Justice League Should Have Been More Like Batman V Superman
Justice League is a perfectly fine film. Zack Snyder’s latest film (with a substantial assist from Joss Whedon) is breezy fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with solid performances by its core cast that makes the DC cinematic universe’s future seem very bright. It’s not going to win any Oscars, the villain is lousy, and the plot is paper thin, but it’s an agreeably diverting way to spend an afternoon. And yet, it’s decidedly out of step with what’s currently happening in the superhero movie genre, which is unquestionably a contributor to its middling reviews and lukewarm box office returns.
2017 has been the year the comic book movie took a creative leap forward. The genre’s stale tropes have largely been jettisoned in favor of big swings that have pushed the possibilities of costumed heroes into exciting new territory. Logan is maybe the closest that mainstream comic book movies have come to arthouse cinema, showcasing a bleak future that is a dark meditation on mortality and legacy. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a John Hughes style teen movie that occasionally features Spider-Man jumping along rooftops. Thor: Ragnarok reinvigorated Marvel’s weakest cinematic hero by embracing the absurd and leaning into Chris Hemsworth’s comedic talent. And Wonder Woman not only told a female fronted period piece with grace and heart, it tapped into the righteous feminist revolution currently facing off with America’s darker impulses. Wonder Woman somehow managed to be a beacon of hope in a time when many people are feeling hopeless.
Justice League should have been the genre’s victory lap after a historically successful year. Instead, the film’s relative failure has thrown the future of DC’s film slate into question, with only Aquaman, Wonder Woman 2, and Shazam seeming like sure things at this point. A safe, traditional superhero film just wasn’t what audiences were looking for in 2017.
The great irony is that DC had just got done taking a massive creative risk with these characters. It’s probably safe to say Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is the most divisive superhero film of all time. While it was critically savaged, Batman V Superman has a deeply devoted following who adore it for its dark deconstruction of DC’s two biggest icons. Indeed, it’s hard not to wonder if Batman V Superman would have been more warmly received in 2017; while Wonder Woman is a ray of light in a dark world, Batman V Superman embraces that darkness with a level of glee that borders on nihilism. That level of cynicism was off putting for most viewers in early 2016, and yet it feels oddly prescient at the tail end of 2017, predicting the chaotic forces that would come to dominate real world events soon after its release.
Batman V Superman’s greatest creative risk is the one that, for many people, was a bridge too far: its framing of Batman as such a deeply broken man that he is essentially the film’s antagonist for the majority of its run time. Batman V Superman showcases a version of the Caped Crusader that wide audiences had never really seen; not simply a Batman who is losing his fight against crime, but who has, for all intents and purposes, already lost. Batman, generally portrayed as the smartest DC hero, acts in brash, shortsighted ways, as he’s so blinded by the paranoia and fear that he fought against for so many years. He exists in a bubble of his own misery and cynicism, convinced the world is spinning out of control as the emergence of godlike beings push his feelings of helplessness into overdrive.
Batman V Superman is also, structurally, a very strange movie. One of the chief criticisms lobbed against it was that it was incoherent, a collection of scenes that don’t really have much to do with each other. That’s not a wholly unfair criticism, and one that was partially rectified by the film’s extended Blu-ray cut. But it was also just a bit of the point; Marvel has done a fantastic job of establishing a structural template for superhero films. You can set your watch to certain beats in those movies. Snyder has largely eschewed that structure; he did it to generally greater acclaim in Man of Steel by borrowing the flashback heavy structure of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. But Batman V Superman was a decidedly different animal, seemingly edited in a way to wallow in the Superman’s self doubt and Batman’s nihilism. The film eventually clicks back into a more traditional narrative, as the third act consists of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman wailing away on a big CGI monster, but those first two acts are unlike anything that had been seen in superhero films, as it ruminated on the very nature of heroism in unusually fatalistic ways.
There’s a lot about Batman V Superman that doesn’t work. Its dream sequences within dream sequences, while visually arresting, don’t really go anywhere, and seem unlikely to ever be properly paid off now that Snyder is likely done with these films. Batman’s paranoia too often descends into buffoonery, where the world’s greatest detective should really be aware of the fact he’s being manipulated. And while Superman’s self doubt in Man of Steel was crucial in the lead up to his saving of Earth and taking his rightful place as the world’s beloved protector, Batman V Superman muddies those waters too much, concentrating too much on the vocal minority who hate and fear him and, perhaps worst of all, showcasing a Superman who is too easily discouraged, who treats his duty as a burden.
On an objective level, Justice League is probably a better movie than Batman V Superman. It manages to give all of its heroes some strong character moments in its relatively brisk two hour run time, the plot is incredibly easy to understand (sometimes to a fault), and it’s just generally a lot of fun, as the Flash banters and Aquaman flexes and Batman rolls his eyes at this motley crew. Perhaps best of all, Justice League gives Superman a chance to be, well, Superman; Henry Cavill gets to smile and talk about truth and justice as he happily saves the day. Batman V Superman’s fans may bristle at that interpretation of the last son of Krypton, but a slightly more traditional take on Superman is both a logical evolution of the character three movies in, and is just viscerally pleasing. The crowd pleasing markers of co-writer and reshoot director Joss Whedon are all over the film, much more so than Snyder’s divisive, wild eyed superhero mania.
And yet Justice League unquestionably lacks a certain spark that Batman V Superman has in spades. Batman V Superman feels dangerous – the work of an artist pushing at the boundaries of his genre in an attempt to say something new about these characters who have been part of the American lexicon for almost eight decades. He doesn’t quite pull it off, but there’s enough there that people are still passionately debating the film’s merits and shortcoming almost two years later. It’s difficult to imagine anyone discussing Justice League with that level of fervor even a month from now, as it inevitably gets steamrolled by Star Wars in the cultural consciousness.
Justice League was a necessary corrective for the DC film universe, deftly setting the stage for solo films for most of its heroes that will likely be more hotly anticipated than Justice League itself. And yet it also feels like a sort of creative surrender, an overcorrection to the Batman V Superman backlash that promises safer, more general audience friendly fare. Maybe that’s the right call, and Justice League’s soft box office is more reflective of the public’s mixed feelings about Batman V Superman than an indictment of Justice League itself.
But it can’t help but feel like the safe course correction of Justice League came at the exact wrong time, in a year where people were looking for their superhero films to take big, bold risks. If the only lesson Warner Bros. learned from Batman V Superman is that they shouldn’t take creative risks with their most iconic characters, the DC film universe might be in an entirely different sort of trouble moving forward.
