Is There Any Justice For “Justice League” ?

You’ve heard the scuttlebutt by now, of course — Justice League is a mess; Henry Cavill’s face looks ridiculous thanks to the shooting-schedule-necessitated decision to “erase” his mustache by means of CGI; the 9th-inning additional re-shoots are easy to spot; the so-called “DCEU” is doomed thanks to this film’s poor box office performance.

Some of these points are legit (the flick is certainly uneven, tonally and structurally, Cavill’s MIA ‘stache is conspicuous in its absence, the re-shoots (and brighter, “happier” color grading) undertaken by “relief” director Joss Whedon don’t fit in with Zack Snyder’s material), while others are clearly over-stated (the sub-$100 million opening weekend has been largely off-set by a stronger than expected “hold” over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday period), but at the end of the day, even after filtering out the noise (much of it generated by a certain competing comic-book-publisher-turned-movie-studio), the simple fact remains — this is obviously an up-and-down affair.

Which, believe it or not, is actually something of an achievement in and of itself — the forced departure of original director Snyder due to family tragedy definitely meant this production had to pull some kind of a rabbit out of its hat, and while Whedon (who in the end only gets a co-writer credit that he shares with Chris Terrio) clearly steered the ship into more “light-hearted” territory a la his fan-favorite Marvel Avengers flicks, it’s hard to tell how much of what he came up with originated in his own mind, and how much was dictated by WB execs who, let’s face it, were almost certain to part ways with Snyder anyway and were reportedly displeased with the “dark” tone of what he’d come up with prior to his exit.  Indeed, everything about the finished product that is Justice League feels focus-group-tested, specifically designed to appeal to as broad (and, some would argue, dumb) an audience as possible. Snyder’s visual ambition is on full display in the early going, but is completely absent by the time the credits roll; Hans Zimmer’s throbbing, rhythmic soundtrack work is gone in favor of  Danny Elfman’s nostalgia-heavy score; jokes (not all entirely successful) fly left and right; the body count is pretty damn low for a movie about an apocalyptic alien invasion. In short, this is a movie clearly trying to be as different from its predecessors, specifically Batman V. Superman : Dawn Of Justice, as possible. But that was never going to be an easy task with the same guy in the director’s chair.

Taking all that into account, then, the simple fact that Justice League succeeds in much of what it’s trying to do (like it or not) is pretty remarkable, and the DCEU definitely feels like it’s heading in a new, sunnier direction after this. The resurrection of Cavill’s Superman (achieved by means that can be described as “morally questionable” at best, seeing as how Ezra Miller’s Flash and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg actually dig his dead body out of the grave) seems as though it was designed to be the narrative catalyst for the change, and that’s all fine and dandy, but it sells Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman short (as does much much of the movie in general) given that the newly-formed team decides that she just can’t lead lead ’em even though she’s essentially carrying this fictitious “universe” on her back these days. That’s a pretty significant slap in the face right there.

Gadot’s not alone in getting the short shrift, though, by any means — supporting players J.K. Simmons, Amy Adams, Connie Nielsen, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Amber Heard, and Joe Morton all get stuck with roles that punch far beneath their respective weight classes — but by and large the main starts come out of this whole thing pretty well : Jason Momoa offers a decidedly revisionist, but altogether successful, take on Aquaman; Ben Affleck again gets the Bruce Wayne/Batman balance more or less exactly right (not so easy to do in this case since he’s saddled with a lot of decidedly-out-of-character “comic relief” material); Fisher proves to be an inspired choice to play Cyborg; Ezra Miller’s Flash starts out annoying but finishes up endearing; Gadot makes more than the most of a criminally-underwritten part. Hell, Cavill even finally appears to be enjoying this whole Superman gig. The principal cast, then, proves to be more than enough to carry this film through its not-inconsiderable story bumps, logical holes, shifting styles, and dodgy effects.

Not to mention its less-than-compelling villain. Like a lot of people, I thought we were going to get a full-on clash with the villains of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World here, but in the end all we get is Ciaran Hinds as a lackluster Steppenwolf accompanied by a horde of dully-realized Parademons. Honestly, if I want a bad guy this generic and uninspiring, I’ll see a Marvel movie.

