Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Doing the League Justice

The first wave of comic book superheroes and their screen adaptations (often as serials) was in the 1930s and 40s when economic upheaval and the spread of tyranny left ordinary individuals feeling anything but empowered. It’s hard not to think something similar is behind the surge in the genre’s popularity in the 21st century; even though the obstacles and imminent threats (most of them anyway) are less existential now than 80 years ago, they seem even less tractable. The heroes and antiheroes of our fantasies tell more about us than perhaps we really want to know. The latest big budget production in theaters is Justice League.

The majority of critics have not been kind to Justice League. The film undoubtedly has shortcomings, and I’ll address a big one before briefly explaining why I like it anyway.

In ancient Western culture the longest-running philosophical war (fought with true rancor) was between the Epicureans and the Stoics, the former identifying pleasure as the core value and the latter duty. In reality, the practical life prescriptions of both were nearly identical. The Epicureans advised moderation and doing the right thing, for in the long run those are the most pleasurable; overindulgence and bad behavior lead to pain rather than pleasure. The Stoics advised the same thing but because it’s your duty, damn it, whether it’s pleasurable or not. The Epicureans regarded Stoics as joyless and hypocritical. The Stoics regarded the Epicureans as decadent; they feared that enshrining pleasure as the highest goal posed a threat to civilization. Neither ever did quite get the hang of the other, for they had fundamentally different ways of thinking even though they arrived in the same place.

What on earth has any of this to do with a comic book superhero movie? The ancient feud links oddly to two ways to arrive at being a committed hero or villain (or bystander for that matter) whether in life or the movies. The choice can be made and pursued earnestly, taking oneself seriously (stoically) along the way. Characters in Zack Snyder’s films (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch, Man of Steel, et al.) take themselves very very seriously even when they joke, which they do only sparingly. Alternatively, one can pick a side for fundamentally aesthetic reasons (in epicurean fashion) without taking oneself seriously or losing a sense of the absurd. Characters in Joss Whedon movies (The Avengers, The Cabin in the Woods, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, et al.) are very much of this type. The two types tend to regard each other respectively as coldly uptight and dangerously frivolous – unfairly in both cases. Director Zack Snyder developed Justice League but left for personal reasons before finishing; the movie then was handed to Joss Whedon to carry over the goal line. The whole movie in consequence has a split personality. True, the Flash is very much a Joss character and Superman very much a Zack, but the others waver back and forth discordantly.

That caveat notwithstanding (and we even can allow that real personalities are not always consistent), the movie gives as much backstory and motivation as one reasonably can expect in two hours for a sizable ensemble of characters. The film even manages to make Aquaman cool, which is no small feat in itself.

Plot in a nutshell: an ancient enemy named Steppenwolf in the distant past was defeated by an alliance of Atlanteans, Amazons, and mankind (with some help from the old gods). He is back and still holds a grudge. He plans to recover three hidden artifacts that he can use to turn earth into his kind of place, which isn’t a place healthy for ordinary folks. If this sounds similar to General Zod’s plan in Man of Steel, you’re right. To stop them, Batman, who is on a guilt trip over his actions in Batman v Superman that led to the death of Superman, teams with Wonder Woman and they recruit the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. They get a notion about using one of the artifacts to try to restore life to Superman.

Have we seen all the CGI wiz-bang before? Yes. In broad outlines, is the plot original? No. But the elements are handled competently and the characters are better motivated (and better conflicted) than in the Marvel ensemble movies – though for reasons not relevant to this review I still give the edge to the Marvel movies. No one expects a comic book movie to be Shakespeare, but the dialogue has wit, the action paces well, the plot follows a comprehensible arc, and the imperfect heroes do what they have to do. Further, in an era when the news is dominated by the transgressions of dirty old men and naughty teachers, the script isn’t afraid to acknowledge adult sensuality as not being inherently offensive and perverse. (When did that become brave?) In short, while not a great film, it is good for its type. In the DC movie-verse since Nolan’s Batman trilogy, only Wonder Woman is better.

It remains to be seen if audiences take to it. Ticket sales for the opening weekend are disappointing. My own experience wasn’t encouraging. While I caught a far-from-prime-time 10 PM showing on Sunday night, it was nonetheless spooky that I was – no kidding – the only one in the theater. There were quite a few cars in the lot when I left so presumably other screens in the multiplex had viewers.

Thumbs up – with reservations, but up.



4 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'll probably wait for this one on DVD if not regular TV as I'm pretty sure it'll show up not too far from now. I used to love superheroes to some degree, but my taste in all of that has waned. I guess it's the formula, which is actually pretty close to the action hero formula. You know Rambo, 007, or Bruce Willis in the Diehard films will prevail, but you get caught up in the story. At least though with the action films, they aren't totally invulnerable--although we're lead to believe that with superheroes as well, just not as much.

    That said though on Monday nights they've been having a series with Robert Kirkman on the Secret History of Comics. So far they've had episodes on Jack Kirby, the creators of Wonder Woman, and Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, and it's been pretty interesting as it hasn't taken the regular tack of just how they created the characters, but also how they got screwed out of their characters or their limelight. http://www.amc.com/shows/robert-kirkmans-secret-history-of-comics Some of it I knew about, but there are details I didn't know. Most of it sad in ways, but that's corporate America, contracts, etc. for you.

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    1. Shuster is less known for his role in another comic; at the time he preferred it not be known, and even today it's rarely mentioned. In the 1950s after leaving Action/DC Joe Shuster drew for "Nights of Horror," an erotic bondage comic that was involved in a landmark pornography case. Unsurprisingly he didn't put his name in the comic's credits and he thereby avoided any of the heat that came down on the publishers when New York prosecuted them. In a 1957 Supreme Court decision written by Felix Frankfurter -- a founder of the ACLU strangely enough -- New York State's censorship case against the comic was upheld as Constitutional. The comic was pretty tame by today's standards, and of course since '57 the rules have changed.

      The superhero genre isn't high on my list of favorites either, but there are some things I see simply because it is a large enough part of the popular culture that I want to be able to chat about it at dinner. Sometimes it happens that I enjoy them.

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  2. I actually haven't seen any of the DCU movies. I'm not a big fan of Snyder's work and the fact that Chris Nolan was producing made me realize that we were going to get gritty and realistic superheroes. And frankly I was already done with that by the time "The Dark Knight Rises" came out.

    That said, "Wonder Woman" looked like a solid film, and we actually picked it up pretty cheap on BluRay. It is sitting in our to watch pile. This movie sounded like such a mess behind the scenes (much like "Suicide Squad was) that I wasn't sure if it was worth checking out. Sounds like most other folks felt the same way.

    But the fact they made Aquaman cool... well that deserves some kind of medal or something. :)

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    1. Whedon helped this movie even though, as mentioned, his tweaks gave it a clashing two-tone quality.

      "Wonder Woman" is pretty good, though I don't know how (not a spoiler) she decided Ludendorff was Ares. I've read Ludendorff's memoirs. He was a brilliant tactician, a flawed strategist, and an arrogant ass, but he was not Ares.

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