Justice League - Anatomy of a Disaster (Part 1)

you know over the past few months i've had the chance to review the full spectrum of dc movies from the sublime to the nightmarish to the slightly mediocre but we'll give it a pass because it was less [ __ ] than the others but the one movie that's eluded my critical eye until now has been this [Music] justice league was one of the biggest critical commercial and creative disasters in living memory a bloated confused misshapen monster of a film hastily patched together by feverish editors supplemented by dreadful special effects that look like something out of a mid-2000s sci-fi channel original and punted out onto the market as a 300 million dollar hail mary by a studio that had totally lost confidence in itself its directors and their creative vision so how and why did this happen you might ask well suit up and join me as i venture into the murky world of justice league to explore the anatomy of a disaster our tale begins in 2013 with the release of man of steel man of steel introduced us to a darker more brooding and serious interpretation of superman designed to set the tone for the dc extended universe to come it was a jarring contrast to the bright hopeful family-friendly mcu nice idea zack except superman was the worst possible character to kick off your grim and serious new universe he's supposed to be all about hope optimism and good old-fashioned decency seeing him deconstructed like this was like seeing mr rogers at an s m party not to be outdone snyder followed this up with batman vs superman a convoluted mess that tried to set up an epic conflict that should have been carefully built over multiple movies wasted half its run time setting up other superheroes that should have been introduced in their own films first and awkwardly forced wonder woman into a story where her presence felt about as natural as a tumblr user in a salad bar in short it tried and failed to play catch up with an mcu that was already firmly established condensing the work of an entire marvel phase into a single movie which brings us neatly along to justice league itself the studio was rapidly losing faith in zack snyder's creative vision and when a personal tragedy forced schneider to bow out midway through production dc took the opportunity to bring in joss whedon to correct the movie which is a bit like given control of the titanic 10 seconds before it hit the iceberg and the result is some of the most unintentionally hilarious nonsense that i've ever seen in a mainstream movie the problems begin right away when justice league kicks off with some really shitty mobile phone footage of superman what the hell is going on with his mouth why does he look like a badly animated npc from a playstation 2 game it turns out that henry cavill was busy filming the next mission impossible movie when joss whedon called him back for desperately needed reshoots the problem was he'd grown himself a mighty tash for the role and because his contract wouldn't allow him to shave it off there was no choice but to digitally remove it in post-production now i'm no expert in computer animation but i do know what human faces are supposed to look like and this isn't it [ __ ] sake anyway i digress so it's been a couple of years since superman got killed and the world is kind of bleak and shitty now everyone's filled with grief and despair and humanity seems to have given up all hope that'll be the zack snyder influence then in gotham city batman tracks a low-level criminal onto a rooftop and captures him now you might be wondering why he's wasting his time on stuff like this when he's supposed to be tackling existential threats to the human race but it all becomes clear when this thing shows up remember the parademons from that awkwardly inserted dream sequence in batman vs superman well here they are and they look just as goofy as you might expect so he fights the monster thing and traps it but then it blows up and leaves a pattern of burn marks on the wall and alfred's like oh [ __ ] it's time you know i have a few questions about this scene so these parademons are like the foot soldiers for the main antagonist steppenwolf they're drawn by fear and distracted by loud noises why don't know the burn marks symbolize the three macguffins of this movie called mother boxes that steppenwolf needs to combine together in order to terraform planet earth into a nightmarish hellscape why don't know the real question is why the [ __ ] is any of this happening why is there a lone parademon mooching around gotham city when steppenwolf hasn't even appeared yet where did it come from what's it looking for did steppenwolf send it here if so why is it some kind of scout looking for one of the mother boxes if so why send just one of them when he's got a whole army at his disposal western parademons at all when he's clearly capable of teleporting in himself and taking the box without difficulty it's implied that batman's been tracking these things for a while so he clearly knows of their existence but why has nobody else seen them i mean i guess if they come out at night they're less likely to be spotted but it's still the middle of a crowded city there must be millions of people in gotham have none of them encountered something like this before so the parademon self-destructs to prevent itself falling into enemy hands which makes sense if it's a scout i guess but why does it leave behind the symbol of the mother boxes on the wall is that intentional if so wouldn't that be a very obvious clue about your intentions to anyone aware of such things and why does alfred take this as a sign that they need to gather their team and prepare he doesn't know anything about the mother boxes yet or their significance if this scene is meant to give bruce wayne motivation to recruit the rest of the justice league he was already planning to do that at the end of the last movie anyway also that was three years ago has he literally not managed to recruit a single member in three years [ __ ] sake meanwhile in london a group of the world's most smartly dressed terrorists led by roose bolton break into a bank take a bunch of hostages and prepare to set off a bomb that will flatten the whole building why are they doing