And yet, this still ends up being a somewhat pleasing — uhmmmm — crowd-pleaser. The character designs are cool, the pacing is brisk enough that you don’t need to think about the film’s flaws until it’s over, the action sequences (particularly those obviously overseen by Snyder) are stirring and dynamic, the “fist-pump” quotient is reasonably high. Yes, it’s clear that DC is trying to “Marvel-ize” their movies from here on out, but given the absurd amount of critical and financial pressure on them (Batman V. Superman and Suicide Squad both being successfully tarred with the “disappointment” label despite taking in about $900 million each at the worldwide box office, roughly triple their budgets) maybe “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” was the only option they were left with.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I realize I’m in the distinct minority in finding Snyder’s vision for these flicks to be inherently more compelling than your typical brain-dead blockbuster fare, but the people have apparently spoken, and while Justice League doesn’t quite hit all its marks — there’s no way it could —  for folks who felt the DCEU had gotten off on the wrong foot, it shows that WB is more than willing to adjust course “on the fly” in order to, as the Brits say, keep the punters happy. I’m a bit pessimistic going forward, to say the least, but there was enough of the DCEU that almost was on display here to have me leaving the theater reasonably happy. For now, at any rate.

Late To The Party : “Blade Runner 2049”

I know, I know — at this point there’s pretty much nothing about director Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 that hasn’t already been said, but here I am anyway, chiming in with my two cents’ worth long after whatever admittedly slight amount of relevance my opinion might have to prospective viewers has long since left the building. Still, I wanna talk about it anyway, and there’s a good reason for that :

I was, you see, a skeptic when it came to this flick. I was less impressed with Arrival than I was apparently meant to be, I saw no actual need for this sequel, and unlike its celluloid progenitor it’s not based on anything Philip K. Dick actually wrote, so — at most, I was figuring it would be alright. Hopefully it wouldn’t detract from the legacy of the original. But no way did I figure it would prove itself to be actually necessary.

Happily, I was wrong on all counts. Blade Runner 2049 is pretty goddamn awesome stuff.

Ryan Gosling’s a great casting choice as protagonist “K,” for one thing : he’s just basically doing what he always does, true, but what he always does is perfect for this flick, and besides, that’s always been the case with Harrison Ford, too. Both actors have a distinctly limited range (especially Ford), but when a project arises that fits that range to the proverbial “K” — sorry, “T” — then hey, they’re in business. In Blade Runner 2049, they’re both firmly in business.

There’s some reasonably good fleshing out of the dystopian future first shown in the original on offer here, too — “K” is shown to have a “relationship” with an AI operating system named Joi (played by Ana de Armas); the day-to-day work life of the Blade Runners is extrapolated on in greater detail, complete with workplace politics (and Robin Wright for a boss); the predatory capitalism we’re all too depressingly familiar with today is revealed to have reached a peak with the rise of Niander Wallace (a suitably creepy Jared Leto) to the top of the empire left in shambles by the now-late Dr. Tyrell; the economics of feeding an overpopulated world — as well as its off-world colonies — plays very nearly a central role in the plot. All this is both fascinating and logically consistent with what we know from before.

And while we’re on the subject of consistency, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composers Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfish certainly carry over the aesthetics of Jordan Cronenweth and Vangelis, respectively. You’d honestly think this film was made by the same people as the first, and only a year or two later. I believe that “seamless” is the term we’re looking for.

And yet, on its own, that fealty wouldn’t be enough to recommend it (even with an awesome cameo from Edward James Olmos going in its favor), and might even be considered a “strike” against it if it showed no unique storytelling ambition in its own right — fortunately for us all, that’s hardly the case here, as Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Fancher (who is a carry-over from the first flick) and Michael Green concoct a genuinely intriguing mystery, complete with a couple of big red herrings, and make a pretty gutsy call by definitively answering (probably to the consternation of some, but whatever) one of the major points of fan conjecture that has festered over the years in regards to the true nature of Rick Deckard’s identity. All told, then, this is a movie — and, specifically, a screenplay — that’s certainly determined to live up to pre-set expectations, yet just as certainly unwilling to be downright confined by them.

There’s no Rutger Hauer-esque main “bad guy” here, it’s true (although Dave Bautista gives it a solid shot in the early going), but there’s plenty else to keep you on the edge of your seat and fully involved from the opening to the closing bell, both aesthetically and conceptually. Blade Runner 2049 is, then, something truly unique in the big-budget sequel game — a natural extension of what has come before, but one that seeks to build on it not by going bigger and louder, but broader and deeper.