Examining the characters and storytelling in the film By M.Schinke

Ok, I’ve put this off long enough, Opinionnerds.

I’ve been trying to re-watch Justice League; I really have. I get it all queued up, press play, sit through the logos and the DC bumper and then…..

And then the prologue flickers across the screen and I am reminded of exactly why it’s so hard for me to watch this movie.

One of my personal philosophies on movies is that you can almost always tell how you are going to feel about them based on the first scene. It makes sense to me; the first scene is the movies opening statement be it a prologue or just a scene either before or after the title and opening credits. It’s hardly a scientific approach, but as a matter of first impressions it seems to get pretty close to what I have experienced and heard from others. For instance, and related to the subject here, if you were among the people who thought that the opening of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the dream vision of the Wayne’s murder, was unnecessary and just a little weird then you were probably well on your way to not enjoying the film as a whole. When I watch that Superman scene at the head of Justice League it sums up everything I believe is wrong with this movie; the characters storytelling is empty, it features some absolutely atrocious dialog, looks terrible and cheap, and it adds absolutely nothing of substance to a film that’s already as hollow as a dollar store chocolate Easter rabbit. It’s a terrible about face that fails in its attempts to pander to a segment of the audience that was never going show up for it to begin with.

And that, Opinionnerds, is Justice League to me.

I’m not going to dissect the entire film scene-by-scene because I don’t want to get into endless rounds of nit-picky jabs that will just make me angrier and angrier. We all know the moments we individually and, somewhat collectively, dislike. I want to try and look at the combination of storytelling and characters to try and understand why, in my opinion, they don’t work collectively. I’m not going to lie; this is going to read a little like a bitch-fest because I have a hard time supporting the film as a whole. Some films that don’t work as pieces of compelling storytelling at least have some redeeming features in their presentation; something in the design or the music or the manner in which the scenes are filmed that takes some of the sting out of the wonky storytelling. As released, Justice League is not that movie, not by a Corellian parsec. I want to be fair and point out what I think works, but it’s going to be hard not to just be an asshole about the whole thing. I promise I’m going to try. You know, for like, science and stuff.

Gods help me…..

Basic Storytelling

The core storytelling of the movie is functional. It’s not inspired, nor is it interesting – but it’s easy enough to follow. The plot unravels in a chronologically linear fashion that is obvious in it’s delivery of information, the great majority of which is given through expository dialog, marking a change from the previous films heavy use of implicit and subliminal storytelling. This approach was, “demanded” by a community who heavily criticized Man of Steel and Batman v Superman for their more, “complicated” (complex) and at times confusing approach to storytelling. As a result the film doesn’t make use of flashbacks, dream or fantasy sequences (save for the single flashback in the, “History Lesson” concerning Steppenwolf and the Mother Boxes) and features no slow motion in non action scenes that I can detect. The use of camera in storytelling is minimal and literal. Take the opening Batman scene, which features a solo action sequence for the character. There is no attempt to create a sense of mood, dynamism or presentation style with the camera or lighting. The camera follows the action mostly center frame, with multiple edits often in the middle of movements; this will become a pattern as the film progresses. The edits are there to create a sense of energy or tension in a scene that is otherwise lacking due to the extremely basic filming and purposely light approach to storytelling and tone. It’s an in-artistic way of delivering information that tilts the table in the extreme opposite direction from the previous films. Instead of being, “confusing”, it ends up just being dull.

The act structure is broken into very obvious sections, more than likely a total of nine – I haven’t bothered to break them. Most of what the characters do will be reacting to the plot as it unfolds. There is only one point where the team makes an active choice and that is to resurrect Superman. While this has an impact on how the film ends, bringing back the Man of Steel ultimately doesn’t have any effect on how the plot continues to unfold – it doesn’t have any impact on the current situation. So what you have is the characters continuing to act in what could logically be construed as the same manner they would have if the choice to bring back Superman hadn’t been made. There was no intricate plan that included him, so there is no need to desperately make new choices in his absence. It doesn’t even change how the team functions at the end of the film, Superman simply joins them in actions already in progress. The end result is a choice that feels more like it serves the franchise than the story, which is underwhelming for an element that is so important, as the storytelling flat out states that Superman was meant to unite the team in a way that no one else could.

