DC Extended Universe

The social media embargo just lifted. While these aren't reviews, they're worth looking at because they come from many of the people that will be writing reviews.

Early responses suggest that while the movie apparently has some problems (which I'm guessing some of which might be fixed in the inevitable "Ultimate Cut" that I'm sure that they'll do), the consensus is that it's good, or at least decent. To summarize what's said in that article and others like it...

Pros:

• The team dynamics play out very well.
• Batman and Wonder Woman continue to be the MVPs of the DCEU.
• The Flash and Aquaman are breakout characters, which bodes well for their standalone movies.
• This is the Superman you've been waiting to see.
• The pacing is right.
• Danny Elfman's score is good.
• The action's great, the humor works, there's heart, and the more serious moments fit in fairly well.
• Fans of the previous movies will probably still like this one, and people who didn't like BVS and SS are more likely to enjoy this.
  
• Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon's styles surprisingly blend together instead of there being jarring changes in tone.
• It's FUN™!
• The two - yes, two - post-credits scenes are worth waiting for.
  
• The movie continues to course-correct the DCEU in the right direction.

Cons:

• Steppenwolf suffers from Comic Book Movie Villain Syndrome.
• Cyborg seems to be seen as the least-interesting member of the team based on these responses - though this take on the character still has fans.
• Narratively, the movie is a bit messy (probably due to them cutting the running time down to 2-ish hours).
• Certain plot elements don't have enough time to breathe.
• There's apparently a dumb moment that sucks out some tension out of the ending.
• Though the Snyder-Whedon dynamic apparently worked, there are some clunky moments.

Overall, this sounds like what I expected from the movie once I heard that Zack Snyder was going to pass the torch over to Joss Whedon. Hopefully, the reviews reflect the mixed - but mostly positive - stuff that's being posted here.

There's only been one purely-negative response thus far, and it's from the same guy who wrote an article about predicting the movie's Rotten Tomatoes rating using math (lol, no predetermined bias to suit a narrative here). So... Yeah.

 

The meme you posted... It wasn't dank enough for my tastes.

 

To each their own. I thought Thor: Ragnarok was good, but not that good - it was my least favorite of Marvel's 3 movies this year. Really feel like Taika Waititi should have directed a different Thor movie than the one where the Norse Apocalypse happens, but otherwise he's right for the franchise.

 

I think if Marvel hadn't played it up so much that this was the Ragnarok we thought was going to happen, then the aspects with Surtur and such wouldn't have been as lackluster. I mean, those parts were still disappointing, but when you're expecting an apocalypse, you want to see a bit more of the destruction and action that happens with an apocalypse...

If they had dropped that aspect, or least not had our hopes up in that regard, then I think the movie would be great. I thought it achieved everything it wanted to, except for being what the title said it was supposed to be.

 

I feel like it was going to be a different movie until they hired Taika Waititi to work on it, at which point they were completely fine to let him do his own thing because his work is well-regarded to begin with - and also, because he made Hulk (not Banner) a better character.

Talking about Marvel in a DC thread... How funny. On that note, I think that Waititi would be right for doing a proper Green Lantern movie, which is only fitting because he was in that dorky one that came out six years ago.

 

A bit below $300M, actually. They'll probably use tax exemptions to write down the costs a bit, and I can only imagine that product placement and that sort of thing will end up paying for the movie's overextended budget.

What matters more for Justice League is that people like it. Wonder Woman was already a big enough hit for WB that they don't consider Justice League a risky movie in spite of it costing so much to make (since the profit margins on Wonder Woman are huge), and I'd actually argue that Wonder Woman succeeding was more important for this setting that that movie was successful than it is for Justice League to be - it came in at a critical moment in the franchise's overall development and was widely-beloved, which ultimately lowered anxieties over Justice League itself and generated more interest in it by virtue of Diana being a major player in the film.

The advantage of the model that DC used - set up your big heroes first and use them to draw attention to your lesser-known characters - is that it makes subsequent movies (Aquaman, The Flash: Flashpoint, and Cyborg, when/if ever that gets made) easier to pitch so long as people like those characters. And evidently, people really, really like Aquaman (whose movie is already in post-production, and by all accounts ought to be awesome) and the Flash (whose movie is waiting on the greenlight, but that's probably going to happen soon after this movie is released) in this movie, so things ought to work out on that front.

If people like Justice League, then that should translate to better legs at the box office than the likes of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (which is one of the few blockbusters to not have a 2X multiplier, most likely due to the insane - and arguably unfair - level of backlash that it received), even if the opening is likely going to be smaller than that movie at this point. And the Thanksgiving holiday ought to be beneficial for business on the picture as well. The good news for the movie is that, aside from having competition with a bigger-than-expected Thor: Ragnarok, it basically has a whole month to itself to be the Autumn/Winter's big-budget-blockbuster before Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives.