV shows, and movies, and I've always held them very close to my heart even if I hadn't always been familiar with their origins on the printed page. So when I'd heard that Warner Bros. was going to borrow an idea from Marvel Studios and create a shared cinematic universe featuring DC's heroes and villains, I was excited... until I actually saw the movies.

As good as Wonder Woman might have been, the utter awfulness of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad really dampened any sort of excitement I had for what's been named "the DC Extended Universe."But regardless, I was still drawn to Justice League. I mean, how could I not go see it? And while it's certainly a very, very flawed movie, I still enjoyed it for what it was.

Thousands of years ago, Earth was invaded by the warlord Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and the armies of the dystopian planet of Apokolips. He was ultimately repelled by the combined efforts of humanity, the gods of Olympus, the Amazons, the people of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, and members of the Green Lantern Corps. Steppenwolf's weapons, three powerful artifacts known as "Mother Boxes," were separated and hidden away.

Fast forward to the present day. Humanity has become much more bitter and cynical than ever before in the wake of Superman's death. It is this despair that reactivates the long-dormant Mother Boxes and draws Steppenwolf back to Earth to search for them. Realizing the high likelihood that he might succeed in doing so, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) begin putting together their own team of super-powered individuals to fight him. Their recruits:

• Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), the half-human heir to the throne of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis
• Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a nerdy college student who uses his ability to move at superhuman speed to operate as a vigilante known as "The Flash"
• Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), a former college football star whose body was rebuilt with cybernetic enhancements via a Mother Box after a near-fatal accident

And while the team puts up a good fight against Steppenwolf in their first encounter with him, Batman decides that they need a little extra something to bring to their next battle: a resurrected Superman (Henry Cavill). It's a risky plan, one that might not even work, but it might be their only hope.

I entered Justice League with a fair bit of trepidation for a number of reasons. One was the movie's shaky production, which I'll get into later. There's also the fact that DC's movies don't exactly have the best track record lately. Not only have the movies building to Justice League been lousy (with the exception of Wonder Woman), but they've also felt like they're just there to be there, with

When Marvel started their initial build from Iron Man to The Avengers, the majority of the major players got their own individual movies (or plenty of significant screen time if they weren't flying solo) so that the audience would know who they were and connect to them. They took the time to build their universe and mapped out everything, sometimes even years in advance. Each successive movie plants at least some tiny little seed to be expanded upon in later installments, whether we notice it at first or not. And considering that their continued use of that formula has made them billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, I'd be willing to bet that they won't be changing it up much in the future.

DC, on the other hand, hasn't really done any of that. It's really evident that they only had the idea to do a shared universe was something they came up after the success of Man of Steel instead of something they'd planned all along. Their movies seem disjointed, disconnected, none of them remotely feeling like they should or could be taking place in the same world. Yeah, Batman and Flash might've made cameos in Suicide Squad, but the build to Justice League comes across like trying to put together a puzzle with none of the right pieces.

I don't really believe I'm exaggerating when I say I think they've been rushing to get to a movie starring the Justice League but didn't care how they got there. Rather than have a concise game plan from the start, DC has just thrown whatever they could at a wall and ran with whatever they believed would stick. And it's honestly hard to make a connection to these characters when the movie hasn't earned it. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were the kind of movies you'd have expected to be made by some 16-year-old edgelord who thinks the idea of clearly defined good guys and bad guys is stupid and that idealism is for chumps, while Suicide Squad is basically what you'd get if Guardians of the Galaxy was made inside of a Spencer's Gifts with characters who weren't as developed or likable. Wonder Woman was a fantastic way to let us get to know the character after she showed up in Batman v Superman, but that still leaves us with the rest. Could Warner Bros. and DC not been a bit more patient? Would it have killed them to establish as many major players as they could' before approaching the Justice League?

It wouldn't have hurt anybody if they'd waited another year or two to make this movie. Give the audience something to establish this Flash and show us what sets him apart from the Flash that Grant Gustin plays on that show on The CW. Give the audience something to show that Aquaman is more than just the "lol he talks to fish" jokes that have been told about him for years. Do something, anything, to show us why Cyborg belongs in the Justice League and that he's more than just "that one Teen Titan that says 'booyah.'" (I'm of the opinion that they could've gone with the Martian Manhunter or one of the Green Lanterns instead of Cyborg, but that's just me.) I'm not saying give them their own solo movies right out of the gate; Marvel's Black Widow and Hawkeye haven't had their own solo movies and I still couldn't imagine the Avengers without them. I'd have just appreciated a little something from the newcomers other than "oh yeah, these guys are here now, we'll fill in the details later if we get the time."

The movie's rocky production did it no favors either. While Zack Snyder is credited as the movie's sole director, he left the movie during post-production to deal with his daughter's tragic suicide. Joss Whedon, who Warner Bros. had previously brought on to rewrite Chris Terrio's script, was tagged with completing the movie. This included not just finishing post-production, but doing extensive reshoots too. You can definitely see Whedon's influence on the final product, especially in the dialogue and in the movie's sense of humor. It doesn't feel anything like the dark, morose movies that Snyder made. Elements of Snyder's typical style are still here, but they're toned down, almost as if Whedon was trying to reign in what he couldn't completely change.