No, THIS Is The Team

The characters we don’t already know – Arthur, Barry and Victor – get some set up work in their introductory scenes that has a bit of a pay off during the denouement, but there seems to be little character work being done within the body of the movie itself. The characters don’t deal with whatever issues might exist for them, and any resolution seems poised only to open the path towards continuing adventures for the characters. One constant criticism is that the films only purpose is to lay more track for the continuation of the franchise. In fact, this was a criticism long before this version of the movie had even been released, predating even principle photography. As released, I have a hard time arguing with this observation, though I don’t know if I’d go as far as to label it as objectively negative. Introducing these characters and setting them aloft in the great ocean of films was always on the books for this movie, a clear and purposeful reversal of the formula Marvel Studios has employed in their cinematic universe that somewhat mirrors the progression of DC’s New 52 universe,conceived around the same time as Man of Steel. It’s totally workable as a concept but this movie, as released, fails to utilize the characters unique natures in pursuit of any story. So, I have to say I agree with the critics on this one, at least for the film as it exists.

Still the cast is great, even with this less than stellar material. I know what Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot are capable of in the roles they have, and I can see little sparks of what Ray Fisher, Ezra Miller and the main man Jason Mamoa could have brought with different material. As they exist the characters feel restrained and dramatically light but I understand this was a purposeful tonal shift on the part of the production to reduce their intensity and make them more easily palatable. The movie is very concerned that each characters is, “likeable”; a feature of mass market movies that I am becoming increasingly frustrated with. This combination of performer and material doesn’t work dramatically, in my opinion, because these aren’t, “exactly” the roles these actors were cast for, prepped for or shot initially. It’s just a, “feeling” that I have. There is no analysis I can provide or data I can present; it simply doesn’t work for me on the whole. Not that there aren’t moments, many in fact, where I’m genuinely interested in the characters, but they are fleeting. I think it’s when they all have to interact with each other that I really lose the plot, so to speak. Even when the team is supposed to be at odds with one another, the tension never really mounts in a palpable way that I feel makes for strong drama. This is a result of both the material and the manner in which the performaces are captured. Every bit of tough interaction between these very distinct characters is undercut in an attempt to show the audience that they ultimately get along because they’re all the, “good guys”. People complained very early on in the production that they did not want to see the team fighting among itself because; they are the Justice League, and that’s something they don’t do (even though they do all the time). It blunts the edges of all the characters and makes them less compelling.

Many of the teams interactions feel disconnected as a result of editing; see specifically the scene in the Batcave – or rather the offsite hanger since it’s unlikely they are underground in the cave because of the various windows bursting with sunlight no matter what time of day it is. There are a few wide masters that feature all of the characters together, but most of the scene has the characters locked off and alone; shot mid close, blocked center frame. The camera doesn’t move much and when it does, it’s only to follows actors as they travel. The only characters that actually seem to interact are Bruce and Diana and, like a later scene, there are an awful lot of shots looking over blurry, closely framed shoulders at the other character. The fact that the performers don’t always inhabit the same frame means their level of intimate interaction is lessened. The constant cutting back and forth between shots for dialog and reactions destroys any sense of flow in the delivery of the text. It happens more than once in the film during scenes that I believe most directors would want to play out in the longest takes they could get. If you’re someone who followed the troubled production of the film, and you have some idea of which sections were from the replacement shoot, it starts to become really obvious why the scenes play the way they do. The material itself is actually not bad in most of these scenes, but the production just can’t make it work and everything lacks energy and a sense of momentum. Combined with the productions desire to make everyone nice and friendly, even Batman, it creates a dynamic imbalance where the movie just can’t quite manage to really get any dramatic energy behind it and everything just feels light, lifeless and dull.

Does Your Thing Really Stand For Hope?

