So, Justice League

This is one of those movies where, immediately after it's over, my main thought is "It's pretty forgettable and there's really nothing to talk about here" but then, like fifteen minutes later there's this switch that goes off in my head and it usually starts with "Okay," and I am off to the races and ranting, like so.

Okay, so, these movies don't have to suck.  What is easily the most infuriating thing about almost all the DC movies is that every single one of them has an interesting story buried in the one it's actually telling and if the people weren't so insistent on making the worst choice every time they had the chance to, we could actually have some bad-ass movies to work with. But no. 

In this one, the emotional weight of the movie is put on Bruce and Diana working past their reluctance to get back into the world after cutting themselves off from it. So far, so good. Diana feels weird about standing up and inspiring people in the world around her and leading them into dangerous situations because the last time she did that, the person she cared about killed himself to save her.  She'd rather not have to do that again, so, no more world saving for her. Still, so far, so good.  

Here comes the fuck up.

The thing Bruce is tripping himself over is that he was manipulated into following Luthor's plan to take out Superman and, when that didn't work, Luthor just used Doomsday and then Superman died. If you're trying to figure out why any of that is really his fault or why he should be caring so much guilt for things he didn't do or have any control over, that's good, because you should be; the movie should be, too, but it mostly doesn't and just wants you to skate by on just accepting that Bruce feels bad about something and his Character Development will be not feeling bad about it by the end.  See, nice and tidy.

So where's the interesting bit they could have used? Well, in both this movie and BvS, we're told that Bruce has been doing his Batman gig for twenty years, and that he hasn't always been alone in doing it. The Robin outfit covered in "Ha ha ha's" in BvS is a pretty big hint that something horrible befell at least one of his sidekicks and that's what made him hang up the cape in the first place. 

So maybe instead of vague guilt trip, maybe Bruce's thing is that he, too, has inspired people to stand up and fight for a better world alongside him, and that, like Diana, people he cared about suffered because of that. Maybe the movie can have these two people who are working so hard to assemble and lead another team into near-certain death actually talk about how uncomfortable they are with that prospect and that, maybe this time, by watching each other's backs, they can avoid the outcome that's caused so much harm to their lives. I mean, the idea that when we share our burdens with the people we trust they become much easier to carry is sort of the whole fucking theme of the movie and if you have the relationship at the heart of the movie advance that theme in the most meaningful way possible it'll probably work out great for everyone, but, I've been wrong before.  

In all seriousness, that this plot and character thread didn't occur to literally anyone involved in this movie just hammers the point home for me that no one involved in the creative direction these movie's take has any idea why these characters work or how to use them to make these movies compelling in any way. 

Oh, also, would it kill these people to shoot on location? There's a scene in the beginning of the movie where Steppenwolf attacks Themyscrya and amid all the CGI antics there's a shot of Connie Neilsen where it looks like someone prettied up a landscape desktop background and just pasted it around her body outline. Later on, Clark takes Lois to his Kansas farmhouse after he's been resurrected and they're having what's supposed to be a deep conversation about him being alive again and all that jazz except the emotional weight is somewhat undercut by the fake-as-shit sunset which gets super distracting the more time they spend on it.  

Instead of looking immersive, it just looks like Warner Brothers is cutting corners because god forbid they have to physically shoot things in a field of some random ass island instead of just having everybody do choreography in front of a green screen.  That cheapness infects everything the movie is trying to do because it gets really difficult people are having real emotional beats or reactions when everything around them is so blatantly artificial. 

And please, for the love of Jebus, use practical effects at least once in a while.  If all we have is just wall-to-wall digital effects where the actors aren't actually moving that way and the things they're hitting don't really exist than people just tune out because, what's there to invest in? Sure, it looks nifty, but if there isn't anything physical for our eyes to attach to, then all we end up doing is waiting for the 1's and 0's to stop going at it and for the real stuff to show up again. As an example, look up anything from the Star Wars prequels and compare it to any of the sets from the Force Awakens and see which one you're actually more connected to when you look at it.

Okay, so, Steppenwolf. Why, for the love of fuck, is he the villain in this movie? I doubt there was anyone who wasn't an obsessive DC or Jack Kirby fan who even knew he existed and I doubt anyone walking away from the movie remembers much about him, either. Side Track: I feel bad for Cirian Hinds getting stuck playing the villain in yet another shitty comic book movie (he really should've just let the first one  be the only one he did).  That he apparently never met or acted in the same scene with the rest of the cast shows, and is yet another reason why you shouldn't make a movie like it's a cut-and-paste digital scrap book where nothing interacts until it all gets glued together in the end.  

Back on topic:  The reason genre stories like this one need strong antagonists is that they force the heroes to their natural extremes, the drama comes from how well the hero handles that extreme and how long they can maintain it. A bad villain just means the hero does what they already do, just quickly. And Steppenwolf is a horrible villain, he's never anything more than an immediate problem which forces the team up so when the more interesting and pressing threats come up, everyone already knows each other.

