Waiting for Superman

Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, and Gal Gadot in Justice League. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

What makes the generally dire Justice League somewhat worth watching is Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot's fiery, intense warrior remains a delight to watch as she charges headfirst into a fight, sword and shield in hand ready to strike down the foes who oppose her. Aside from the satisfaction wrought from having Wonder Woman serve as the toughest character among a collection of super powered folks – a trait shared with the great Justice League animated show from the 2000s – Gadot gives the character a little charm to add a touch of humanity to her character. Some adaptations, for example recent video game entries, have centered her character on the character's warrior spirit they lose touch of the humanity that allows a god to embrace life among humans. DC has a good thing going with Wonder Woman, so it totally makes sense for the company to add a male version of her in the form of Jason Momoa's Aquaman. They’re effectively mirrors of each other, one serving to make the other moderately redundant. Because having a unique, distinguished female character is a step too far for DC, and Aquaman needs to do something besides speak to fish.

One way or another, DC can't get out of its own way when adapting its comic properties to film, which is the driving force of Justice League's failures. The decisions made in the filmmaking process by director Zack Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon are more often than not wrong, resulting in a disjointed, slight movie instead of the powerful blockbuster the company needs. This was DC's shot at a franchise centerpiece, and it fell remarkably short of achieving that goal.

The most fundamental flaw with Justice League is a story that feels incomplete, as if key components were removed to keep the run time at around two hours. The movie brings back Wonder Woman and Ben Affleck's Batman (who spends the movie being fairly useless among his powerful friends) from, but takes time out for the origins of new heroes Aquaman, Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Flash (Ezra Miller). All three will get their own movies in the next few years, but they are new to this DC Cinematic Universe, and Justice League has to take time to introduce all three from scratch. The process is clunky, stealing time away from the save the world narrative while missing opportunities to understand the team dynamic. DC would have been better served properly introducing Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash in separate movies ahead of this one, as almost a third of this movie is devoted to introducing those three.

Cutting down on the new character introduction would then provide more time to focus on the aforementioned save the world story audiences came out to see. Justice League would benefit from additional time to flesh out an uninspiring, rote plot. Part of the issue is from the choice of villains – the alien Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarán Hinds) is not a major DC villain, certainly not as intimidating as Darkseid or even a deranged Lex Luthor. Once the team of beings with godlike powers (and Batman) assembles, Steppenwolf's inevitable defeat becomes clear and anticlimactic. The build up of a grand battle to save the earth ends in an blasé fashion, concluded with neither of the movie’s two proud warriors, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, ending the battle with the killing blow.

If the plot feels a little familiar, that’s because Marvel already did it in The Avengers, although Marvel did a much more competent job. And it doesn’t take too close of a look to see where Snyder and crew lifted from other sources with small to no traces of shame. A flashback to a previous battle with Steppenwolf is formatted like a Lord of the Rings rip off. The bits about Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and the world losing hope after Superman's death (Henry Cavill) has elements of Ghostbusters II to it, and there’s a rather blatant rip off of Frankenstein. Throwing these elements together just makes the story feel weak, as if the writers weren’t confident in the path they chose for their superhero team.

The overarching vibe for Justice League is disappoint. Is this all DC has to offer for the most memorable superhero team of all time? A recycled plot with poor characterization is the best this company has to offer fans who've already been stuck with Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and murderous interpretations of otherwise pacifistic heroes? None of this bodes well for the impending Justice League sequel and the rest of the onslaught of DC movies, so strap in for a bumpy ride.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 120 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: People who love DC Comics.

Take the whole family?: There's a lot of violence with minimal amounts of human blood, so for parents who are good with that this won't be too much for kiddos.

Theater or Netflix?: Really, really don't pay the extra money to see it.

What about the little things?: What irked me the most was how the little things kept getting messed up. Most notably is how every superhero calls each other by their real first names, no matter how close they are to, say, a group of cops or Bruce Wayne's employees. These heroes hide their identities for many, many reasons, and there's no way Batman would allow anyone to call him Bruce in open quarters.

Watch this instead?: Wonder Woman is the best of the recent DC Comics movie adaptation, although it still isn't that great. The Justice League cartoon from the 2000s is excellent, and the ongoing Justice League Action is pretty fun. If you do want to go out, just hit up Thor: Ragnarok and enjoy the madness that ensues.