I have to get into this, and I’m immediately going to go full hypocrite and declare that I despise this scene at least enough to give it it’s own section. That’s because I think it really is an excellent showcase of many of the things that are so wrong with this movie as it was delivered to us. I’m not even going to talk about the visual presentation; it’s just awful, in my opinion. When one of the children remarks that his shield looks like an, “S” Superman responds by saying that was purposeful, that it’s meant to, “wind – like a river”. He follows it up with another metaphor about hope being, “like your car keys. Easy to lose, but if you dig around, it’s usually close by”, a little homespun wisdom from, “a man” he, “once knew” that he won’t acknowledge as his father for some reason. I feel like these are terrible metaphors but the meaning is easy enough to decipher; hope comes and goes, but if you lose it, it’s pretty easy to recover. In my opinion this radically over simplifies both the concept of hope and how difficult it can be to find our way out from despair. I’ve done a bit of reading on the subject and this metaphor betrays just about everything any thoughtful piece I’ve come across has to say on the subject. I understand the character is talking to children in the film, but through film language he is also talking to us in the audience, so this is a message that whoever wrote this scene is most definitely communicating to us whether they intend to or not. It’s a style over substance statement that attempts to win you over by sounding meaningful. But it’s garbage philosophy; a useless and cynical sentiment whose purpose is not to enrich the films themes or communicate anything of substance but to, “sell” this new version of the character. It also saddens me that whoever wrote this scene passed up an opportunity to reiterate a key idea from Man of Steel, the idea of hope that Jor-El spoke of in which a large part is, “the fundamental belief in the potential of every person to be a force for good.” Not only do I believe this is a powerful statement on its own, it’s perfectly simple for children to understand – every person can be good. And when we’re talking about putting together a League of heroes to save the world; that’s at least thematically relevant. It’s true that statement came from Jor-El and not John Kent, and I understand that there are people who want to believe all the good things about Clark Kent as a person, and Superman as a hero, should come from his human parents. However, historically this was not always the truth. Also, I also do not care how people feel about this. Where Superman gets his values is not an emotional dick measuring contest between parents – they all had a hand in creating him. The shield belongs to his Kryptonian heritage; if you’re talking about it, you’re talking about Krypton. Deal with it. But look, none of that matters much because none of this will be addressed again during the movie.

The storytelling in this scene is meaningless, as far as I’m concerned, in anything but the broadest abstraction. Nothing from this scene will be relevant later. It serves no purpose in the plot and, despite how it tries to position itself, it doesn’t service any themes that I can detect. People have tried to tell me that the theme of hope is implicit in the film, but even implicit storytelling must be supported somewhere in the text. This scene doesn’t ask you to contemplate the concept of hope. It doesn’t ask you to consider how you find it if it’s lost – it’s just mentioned as a thing. The closest we get to addressing Superman and hope later in the movie is Bruce telling Alfred about Clark’s humanity and how the team needs him to bring it together. This is never capitalized on because no one outside of Batman and Cyborg has any meaningful interaction with Superman – and I categorically do not consider Clark and Barry’s, “playful banter” to be an interaction with substance. We’re meant to believe, I assume, that Superman’s mere presence brings hope to others and indeed I hear that argued all the time. The reason for this, I believe, is that there is a continuing call to attach an idea to Superman that cannot be communicated in a tangible way. Hope is not an emotion – it is a state of mind. To have hope does not automatically mean you will feel good about anything; it’s simply a mindset in which you frame your desires. The method typically employed to communicate the idea of hope to audiences is to show people expressing some manner of joy or adulation. With Superman, those feelings are attached to his presence; hence Batman’s ridiculous smile when Superman appears. Most people seem perfectly fine with that idea, and Rao bless them for it. For me, it always reads as worship – the kind of reaction any garden variety religious charlatan elicits from their throngs of mindless followers. There are ways to portray people being hopeful and communicating that mindset to others; it’s just more difficult to do and doesn’t push the sentiment that having hope makes you happy. This movie takes the same shortcut as many other Superman materials; and I don’t like it any better here than I do anywhere else.

My personal accounting for this scenes existence is as an attempt to re-paint the character of Superman in regards to this series. The outcry over how the character was handled in the previous two films was so loud that WB felt it was necessary to do an about face as quick and hard as they could. However the nature of the film as it existed wouldn’t allow for that, and their about face turned into a concussion inducing face plant. This scene was created and specifically crafted to attach as much of that preferred approach to the character as possible in as short a space of time as they could. It presents a version of Superman within the film that is identifiable as the same character we’ll see later on as a way to smooth over the disconnect between this version and the previous portrayals. In pursuit of that goal I think the scene is successful, but it is a band-aid on a self-inflicted wound. I don’t find it to be sincere, and this is the same flavor of insincerity that I see people favoring and making excuses for in regards to Superman all the time – terrible excuses like, “he’s meant to be a children’s character (arguable). He’s supposed to be corny because he grew up a dorky kid in Kansas (he was a high school football star). Why do you want to make him all dark and emo; he should just be joyful and happy to help people (yeah, ok; if you say so).” If you want that image of the character distilled into 50 or so seconds of screen time, well; there it is.