this you might ask down with the modern world back to the dark ages and the safety of holy fear what the [ __ ] if your only goal is to blow stuff up what's the point in fighting your way inside this place and taking hostages why not just plant the bomb and leave without anyone seeing you so you can carry out further attacks in future i mean did you even discuss this plan with the others are they aware that they'll all be killed too also do you really think the entire human race is suddenly going to abandon 500 years of technological and cultural development just because some arseholes blew up a building in london and how exactly will having less advanced technology and weapons somehow make us safer from outside threats why even bother to set a timer on the bomb if all you want to do is blow yourself up isn't the point of a timer that is supposed to give you time to escape no okay it's so the following scene can happen so i guess the point that this movie's awkwardly trying to make is that everyone's going a bit mental without a hero like superman around to inspire them because i guess humans just need someone to look up to right well if only there was someone who's almost as strong and fast and powerful and just as inherently good and noble-minded as superman who could totally step in to replace him so anyway it's back to bruce and this time he's [ __ ] around in iceland looking for aquaman because i guess if you have to combat an alien invasion then a guy who specializes in fighting underwater is totally gonna come in handy and for some reason bruce decides to get to this remote village on horseback because it's not like he has an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing that could carry him all the way here without wasting hours or even days of his very valuable time what are your superpowers again i'm rich [ __ ] off film so he finds aquaman and asks him to join the justice league but aquaman's like nah i've got more important things to do wow what's a gripping scene that really added to the story but do you know what would have been even better if aquaman got his own movie first so we knew who the hell he was where he comes from and what his motivations are but nah everything has to be condensed together into this narrative mess instead also you might have noticed that ben affleck's build complexion and hair looks totally different in the next scene it's almost like he got a desperate call from the studio while he was away on vacation telling him to come back for whedon's reshoots and reluctantly showed up overweight unprepared and totally regretting his decision to join the dc universe anyway because aquaman's not willing to help he's left with no choice but to recruit the flash instead played by ezra choke me harder miller this is without doubt one of the most insufferable interpretations of a comic book character i've ever seen and that's up against some pretty stiff competition when you think about it is that like a personal attack or something remember buffy the vampire slayer before it actually became good when the characters were still kind of irritating the dialogue was goofy and the humor didn't really land properly well that's basically the flash in a nutshell he's whiny and hyperactive and most of his reactions are completely inappropriate to what's going on he also never shuts the [ __ ] up and joss whedon's constantly trying to give him killer gags that land a bit as well as a rocket carrying a consignment of body positivity activists like brunch like what is brunch you wait in line for an hour for essentially lunch it's a light meal accompanied by champagne that's traditionally served any time before 3 p.m yeah dick incidentally the flash's one and only ability is that he can move really fast keep that one in mind for future reference dear viewer because i'll be revisiting it later now it's time to go to th therma thermos wonder woman's home island where the amazons are apparently still a thing i mean i guess it's a good excuse to put really fit women into extremely revealing but totally ineffective armor that made progressive journalists angry so excellent anyway the amazons are worried because the mother box that's been placed into their care has started vibrating now you think after being isolated on an island for thousands of years without any men they'd be pleased by the prospect of vibrating objects but apparently not i love how these archers are just standing there with fully drawn bows waiting for something to happen how long have you guys been like this do you have any idea how much physical effort it takes simply to draw a long bow like this never mind hold it in place for any length of time also this is a borderline magical piece of super advanced alien technology do you really think a steel arrow is going to damage it maybe if you put as much effort into developing your weapons and technology as you do with your ab crunches you wouldn't get constantly owned by basically everyone in this universe oh well so steppenwolf teleports in with his parademons and the ensuing battle is about as evenly matched as an extreme rules wrestling match between hulk hogan and stephen hawking also there's more stunningly good cgi on display here what's an interesting and unique looking villain this is [ __ ] sake so connie nielsen escapes with the box while the others try to seal steppenwolf inside the building like you know this guy can teleport clean across the universe right do you really think a brick wall is gonna stop him needless to say he breaks out and gets his hands on the mother box and off he goes great job guys meanwhile miles bennett dyson returns from work at cyberdyne systems to find his cgi son victor [ __ ] around in his apartment and i guess the 30 seconds of awkward stilted conversation we get here is meant to fill in his entire backstory but you know what would have filled it in even better a [ __ ] origin movie i honestly can't tell you if it was impatience or greed or panic or sheer [ __ ] hubris that convinced dc it was a good idea to release their big superhero team-up film before they'd even introduced half their superheroes you're supposed to give us time to get to know each of them to understand where they came from what they're