Justice League
2017
**
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons
Following the death of Superman, Bruce Wayne assembles a team of superheroes, which includes Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. They take on Steppenwolf, who plans to unite the powers of the three Mother Boxes, which were once divided between the Amazons, Atlantaen, and humans. After the entertaining anomaly of Wonder Woman, the DC Extended Universe is back to its underwhelming self. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were artistic and commercial flops, but for some reason Zack Snyder is still at the helm. To his credit, this boring mess was partly reshot by Joss Whedon, the man behind The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, possibly two of the clunkiest spectacles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The superhero team and their respective abilities are poorly defined, the villain lacks any personality, the dialogue is mostly a collection of big rousing speeches, and Ben Affleck's performance is terribly wooden (Batman is so permanently depressed that even his mask has frown lines). Wonder Woman and Flash provide the few enjoyable moments during the two hours. Like he has demonstrated before, Snyder's idea of an action set piece is to create a murky and artificial CG world, and then smash things up for what seems an eternity. It's more than ten years since he made his name with 300, but he still overuses the speed up and and slow down trick as though it was invented yesterday. Warner released the director's original vision as Zack Snyder's Justice League in 2021.
