Movie Review: Justice League (Rating: 2/5)

The film is basically a sequel of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS) movie, and the story is about how Batman assembles the team (i.e.: Justice League) for protecting Earth, without the presence of Superman  who sacrificed himself previously in the BvS movie.

First of all, I have a confession to make, because I do not recall how Superman died when I watch this movie. The only thing I remember about the BvS movie is, the story was pretty flawed in terms of the ridiculous way of how Superman and Batman were being setup to fight each other from the very beginning.

Lucky for us, this movie was excellent in the opening on setting the mood of how everyone was missing Superman after his death. With the help of the fantastic soundtrack (Everybody knows by Sigrid), and great performance from Louis Lane (Amy Adams) and Martha Kent - Superman's adoptive mother (Diane Lane), you can really feel the loss from the atmosphere in the first ten minutes of the movie. And the overall story is way better than the BvS movie, this time you can actually understand why things happen the way they are. For instance, you will be clearly explained on the reason why the new aliens are invading Earth, and the purpose of forming the Justice League. 

About the three existing characters, Superman (Henry Cavill) is always the most powerful and unbeatable character in the universe. Batman (Ben Affleck) is portrayed as a tired and over-weighted man, who seems to want a vacation more than anything. But I like the arrangement since Batman obviously does not have any super powers (other than being very rich, which does not count), and it is realistic to show his fatigue comparing to the other characters. Finally, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is still the "hottest" character, especially in the slow-motion action sequences at the early part of the movie.

Three new characters are also introduced in this movie (as already shown in the movie poster). Aquaman is an arrogant guy with super-human strength and swimming abilities, Flash is a funny teenager who can move lightning-fast, and Cyborb is an flying-android who can interact with all electronic devices. The movie did try to explain the origin on these new characters, but not enough to fully understand each of them. Perhaps we have to wait for their own spin-off movie (provided if they are getting one later on).

On the cast performance, Adams (as Louis Lane) delivered beautifully. And it is essential in this movie because most of the scenes are action sequences with no acting skills required. So Adams had to perform all the main acting scenes mostly by herself, and as an award-winning veteran actress, she did not disappoint. 

For the CG (Computer Graphics) part, I was expecting everything to be top-notch in this kind of huge production budget movies but the result is far below expectations, even though this movie is reportedly ranked as the third most-expensive movie every made. I mean, the CG is not bad in general, but I truly believe it can be more unique. For instance, I will expect the main villain to be something more than just a "Big-Ox"-like character. Also, the villain army should not be simply some big flying-bugs and they look really ugly. I think more artistic effort should be spent on the characters creation, not just on the good guys, but also on the evil ones.

In a word, the movie is not bad in terms of the story line and some of the cast performance, but there are really quite a number of areas that can be improved, comparing to other movies with the similar budget. I just hope the next movie in this series will show the required enhancements.