wrestling with and who they are so that it actually feels meaningful and significant when they all come together for the first time i mean just imagine if the avengers had hit cinemas when all we'd seen was iron man and the hulk everyone would be like who's that viking looking arso why does his brother hate him so much and why is there some dork dressed like a flag anyway based on the little crumbs of exposition that we get here it seems that victor got horribly crippled in an accident so dyson used the power of a mother box to save his life and somehow that turned him into a really fake looking cyborg wait aren't these things supposed to be used for terraforming planets how exactly does that translate into building a robot body for a human that would be like using a nuclear bomb to build a garden shed then diana and bruce meet up for a nice chat and she gives us even more exposition steppenwolf tried to conquer the world thousands of years ago using the mother boxes but the free peoples of middle earth sorry planet earth united against him and defeated him in battle [ __ ] knows how because he had an entire army of spaceships and parademons armed with advanced particle beam weapons at his disposal but whatever so steppenwolf went away in the huff and the mother boxes were divided up amongst the survivors on earth so that they could never be used again kind of makes you wonder why they didn't just destroy them in that case i mean the green lantern corps seems to have been involved in this battle wouldn't have made sense for them to take all three of them away and dispose of them safely i can buy into the idea that mother boxes are pretty durable and difficult to destroy by conventional means but do you really think they could survive being dropped into a black hole or the core of a star but anyway the script needs the plot to happen so whatever the point seems to be that the death of superman has allowed steppenwolf to return and reclaim the boxes so he can finish what he started although it does kind of make me wonder what was keeping steppenwolf away all those centuries before superman was even a thing what if he came back in the 15th century or something somehow i don't think the armies of the day would have been up to the challenge meanwhile aquaman heads down to atlantis because he's worried the place might be in danger but he's too late and steppenwolf gets there first and steals the second mother box wow i love how these super valuable artifacts that have been under guard for centuries just fall right into steppenwolf's hands with barely a struggle i mean if all he has to do is teleport in and steal them what's the point in even trying to protect them in the first place then amber heard shows up to lend a hand because we all know that amber is good at hitting things then she dumps more exposition on aquaman that probably would have made a lot more sense if we'd had a [ __ ] origin movie to set him up you see how much of a burden it puts on your screenplay when you have to somehow cram three movies worth of backstory and character development into one film i don't understand anything about atlantis or aquaman's place in it because none of it's been developed or explored until this exact moment it's like dropping us into lord of the rings when frodo's already halfway up mount doom and expecting us to just figure the rest out for ourselves back in gotham the team learns that a bunch of civilians have been kidnapped and for some reason cyborg shows up to help them even though he previously said he wasn't interested in joining the team i wonder if another guy who previously refused to take part will suddenly show up at a crucial moment so they track the hostages to a nearby island where steppenwolf is interrogating them to find the third mother box why does he need to interrogate people to find the box when he was able to just teleport in directly and collect the other two don't know i thought he was able to sense their presence or something so they go in and rescue the civilians and wonder woman single-handedly holds her own against steppenwolf keep that one in mind for later also keep in mind the fact that she's already been shown capable of moving so fast that she can deflect a burst of automatic gunfire you'd think that kind of ability would come in handy when you're in hand-to-hand combat against an enemy that's larger and stronger than you oh well i guess she forgot about it remember in avengers how our heroes special abilities were both unique and complementary allowing them to be combined in cool ways to give them an advantage when they worked together thus reinforcing the point that the avengers were far more powerful as a team than as individuals notice how it's basically impossible here because their skill sets are either totally incompatible or they overlap to the point that they cancel each other rights jesus batman is basically useless in a situation like this where they're up against an opponent with superhuman strength and endurance yeah he's stronger and faster than an average guy but he's still just human and he's designed to combat human enemies somehow this movie manages to make one of the coolest and most iconic superheroes of all time seem kinda weak and pointless what are your superpowers again i'm rich so the tunnel they're in gets damaged during the battle and the police starts to flood but then aquaman conveniently shows up to save the day how exactly did he figure out where they were and what was happening so he'd be able to intervene at this precise moment how did he get in here without anyone seeing him don't know anyway they escaped the flooding tunnel and the battle ends without either side really achieving much steppenwolf fails to find the third mother box and the justice league fails to take him down and foil his plans so this whole section was basically pointless and that's where we're going to have to leave it for now because there's an absolute limit to how much stupid [ __ ] i can process in one video right now i'm gonna slip into something a bit more comfortable like a [ __ ] coma join me next time for the concluding part of justice league the anatomy of a disaster anyway that's all i've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,370,760

