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The average, but endearing, Justice League

City Press review

Film: Justice League

Director: Zack Snyder

Starring: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot

Rating: Three stars

Superhero films are the things of recipe. They need a lead character with an out-of-this-world physical ability and a villain.

The heroes are the owners of a moral compass that bullies them to fight the ills in a town that has a broody name.

Villains aren’t just the bad guy like the ones you find in cops and robbers movies of yore. They’re the monsters that set off the alarms of our own moral compass. We remember the villain. Unfortunately, in Justice League, the villain is forgettable.

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) and Diana/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) recruit Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) to save the planet from a new world order. The heroes must and cannot afford to fear anything. The league must revive a dead Superman so that he can essentially do all the hard graft.

The threat of this new world order takes the shape of a larger-than-life ram-looking thing. Try to imagine the symbol for Aries in astrology, add some ugliness, a hammer-sword thing and a voice of evil and there you have it. His threat to damage the planet and become its overlord can be heard from miles away. However, his role in the narrative is a whisper. But we have of course moved past the pages of comic-book history, where the bad dude was a clown or a penguin.

Overall, this highly anticipated DC Comics movie is fun dalliance with the new order of heroism. It takes five fighters to slay a villain these days, instead of one.

The film has a slightly weak narrative and is geared towards wit. Geek laughter filled the theatre every time Flash – a light-hearted, young addition to the genre – made a little joke. It was cute.

Momoa is a great swimmer. And Wonder Woman fights better alone. The characters make the movie lekker to watch.

(Photo: Supplied/City Press)

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