Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Didn’t suck! A mess of a movie, but fun. DC will live or die with the Wonder Woman franchise.

I had pretty low expectations going into “Justice League” because DC is really not good at making movies about their franchises. The previews for the movie didn’t help anything. Luckily, they actually did a pretty good job of introducing the myriad heroes and making them interesting. Well, mostly. Here is the definitive list of how interesting the “Justice League” heroes are:

1. Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot)- Everything in the movie about Wonder Woman and the mythos surrounding her was awesome and DC is going to depend on her success for a long time, methinks. DC knows this which is why the Gal Gadot vs.serial harasser Brett Ratner contest resulted in him being removed from being involved with the sequel. A small victory.
2. Cyborg (Ray Fisher)- There is some good potential here. His back story is interesting if not wholly fleshed out in the movie. I worry, though, that they’re going to stick with his “Justice League” intro as his complete backstory, which is a shame. I love the human side vs cyborg side of his character.
3. The Flash (Ezra Miller)- Great comic relief. I’m not sure if there is a potential for a stand-alone movie or not with him, but he brings great energy to every scene he’s in. A Flash comedy along the lines of the recent Thor movie might work.
4. Batman (Ben Affleck) – I am not a fan of Ben Affleck as Batman. He mostly comes off as an aloof jerk. Perhaps Batman is just too complicated of a character to fit in with the whole ensemble cast idea. This is a shame because Batman is without a doubt the most interesting character. This is especially true because he is also the only destructible character in the DC universe even if they liberally eschew what would actually kill him.
5. Superman (Henry Cavill) – Superman is just not a compelling character despite Cavill having the perfect Superman look. Every problem can be solved by just calling in Superman. Boring.
6. Aquaman (Jason Momoa) – Jason Momoa is lucky he’s hot because Auqaman has nothing going for him. The whole sarcastic Aquaman was a nice touch, but there’s really nothing there except super-hot Aquaman.

“Justice League” went for a lighter version of pretty much all the characters and their charisma together really showed. This charisma makes up for a messy plot that basically boils down to “send in Superman”. Sure, they did some “lets do this together” kumbaya crap, because that stuff is cool, but it still boils down to Superman at its core. It is definitely a fun movie, though, and if you are at all interested in the DC franchises, this is one of the better showings. That’s not saying much, but I would say that DC might be starting to learn from their mistakes with this movie and maybe there’s better things to come.