Searching for Fantastic Beasts in all the right places

Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The best thing author J. K. Rowling has done with her beloved and profitable Harry Potter franchise is to effectively start over from scratch with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She and established Potter director David Yates have taken the adventure away from the chosen one and shifted it from the constraining walls of Hogwarts to the more inviting playground of New York City circa 1926. What results is the start of a new series of adventures with a more interesting protagonist (Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander) and a new angle that only deepens Rowling’s expansive and endearing magical world.

Fantastic Beasts is a fresh start for a series that grew stale as the installments grew and Harry Potter dove deeper and deeper into the dreadful angst that gobbled up the final two films. A melodramatic darkness consumed those later films, the characters (besides Alan Rickman's Snape) becoming less engaging as the series drew to a close and the poorly rendered final scene arrived with a bit of a thud. Fantastic Beasts is much looser with its tone, its focus centered less on the existential dread Harry Potter faced as the boy lived and more on Scamander's quest to become the wizard world's version of an environmentalist. Much of the film is a scavenger hunt, with Scamander, his human companion Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), wizard investigator Tina (Katherine Waterston) and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) flittering about the city searching for a few creatures that escaped from Scamander's case. It's an excuse to see a few of Rowling's creatures come to as close to life as possible (and the effects are quite effective in conveying their imagined majesty) while engaging in shenanigans and causing moderate to severe mayhem in New York City. Fantastic Beasts is really just a fun movie to watch, something to pop on for kids interested in seeing a magical adventure.

Oddly enough, Fantastic Beasts is the most adult film Rowling's magical cinematic universe has produced to this point. All of the characters are well into adulthood (the four major actors are at least 32 years old), meaning their interactions have a naturally strained vibe to them that comes from meeting new people after a certain age. These aren't wide eyed kids going to school for the first time; these are weary adults with fading hopes and dreams that never quite materialized. There’s also a fair amount of darkness skirts the edges of the otherwise bright escapades of Scamander and friends that, unlike much of the Harry Potter films, is tied to the safety of the humans (referred to as Muggles and No-Majs) in the film. Fantastic Beasts shows the repercussions Rowling characters can have on the world beyond Hogwarts, including death to civilians with no means of defending themselves against powers outside their concepts. It's also kind of horrifying to see how easily Colin Farrell's mysterious wizard Peter Graves can just appear in front of another character (usually troubled orphan Credence played by Ezra Miller) to manipulate him or just because he can do it. Unlike the previous films, the amount of inherent trust in the decency of the wizarding community is reduced greatly, even with the institutional knowledge granted from the Harry Potter series.

Humans (or Muggles or Non-Majs) are the real key to what makes Fantastic Beasts such a nifty little big budget film to watch. Having a character like Fogler's Kowalski to serve as an audience surrogate is a nice touch and a major component to differentiate Newt's adventures from Harry's. It's fascinating watching Kowalski absorb the reality of another universe hidden just behind his own – one complete with biting critters and beings capable of cooking with a few flicks of their wrists – on the fly, picking up the pieces as he gets roped into one zany escapade after another. Fogler sells the experience marvelously – highlighted by a shocked giggle that erupts at just the right moment – and his character arc is the most emotionally engaging aspect of the film. It only makes sense for Fantastic Beasts to end with the lovable schlub following his dream as a smile spreads on his face; Newt and the wizards are the future of the franchise, but Rowling knows the heart of this film belongs to Kowalski.

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 133 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

Ask Away

Target audience: Folks in their twenties who grew up reading and watching the Harry Potter franchise.

Take the whole family?: It does get a little dark toward the end, although it isn't anything worse than Prisoner of Azkaban.

Theater or Netflix?: Could be something fun to take the family to before or during the holiday shopping spree.

How many films can they get out of this?: Per IMDB, director David Yates is signed on for six in all, so at least one shy of the Harry Potter film series. It is a little worrying to see that many films lined up, especially if J. K. Rowling loses track of what to do with her new protagonist.

Watch this as well?: Prisoner of Azkaban is the highlight of the original franchise and is worth checking out for Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Gary Oldman, and Goblet of Fire is superb as well. Otherwise, you could hit up some Disney and watch  The Sword in the Stone or catch Labyrinth.