The bad part is that with Whedon taking over only a few months ago, the final product feels rushed. There's the dodgy CGI, for starters. Steppenwolf looks like absolute crap, as does most of the final battle against Steppenwolf and his Parademons. And the less said about the hysterically atrocious work they did removing the mustache Henry Cavill had to grow for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the better. One also gets the feeling that quite a lot of the movie was left on the cutting room floor to keep the movie at a two-hour running time. Maybe that's where all of Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg's backstories went?

The movie also suffers from having a ridiculously weak villain. I'd never even heard of Steppenwolf prior to seeing the movie. And the character as he's presented here isn't much. He just doesn't seem like the kind of character that would need the entire Justice League to take him down. Maybe Warner Bros. mandated that they had to save Darkseid for a potential sequel? He probably wouldn't have been half as awesome as the one in the comics, or the one Michael Ironside voiced in the various DC cartoons developed by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini during the latter half of the '90s and early '00s. But still, I'd have loved to have seen Darkseid.

I'll say this much, though: the majority of the cast is great, so the movie at least has that going for it. Ray Fisher is forgettable as Cyborg and Ezra Miller is honestly kinda annoying as the Flash. But everybody else is great. Ben Affleck once again makes a better Batman than people thought he'd be when he was first hired for the role. I spoke of solo movies earlier, and I'd really like to see one starring Affleck's Batman.

Jason Momoa, meanwhile, is a total badass in his first outing as Aquaman. He gives off a vibe of being the coolest guy in the room, and easily makes one forget all the corny jokes about Aquaman being lame. I also thought that Gal Gadot was once again fabulous as Wonder Woman. She plays the role with a ton of heart and conviction, and again reaffirms my belief that they couldn't have hired a better actress for the role.

And then there's Henry Cavill, who finally gets to play the Superman I always dreamed he could be here. Despite how poorly Zack Snyder wrote the character in the past, Cavill has always shown a ton of potential that he could be a fantastic Superman with the right material. And there's some strong glimpses of it here, even if Cavill doesn't have a whole lot of screen time compared to the rest of the cast. Seeing him save the day by laying in a few punches to Steppenwolf before dropping everything to save some civilians in peril, all while Danny Elfman's brief interpretation of John Williams' classic Superman theme from 1978 plays? Oh yeah, I want to see more of that Superman!

A Justice League movie could've happened back in 2007, believe it or not. Mad Max creator George Miller was hired to direct what would've been called Justice League: Mortal, along with a cast. But it was canceled due to a combination of budgetary woes and the Writer's Guild strike. Ten years later, the Justice League have finally hit the big screen and the results are... okay, I guess. It's not a particularly bad movie, but it also isn't that great either. It's one of those movies that's just kinda there. It's at least the second-best entry in the DC Expanded Universe, though that's damning it with faint praise. Could've been worse, though; I could've been stuck watching Batman v Superman again.

Final Rating:**½

Wonder Woman (2017)

After the critical and box office failures of Catwoman and Elektra a decade ago, Hollywood seemingly became convinced that female-led superhero movies couldn't work. And ever since then, nobody seems to have made any serious attempt to try again. Yeah, we've had Mystique, Storm, and Jean Grey in the X-Men movies, but they've spent nearly two decades stuck in the shadow of Xavier, Magneto, and Wolverine. The closest any major studio has gotten to giving a female character a role with any real, significant, meaningful substance to it in all that time has been Scarlett Johansson having a major supporting role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But then along came Wonder Woman to shake everything up.

Created in 1941 by William Moulton Marston and an uncredited H.G. Peter, Wonder Woman brought a big dose of girl power to the male-dominated superhero genre. She wasn't some damsel in distress that needed a hero to rescue her; she was the damsel that saved herself. And through all the ups and downs the comic book industry has gone through, and through numerous retools and reimaginings, Wonder Woman has persisted, staying in print on a regular basis since her debut and becoming just as important to DC Comics as Superman and Batman.

But unlike her caped colleagues, Wonder Woman hasn't seen a whole lot of success beyond the printed page. With the notable exception of the classic 1970s TV show starring Lynda Carter, she hadn't really appeared anywhere beyond the various cartoons based on the Justice League. However, when Warner Bros. decided to follow in Marvel's footsteps and create their own cinematic universe starring the heroes and villains of DC Comics, Wonder Woman finally got her big break as a movie star. Her appearance in Batman v Superman was one of the few genuine highlights of that dreadful movie, and with the release of her own theatrical solo adventure, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see it. And after the string of misfires the DC Extended Universe has had lately, the Wonder Woman movie is exactly the shot in the arm it needs.

