The Unjustifiable League (part one)

I have been a fan of superhero movies since I was pretty small and have grown accustomed to watching them throughout the ages of my childhood. I seem to be more of a fan of DC comics and their movies, but have a soft spot for some Marvel movies, specifically Spider-Man and even more specifically Spider-Man: Homecoming.

That’s why I was more than excited about the first Justice League that came out November 17 of 2017. I was amazed by the choice of casting on the Flash/Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) and ready to see ‘Cyborg’, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Flash kick some supervillain/alien butt.

Unfortunately, I was not prepared for the letdown the movie brought me. The graphics were somewhat terrible in the sense that the backgrounds did not look real. I should not be able to tell that the League is not actually where they are pretending to be in TWENTY SEVENTEEN. And the outfits–though the same as in other movies–were quite bad and I can’t understand how anyone would or could fight bad guys in them.

Another reason I could not enjoy it was the time periods. From my basic knowledge of the comic books and countless television and movie remakes, the timing does not add up. For example, the Flash is in his earlier twenties and is working on getting a degree so he can get a job as a forensic scientist to find out who really killed his mother; but I thought there was a whole lot more of the discovering oneself before the League that Barry went through. He’s so new to everything that he hasn’t actually gotten into a battle apparently and has only “pushed people.”

And can we talk about how Cyborg is not supposed to be in this movie at all? He is newly ‘created’ and as most people who are interested in the younger superheroes and grew up on either Teen Titans or Teen Titans Go, he first joins the Titans and develops a peer relationship with Raven, Beast Boy, Robin, Starfire, and even some other teenaged superheroes that are mainly shown in the comics and hinted at in other shows, such as Young Justice.

Moving on, prepare for spoilers of Batman v Superman and the ending of Justice League. So in Batman v. Superman, Superman (Henry Cavill) dies by sacrificing himself to save the earth. And that is great and all–Go Superman!–but they bring him back to fight the villain in Justice League. I knew he was going to be resurrected. It was just something the movie did not seem to need. I feel like the movie should have been more about the teamwork among the four of the alive heroes before they tackle bringing the all powerful Superman back. And he ends up saving them in the end and beating the villain himself (AND SAVES A BUILDING FULL OF PEOPLE ON HIS OWN). It’s like we didn’t need the first hour and a half of the movie or the other characters. DC studios presents ‘Superman and those four other heroes that barely matter’.

Speaking of the other characters and things I did not like, let’s head deep into the feminist trench that I live in and look at Wonder Woman, the Amazons, Lois Lane (Amy Adams), and Martha Kent (Diane Lane). Gadot gets the most screen time out of all the characters, yet she is the least focused on of the League. You could argue that they were introducing the other characters, but that doesn’t add up because Ben Affleck is on screen in almost one hundred percent of the movie and he is a pretty old character, and I am not just talking age of Affleck. Batman has been the center of DC’s universe for along time. The only other person that amounts to him is Superman. Hey, look at that, they are both masculine and male identifying characters. Wonder Woman has been around considerable as long as both of them but you only seem to think of her in two specifications: female superhero and feminism.

Do not get me wrong. I love Batman and Superman and the Flash and Aquaman and Arrow and etc etc, but I thrive on the female empowerment that Wonder Woman/Diana Prince represents. We need more characters like her!

Another feminist point that goes along with the scarcity of women is one scene that I can not stop getting upset about and it has to do with . . . Diana’s gluteus maximus. There is a scene in which Bruce and Barry are returning to the Batmansion on Bruce’s jet (because Bruce is a millionaire/billionaire/whatever–where are our poor heroes at?) and Diana greets them. This scene is great except for the angle in which it was shot. In the background there is the aircraft and Barry and Bruce slightly in front of it, but the left side of the foreground is filled with . . . yes, you guessed it . . . Diana’s butt. Can movies make money without sexualizing women and exploiting their bodies? Apparently not.

continued at The Unjustifiable League (part two)