In My Humble Opinion - Justice League; Divided We Fail
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The lost narrative of Justice League by M.Schinke
Come together, Opinionnerds!
So I don’t do film, “reviews”. Reviews are a game of gut reactions made worse by the overwhelming need to get them out as fast as possible so they remain relevant while a film is still playing; there’s no point in reading a review after the movie has long since left the theater. So this won’t be a review or even an overview of Justice League, which was released wide November 17th and which, after seeing it, I refuse to call a Zack Snyder film. I want to talk about something vital I think was missing from the final product; something that I know Zack has been very keen on integrating into his films and that’s an over arching narrative; an emotional point of view that guides the project and unites all of the story elements together into a cohesive whole that actually says something worth saying. I know there are a lot of people who don’t believe that Zack does this but, screw those people; I think they’re woefully misguided in their observations and today I just don’t have patience for it. This is what I believe and what I take away from these films;
In Man of Steel the overall narrative is about choice. Choice is brought up again and again throughout the movie from all of the, “father figures” in Clark’s life; Jor-El, Johnathon Kent and even Zod. Even the priest he talks to asks him what he want’s to choose. The entire thrust of the film is leading Clark to choose what he wants to do with his powers and what kind of person he wants to be. This all leads up to him choosing to become Superman.
In Batman v Superman, I believe the overall narrative is about faith. As I recently wrote in my BvS story break, all the of the characters in the film are having an experience with faith in their story lines. And the narrative conceit of the film hinges on Superman having faith that he can make a difference.
Where Were We Going?
When I look back on the material that was released in the year or so before the final promotion blitz for Justice League, there was a clear narrative that was being built for the film and that narrative was about unity. It’s not a coincidence that when the mother boxes are brought together their merging is called The Unity, or that the marketing for the film was all about, “Uniting” the league.
The story that is told of the original invasion of Earth involved the coming together of the disparate races of the planet; allies in the fight to protect their world. It was this unity of peoples, as Diana says, that forced Steppenwolf back and saved the world. When putting together his team, Bruce talks of forming an alliance to beat back the invading horde. When the team first encounters Steppenwolf they are roundly defeated. Firstly, with the absence of Arthur, or the Aquaman, they are not a full unity of their own. They act independently; fractured and in-cohesive and because of this Steppenwolf makes them look foolish. There are pieces of this narrative peppered throughout the final product with lines from Aquaman that speak to being, “strongest alone” and how Bruce believes that’s wrong, Cyborgs arc being built around feeling apart from humanity, Barry being a loner and having no roots and Diana realizing that she can no longer wall herself off from the world. The most obvious piece of this narrative is in Batman, the ultimate loner, understanding that a team was necessary at all.
The idea of uniting as a team is more than just getting a group of people together to do a thing. The idea of unity is that we are stronger together. In a moment that was cut form the film, a great moment in my opinion, we hear Wonder Woman say before a battle, “No one goes alone. We do this together”. There’s Bruce’s dialog about how each of them is held back in some way, the idea being that united they fill the gaps in one another and make a stronger whole as a result. (EDIT – As Vic Stone, Cyborg is a star football player, a person used to being part of a unit working for a cause. This would have been an important aspect of his character;his feeling of being separated from humanity because of his condition and finding a new place on this team) But, even as an idea for visual gags, this isn’t paid off in the film. The team doesn’t work together in a way that shows each of them playing a role that is specific to them or covers for a deficiency in another; they just do things. It’s in defiance of what the point was supposed to be.
Bruce talks about Superman with a reverence and belief in the idea that it is Clark that will ultimately bring the team together, to unite them. By extension, with the original idea presented in the trailers, Superman’s lack of presence causes a surge of hopelessness in the world. It was meant to be that the return of Superman would have an impact beyond his being able to fly faster than Flash and punch harder than Diana. The film plays briefly on the idea that the world is fractured, which is a follow on to the epilogue of Batman v Superman where Bruce and Diana talk about people coming together for a common good, which was clearly meant to lead the film into Justice League. In Justice League as it is, there is almost nothing left of this story of the world being in disarray after Superman’s death. Superman’s return is supposed to be a big moment for the entire world to look to him, their faith restored and hope renewed. Superman was clearly meant to be the glue that finally united the team together somehow but, more than that, he would unite the people of the world and in turn that energy would be the key to defeating an army that literally fed on fear. He concluded his arc in BvS by finding his faith again; his belief that what he did was right, was good and that it mattered. This would be enough for me upon his resurrection; to finally be able to live in that truth and present the world a Superman that believed. And by having faith in himself and his team, by showing them that faith, the team would be able to come together, as it were. This was alluded to in the Batcave scenes where Bruce calls Diana out for hiding herself away; her loss of faith in people after the death of Steve Trevor meaning she could not step to the fore and lead as she herself acknowledges. Unfortunately; this doesn’t happen in the film. There is nothing about Superman or his presence in the movie that speaks to leading or uniting the team; he’s barely a presence in the film at all and all the narrative and thematic elements that were meant to be there ultimately do not materialize to the films detriment. Superman didn’t need to crack jokes at time when they were not warranted; he didn’t need to crack jokes at all. It’s not his ridiculous over powered speed or strength or the stupidity of his freeze breath that was missing from the character in BvS. By design of the story it was his super powered faith; and that’s the power he needed to bring to Justice League. If you’ve seen the film then perform this little exercise and ask yourself; according to what the film actually shows you, what is it that Superman brings to the team that makes his presence necessary? When it comes down to brass tacks; why does the team, and by extension the world, need Superman?