Welcome to Themyscira, a beautiful, secluded island in the Mediterranean Sea that is called home by a proud race of warrior women known as the Amazons. Created by the gods of Mount Olympus to protect humanity, the Amazons relentlessly train as soldiers in preparation for the prophesied return of Ares, the villainous god of war who slayed his fellow gods before being defeated by a mortally-wounded Zeus.

Unique among the Amazons is Diana (Gal Gadot), daughter of Queen Hyppolyta (Connie Nielsen). Despite being imbued with all of the same physical gifts as the rest of her people and trained ten times harder than anyone else, Hyppolyta still attempts to shelter her daughter from combat and discourage her from being like the other Amazons.

That all changes when Diana rescues Air Force captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) from drowning after his plane is shot down just off the island's coast. He reveals under interrogation that, unbeknownst to the Amazons, World War 1 has been raging for four years and that he is an Allied spy. In Steve's possession is a notebook he'd managed to steal from Dr. Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya), a chemist working under the command of General Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston) of the German army. In this notebook is evidence that Maru has not only developed an advanced, even deadlier version of mustard gas, but that Ludendorff plans to use it in an attack on London.

Diana believes the war to be the handiwork of Ares and agrees to accompany Steve back to England so he can deliver Dr. Maru's notes to his superiors. But when Diana and Steve are stonewalled by the Allied forces' top brass as an armistice is close to being signed, they're forced to the front lines to stop Ludendorff and Maru from releasing their gas and changing the tide of the war.

The fourth time's the charm, it seems. I say that because after three movies that struggled to achieve even mediocrity, the DC Extended Universe finally has a winner. Wonder Woman is, no pun intended, wonderful. The movie is a 141-minute adventure that is exciting, compelling, at times awe-inspiring. It's not a flawless movie, but it is a strong effort that I absolutely loved.

At the helm is Patty Jenkins, who has spent the better part of the last decade working in television. Wonder Woman is only her second feature-length directorial effort, following the Aileen Wuoronos biopic Monster in 2003. And while Monster and Wonder Woman are on completely different ends of the specturm in terms of both the size of their productions and the personalities of their main characters, Jenkins proves herself more than capable of playing with the boys in their summer blockbuster territory.

Jenkins does not approach the movie with the overbearing gloom and senseless destruction we saw in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, nor does she turn the movie into a ridiculous mess like what Suicide Squad turned out to be. She instead seems to draw inspiration from Captain America: The First Avenger. Both movies feel rather close in style, especially considering that both movies are period pieces that see superheroes sent to a war in Europe. But that's not to say that Jenkins merely copied that movie wholesale. That doesn't strike me as being the case at all. She does more to capture the horrors of war here than Joe Johnston did in The First Avenger, and to be honest, as much as I love Cap's first adventure as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are parts of Wonder Woman that blow it out of the water.

Take, for example, the scene where Diana leaps out of the trenches and marches into "No Man's Land" so she can liberate a German-occupied village, brushing off bullets and mortar shells with her shield and wrist bracers. It's an utterly amazing, breathtaking scene that how much of a warrior and how much of a hero Diana is. Jenkins puts the scene together masterfully, a perfect blend of cinematography, music, stunts, special effects, and actors perfectly encapsulating their assigned roles. Just thinking about that scene gives me goosebumps. And the moment shortly thereafter, when Diana leaps into a second story window and takes out a group of German soldiers set to the strains of her leitmotif from Batman v Superman, is one hell of an adrenaline rush.

She also has an amazing cast to work with as well. Everyone contributes a fine performance, but I'd be lying if I said anyone other than Gal Gadot and Chris Pine were the standouts. Pine is charming and charismatic, and he and Gadot have a palpable chemistry together. And I'll confess that it's kinda neat seeing a movie where a man is the female hero's token love interest instead of the other way around.

But honestly, nobody is seeing the movie for Chris Pine. Everybody is seeing it for Gal Gadot, and those that are will not be disappointed because Gadot is tremendous here. She captures everything Wonder Woman is and should be. Gadot makes her more than just a warrior; she's graceful, hopeful, idealistic, an agent of peace and compassion that has no qualms about standing up for what she believes in. For the last forty years, Lynda Carter alone has been associated with the role, but Gadot makes it her own with her fantastic performance. In short, Gal Gadot puts the "wonder" in "Wonder Woman."

When I said earlier that the movie has flaws, I wasn't lying. The plot is nothing exceptional and Diana's climactic confrontation with Ares is practically interchangeable with the final battle from pretty much any other random superhero movie from the last fifteen years. But if those are the only negative things I can think to say about Wonder Woman, then the movie is doing pretty damn good for itself. I honestly cannot say enough positive things about the movie; it's everything I'd hoped it could've been. And between you and me, I have yet to figure out why it took so long for Wonder Woman to get her own starring role in a movie? Superman and Batman can get fourteen movies between them 1978 and now, but Wonder Woman just now gets one? Here's hoping she gets a few more to make up for lost time.

Final Rating: ****