I know this is so much bitching and moaning, but, we deserve better. It's always bothered me that things like movies have always been treated as so disposable that "Eh, it's fine" is somehow all we expect from them. That these are some of my favorite characters just makes it worse seeing them handled so badly. Pretty much everyone is cast perfectly- except Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg is still the worse thing about the movie even if he only shows up for twenty seconds in a stinger- but until they get material they can work with instead of work to overcome, Justice League is as good as these movies will get.  Which, in the end, is just sad.

(Mostly, I think Wonder Woman is the exception to pretty much everything I just said. I still have issues with that movie, and if you want to know what they are, you can read them here)

A Suggestion

Lately, I've been thinking about how if I could just create my own universe (or just tweak this one) I'd focus on making sure that as far as the afterlife was concerned, there won't be a heaven, but there certainly will be a hell.

A no heaven situation sounds cruel to those looking forward to it, but, honestly, I'm not that big on the concept.  The idea of spending eternity as a perfect, stagnant being sounds like a duller version of torment than anything to look forward to.  Also the idea of a god gathering his faithful so they can do nothing but say how incredible he is for the rest of time seems less like a reward for the faithful and more like a petty, jealous god suckering people into giving him the validation he's apparently so desperate for and pretend like he's doing them a favor.

Blasphemy aside, I also feel like the idea of heaven partly plays a role in making us take the people in our lives for granted, and that opens us up to regrets and grief we just don't need.  We let people slip in and out of our lives because we tell ourselves that there'll be a later time, that we'll see them in a place where time doesn't matter anymore and whatever we missed while they were here, we can make up and more.  But then the people we care about die and the mantra of "We'll see them again, we'll see them again" against that sudden doubt that no, they're gone and we're never going to see them again.  At that point, I think paradise becomes less of an assurance and more of a way for us to drown out that sudden fear that everything we get told to mitigate death just isn't true.  The fear that this is all we have is so deeply ingrained in us and is something we fight so vehemently against that I have a hard time believing it isn't true.  We wouldn't work so hard to bury that fear if we didn't think it was real, so, for me, that's the biggest proof I can point to.

The difference is, I don't see that as a bad outcome.  If this is all we have, then it becomes even more important for us to make our lives mean something.  And I don't mean that in the "if our lives aren't changing the whole world they're meaningless" way, I just mean that in we have to make our lives mean something to ourselves, that when we go through them it doesn't feel like our waking moments are a burden.  We exist for such a short time in a world that couldn't give a shit about us but instead of letting that define us, we fight and scrape our way to building friends, families, lives, and work that will make people remember us when we're gone.  We may be nothing more than drops in the ocean, but all of us make a ripple.  To live in a world where everyone is screaming to be heard yet we still find people willing to listen to us?  How is that not enough?

Yes, that we're gone forever never to be seen again is sad.  Crushing, really.  But we couldn't have poignancy without grief, so, that seems like a fair trade, in the end.

All of that- fade away into nothing at the end- still leaves a bad taste in my mouth because that seems like too good an ending for more people than you can count on this planet.  That so many will just die and then... nothing feels like a cheap ploy, like they're getting the easy way out.  Which is why I would really insist on having a hell but not a heaven.  Basically, it would make life into a threat: Be good, or live forever.

The nice thing about it is it wouldn't be limited.  All the people voting for Roy Moore because it's more important that he has an "R" after his name than he hunted teenage girls?  Cosmic kindling.  Everyone who turned a blind eye and made sure people like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and all the rest go about their business for decades on end?  Up in smoke for eternity. The operating principle would be that yeah, the people committing the harm and the suffering deserve to endure all that and more once they're gone, but the ones who abet them along the way is what allows that harm to grow, to evolve, to survive well past the time the act was committed.  In this hell, we'd acknowledge that the ones who nursed the more active residents along have hands just as dirty and deserve to burn as much if not more so.

Alas, that's built on as much fantasy as heaven.  We fuck up so much and so incredibly that hell is just us wishing there's something, anything out there waiting to clean up our mess.  "Oh, you let rapists get away with for decades on end?  No worries, we got you."  It's a bigger shame that we don't have a hell, especially now that we live in a time replete with so many who would deserve it.  It's that same nothing that gnaws at us, that makes us wish there was a place of tearing and slashing that would render unto them that earned it all that they were due.  This time, we're trying to avoid the thought that no matter what a person did, in the end, they always get better than they deserve.

In the end, we belong to ourselves, and it's high time we faced up to that.  Let's stop fantasizing and wishing that there's a place where we find the peace we never looked for here or that all the terrible people we let slide by will get what's theirs somewhere that isn't here.  Since this is all we'll have and all we're ever going to be, let's at least make it count.