There is also a dramatic flip side to all of this. Since the concept of unity is no longer of narrative importance there is no longer any emphasis placed on the danger of not achieving that unity. While the team bickered a bit thanks to Joss Whedon’s penchant for writing this, they never felt as if they were in any danger of fracturing or breaking apart. Joss had a similar problem on his two Avengers films. He played with the ideas, and he got pretty close to getting a throw down in Age of Ultron, but ultimately he was never able to cross the line into the full on team meltdown. The scenes in Justice League that get the closest to any kind of friction never actually feel like they are going to devolve into people walking out and leaving the team vulnerable. Again; the pieces were in place for this but they don’t end up being followed, so any kind of real weight the scenes might have had is lost among the lukewarm interplay and the tension relieving jokes. Worse than that, the film never really emphasizes what the cost might be if this unity is not achieved, so the real weight of what is at stake doesn’t land; or at least it didn’t with me.
There was a line that was lost in a rush of exposition that eventually turned a beautiful idea into a gimmick for bringing back our dead Superman. Cyborg states that the Mother Boxes, the magical macguffins for the film, are capable of not just destroying; but creating. Steppenwolf’s goal is not just to use the boxes to destroy the Earth but to re-make it. In this there is a beautiful message about unity; it can be used to destroy, but it can also create. It all depends on how you use it. I think it’s pretty safe to say I’m not reaching for this; it is spoken in the dialog. But it is given no relevance in the rest of the film.
Zack Snyder often gets accused of paying lip service to theme and narrative in his films, but I think that the end product of Justice League is a true example of what it means to not follow through on these ideas. There are pieces of the narrative that I believe was being constructed but, in the end, they end up being just words. The elements are there but the emphasis throughout the film is gone, so the words just hang hollow in the air. Even the films final credit sting featuring Jesse Eisenberg as a much more classic looking Lex Luthor, and Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke, point to the idea of the villains unifying for their own purpose; which I’m sure the fracture as villains are selfish and self serving and cannot truly unify for a cause. In the end the films villain is not defeated because the members of the team were united but because, in Superman, they just had a bigger gun; which is the opposite of Superman’s stated purpose in the story and completely devoid of any narrative resonance. I recognize that the pieces are there, but they are both in-artful and inelegant in all the ways that Man of Steel and Batman v Superman are accused of being.
Bring It Back To Me
The reason I lament the loss of this narrative arc so much is that it is so sorely needed right now. I don’t know how many of you pay attention to the news or even just look outside in your communities but it’s a mess out there, people. All of us are so fractured and divided into our little cliques and tribes and camps and political affiliations; we take any opportunity we have to divide ourselves into smaller and smaller groups and for what? Hell, just look at the raging debate over these goddamn comic book movies! Marvel vs DC; honestly who gives a good hard fuck anyway? We are so broken and separate it makes my heart literally hurt just typing the words.
People talk about how heroes are supposed to bring hope and be an inspiration but, honestly, no one actually seems to want to really put their money where there bullshit is when it comes to standing up for that. What are they supposed to inspire us to do? Get stronger? Be braver? Believe in our selves? For what purpose? I look at the X-Men films, the greater swath of the Marvel films including both Avengers movies and I don’t see anything in them that speaks to the end goal of all of this hope and inspiration. Where are the movies that are telling us to be better to one another? Where are the movies that say, “you don’t have to be the biggest or strongest because we are here with you; and together we are stronger”? That’s supposed to be the ultimate message, right; that together we can make things better? That’s where I believe the narrative of Justice League was meant to lead to. That’s what I believe was being built by the three films that were to make up this, “trilogy”:
Man of Steel – Choice
Batman v Superman – Faith
Justice League – Unity
We choose to be good and do what’s right. We have faith that what we do will matter. And when we join together in that faith; we can save the world.
I think the message we got from Justice League was far more cynical; just bring a bigger gun than the other guy.
Isn’t that how we got in this mess in the first place?
Clever endings aren’t….
Ya know what, fuck it
Laterz
Justice League is available on Blu-ray and 4K UHD at Amazon.Com
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