Just How Bad Is Joss Whedon’s ‘Justice League,’ Anyway?

Nobody likes to admit when they are wrong. Especially not a major corporate entity. But something unusual is happening. With Zack Snyder’s Justice League‘s imminent debut on HBO Max — Warner Bros.’s big bet on streaming — we are witnessing the biggest do-over in mainstream popular entertainment.

Here’s a Flash-like reminder of what the heck is going on: After Christopher Nolan’s financially and critically successful Batman trilogy, and staring down rival Marvel’s interlocked universe leading to 2012’s Avengers, Warner Bros. — whose DC characters of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman were always better known worldwide than Marvel’s Iron Man and Thor — said “we must do this, too.” The first summit was meant to be Justice League — a movie that, by any estimation, is a disaster.

The primary fault, most believe, is that director Zack Snyder left the production and was replaced by Joss Whedon. Initially, word was “oh, he just took it over the finish line.” It is now known he made substantial changes to an already created shell, and Warner Bros. released a hastily patched-together Frankenstein’s Monster into theaters in the winter of 2017.

Something like Justice League isn’t just a movie. It’s a department. When one project is designed as the center a spiral galaxy of limitless stories and all their licensing arrangements, there comes a point where it is too big to fail. And while some of those ancillary projects may have made their numbers (did I buy more Cool Ranch Doritos than I normally would have because hunky Henry Cavill was on the bag? We can never know for sure) Warner Bros.’s full-throated endorsement of this four hour restored movie is unheard of. The parent parent company behind Justice League trades on the New York Stock Exchange as just one letter: T. Blue chips like this don’t admit to mistakes.

But with enough fan revolt (some of it charming, like flying a sky banner, but much of it actually revolting, like being abusive online) there came capitulation, leaving us with one key question: just how bad is the 2017 Justice League?

I remember answering this question after leaving the press screening at the time. I had been pretty vocal about my disappointment in Snyder’s previous entry in the franchise, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “But that,” I said, “was at least a movie, even if a flawed one. This? I don’t know what the hell this is!”

Justice League (or Josstice League or even #TheWhedonCut, if you want to go that route) could only be a bigger failure of cinematic fundamentals if they left the lens cap on. Considering just how many alleged professionals were around during its construction, its amateurish nature is akin to hearing an underfunded middle school band with out-of-tune instruments try to make its way through Mahler’s 5th Symphony. I just rewatched it and quite frankly I’m shocked such a debacle remains at our fingertips.

The first 20 minutes aren’t bad. The opening aperitif of kid reporters interviewing Superman is funny and touching – perhaps the only example of the Whedon touch working well. The quick following turn to the credits beneath slow motion shots of a world gone mad (set to a Norwegian singer Sigrid’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”) is an example of what Snyder does best: tableaux of rich iconography ripped direct from comic book panels. Then come the problems.

Film is a visual medium, and no genre depends on flawless visuals more than stories about superheroes. Yet this movie looks like crap. The computer generated special effects are all abysmal. They resemble old Playstation games you leave in a cardboard box by the curb that nobody wants. There are shots where some of the elements are tremendous — nth level gorgeous actors like Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa in sexy outfits or looking absolutely ripped — but the green screen behind them looks like they just figured out how to play with backgrounds on Zoom. 

The cuts between wider shots and close-ups are outrageous. Indeed, with green screens as bad as this, you might be distracted from the famous digital touch-up to Henry Cavill’s mustache. The idea of Aquaman “surfing a parademon” as he crashes into the top of a tenement building then gliding out into the street could, potentially, be terrific. As rendered, the uncanny midway point between video game and real life feels more akin to Sharktopus than a major motion picture event.

But what about the story? Gosh, I just rewatched it and I still can’t tell you. Obviously the main drama is to get the band together — for Batman and Superman to hug-it-out — and also to meet newbies like The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. (Wonder Woman, remember, we met a few months earlier in the WWI-set Wonder Woman, which, all said and done, is a quality movie.) The baddie, Steppenwolf, has generic aims to take over the world, and he’ll do it, too, if he can collect three Rings of Power — excuse me — three Mother Boxes, which have been hidden by the Women of Themyscria (i.e. Wonder Woman’s pals) the Atlanteans (i.e. Aquaman’s pals) and Men.

This is a case where the Internet is correct:  #BanMen!

While our guys go to revive Superman they bring along the third Mother Box (it’s the size of an air fryer) and just kinda plop it down. They know Steppenwolf is looking for it, but, nah, it’ll be safe over there where we parked.

Cyborg and Batman are supposedly from Gotham, but as one who lives in New York City, I don’t go take a leak in a Starbucks and leave my laptop on a table unattended. If I possessed a doohickey that could destroy all life as we know it, I’d take better care!

But this is just plot quibbling. The thing that makes Justice League so unusually bad is the collision of Snyder’s style and Whedon’s. Snyder’s main tweak of DC Comics lore is suggesting that Superman and his powers perhaps should not be so quickly embraced; that an alien God might too greatly upset society’s balance. This is kinda-sorta dealt with in this entry, but it’s certainly shunted aside for endless scenes of Whedon-esque quipping. Yeah, it’s funny that Wonder Woman slips the Lasso of Truth around Aquaman, but why did she do it? And why are they all just standing around on that airplane before they go into battle? Any director with some visual panache would make a sequence out of their preparation, not just launch into mildly amusing jokes. 

There is also the strangely inserted “Russian family” subplot which just reeks of studio notes. As our heroes invade the villain’s HQ, there has to be a human face to the struggle. So amidst all the blasting and bonking, we get some shots of a random family. 

You ultimately have to laugh, and the same goes for the front-and-center, completely unmotivated image of Gal Gadot’s tush as she comes to welcome Bruce Wayne and Barry Allen off a plane. Not sure whether that was a Snyder or a Whedon touch, but either way it’s ridiculous.

Very shortly we’ll know if Zack Snyder’s Justice League will somehow spin all this into something that works. Or maybe it’ll be four hours of terribleness instead of just two. Either way, it sets a precedent. When something gets handed in that truly is unbearable, there always might be a second chance.

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.

Watch Justice League on HBO Max