Wonder Woman To The Rescue

Let’s set the scene; Wonder Woman is attracted to an act in progress where unknown people infiltrate a courthouse, take a group of schoolchildren hostage and set up a bomb for an unknown reason. Diana then shows up and cleans house. For the most part this is a well staged action scene. It has some great stunt and effects work that really sells her speed and strength and all this would be wonderful if the scene had anything to do with what’s going on in the movies story or plot in any way, shape or form whatsoever. The storytelling that sets up this action is lacking, in my opinion. We have no idea who these people are or why they chose a courthouse to do their deed, though they are pretty brazen in going about it. Diana snags a man in the Lasso of Hestia, specifically mentioning that it compels one to tell the truth, and asks him who they are. His response is that they are, “a small group of reactionary terrorists” who, “know that sinners have brought on this plague of aliens“, though this piece of dialog was difficult to pull from the sound mix. He then proceeds to not answer her question about why they took hostages, telling her that she’s too late and four city blocks are about to go up in flames. The head man, designated as such because he wears a hat – and hat’s mean authority, makes a statement about returning people to the darkness and the, “safety of holy fear”. Ass whuppins soon ensue, Diana saves the day and her last delivered line, the final line in the scene, is to declare herself as a believer. A believer in what? I don’t know; the movie doesn’t say. If we extract from the character arc of her solo film, she is declaring that she is a believer in love. What that has to do with anything going on here I leave to you to decipher. We never get an explanation as to why these deranged men chose the courthouse – and yes, that is important because, as I’ve said before, everything in a movie is storytelling. Where you choose to stage scenes is meaningful. Staging this scene in a courthouse communicates different information than if it were staged in a grocery store, or an auto factory, or an airfield. So there was a reason to stage it in the courthouse. What was that reason? We’ll never know.

And… that’s it. There is no follow up later. As it’s presented here this scene exists simply for its own sake – to give Wonder Woman a solo scene in which to shine. It contributes nothing to the storytelling of the film. If it were removed the movie would lose no relevant information, it would only lose an action scene. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good action scene; it’s purposeless in the face of the rest of the film as it appears here. I have no context for the dialog about darkness and holy fear and nothing to connect it to other than the information about the parademons being attracted to fear – which seems to have absolutely no relevance here. The obviously ADR’d line about sin and aliens seems meant to link this scene to the movies plot but nothing more is ever made of this. And while I know it is the lowest form of criticism, this line does create a minor plot hole. Batman tells random criminal guy in his first scene that the Parademon he caught is just a scout, a soldier whose presence is usually the prelude to a coming attack or invasion. Diana’s captive specifically uses the word, “plague” to describe the reasons for his groups actions, and by definition that means an ongoing affliction. Nowhere else in the movie is it mentioned that the public knows anything about what’s happening through any communicated means nor is it communicated to us that the Parademons are detected, active or dangerous. But these guys have observed enough to take action and punish a random group of people for the sin they see as having attracted an alien threat?

Most things people call plot holes do not fit the definition; which is why people keep expanding the definition to cover things they don’t like but don’t have a, “legitimate” critique for. But this? This may be the first legitimate plot hole I’ve ever fallen into. It is a genuinely contradictory piece of relevant information that is presented within the text of the film – the very definition of a plot hole. It’s not big or important, but it does exist.

I would understand if anyone who’s read my previous BvS articles would want to call me a hypocrite in this case. There is a scene in that film featuring Diana, what has come to be known as the JL cameos, that many people saw being as useless to that film as I see this one. And I have agreed that, as far as furthering the plot goes, you could yank that scene right out of the movie and not lose much. However, the difference is that while this scene seems completely isolated from the rest of the movie in presenting characters, locations and information that will not be called upon again, the scene in BvS is at least born from previous storytelling as well as providing some piece of motivation for Diana to join the fight later. It does also function as connective tissue for moving the larger universes storytelling forward. This scene in JL does none of that. So am I being hypocritical or playing favorites? I don’t believe so but, if you think I am, present a case and we’ll talk it out.

To Be Continued….

I admit, even getting this far into the movie was a chore. Much to my chagrin I am unfortunately faced with the reality that I find much more that I feel didn’t work with the movie than I do things that did. It’s hard to tell if I’m being objective or if I’m just nit-picking, so I would implore anyone who feels they can to check my work and let me know where I got off track.

I have a lot left to unpack in regards to this movie so I’m going to take my time and get it all out, because I only want to do this once and then I plan on never watching this movie again. See you in a few, Opinionnerds!

Clever endings aren’t my bag.

Laterz

Check out Part 2!

Justice League is available on UHD and standard Blu-ray at Amazon

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