Keywords: Batman, Wonder woman, DCEU, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, The Flash, Aquaman, Superman

Id: ji7gJ9hWS9w

Length: 18min 21sec (1101 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/GoldPisseR]

Its very clear what happened, WB wanted Avengers money without doing the leg work.

BvS had 5 movies worth of storylines.

[u/nikgrid]

I think his opinion of Man of Steel is WAAAAAY Off. Snyder did NOT set out to do a "Sad Superman" he set out to do a "REALISTIC Superman".

[u/BarryAllen94]

How was it rushed?

First movie 2013 - Second movie 2016

If the movies were received well there would be no problem. If anything the Dceu was moving slow.

Going from Team ups to spin offs (instead of the MCU way) wasn't the problem. Aquaman was received well, Wonder Woman the same. They did well and continue.

If the Dceu build it up like the Mcu with solo movies but had again the same movies as crossovers it would still fail.

[u/blackcumrad]

It's a hard point to argue against because WB admitted it themselves by saying that they'll focus on more standalone films from now on.

[u/TFAdventurer54]

I see, so this great and all knowing Youtuber not only spouts out the same rhetoric that every other "expert" states on a regular basis, but also changes the goal post so that no matter what WB/DC do they must always be regarded as failures. I apologize if this sounds cross. This is not directed to the OP nor am I trying to pick a fight. However I'm tired of hearing the same talking points reverberated over and over again as well as having these points shoved in my face everywhere I go online. Look I'm not saying that mistakes were not made, or that studio is innocent in their decisions or that valid criticisms cannot be made. However when I see content like this I find it to be problematic because it doesn't come off as informative, constructive or even entertaining. Instead it just comes off petty, arrogant and only done to look cool in the eyes of the masses.

When it comes to how the DCEU should be and it should have started, we can argue all day about it and get nowhere. In my opinion the franchise was always going to have problems getting off the ground. For WB to take their DC properties in this direction was unknown territory and when you are dealing with something like a shared universe mistakes are bound to happen. Even Marvel, with all their success, have not executed their franchise flawlessly as they have dropped plotlines and changed their creative direction. For DC it was always going to be process to find their identity and I think they have found it regardless of certain aspect being more prevalent than other.

So when it comes to the mistakes of the franchise all the studio can do is learn from it and move on and the same thing can be said about us as fans. Yes it can be interesting to speculate on what could have been, and discussing the studio's follies can be captivating talking points. However to constantly dwell on these mistakes is not productive and it only hurts the integrity of not just the studio or filmmakers, but also the critics who stand by these claims.

[u/Mur-RAY_Franklin]

Oh please... everyone was on board with Justice League Mortal by George Miller. You don't need solo movies before an ensemble movie. Take Watchmen: every character has a proper character arc. It makes you care about every single one of them. Guess who directed Watchmen? That's right: the same director who got his JL movie butchered to pieces.

I'm not saying his director's cut will prove me right... I'm saying that the chances are pretty high. And that it doesn't make sense to have this same argument again and again. The DCEU was not rushed. It was just ruined by JL's reshoots.

[u/timcm47]

It wasn't rushed though was it?

People have a perception of these things based on the MCU.

DCEU was not the MCU and wasn't trying to be until Johns took over.

[u/Dr_Charisma]

It's fine that they tried to do what Marvel did (since it's fundamentally the same concept) but the problem is how they rushed it. We should have gotten a Batman solo film before BvS and more solo films before JL.

[u/grilly1986]

This has been said a million times now.