Review of Justice League movie

Rating: PG-13, Time: 2hr, Director: Zack Snyder, Cast on IMDb

So why is the Rotten Tomatoes score wrong?

Rotten Tomatoes rated this 41%, which means the movie should outright suck.  I know I didn't see it the first week, but then I saw the fans 15,000+ rated it 4.5 of 5.0 stars, so a complete disconnect.  I think the film critics of Rotten Tomatoes look at it compared to a normal story line movie, compared to other movies in the Marvel universe, etc.  While the fans just came as fans of the comic books or even the cartoon series of the Super Friends (Justice League based) of the 1970-80s.  If you come looking for a serious, the story all makes sense, then yes you will be disappointed, but if you come with fresh eyes and from the comic book world, its spot on.  The characters ARE supposed to be only heros and heroines with a passion for justice.  It stands for the comic world we grew up on.

Did the critics get anything right?

I think the part they nail on the head is that Warner Brothers is shooting themselves in the foot by revealing most of the Justice League characters in the movie vs. the Marvel strategy of carefully building 1-2 movies per character and then combining them.  It is a fool hardy strategy since now we may not get say a Flash movie or Aquaman single movie.  I think what happened behind the scenes is that Warner felt like they were losing the race to Marvel Studios and wanted to match to Avengers right away.  Personally, they should just copy the Marvel strategy of rolling movies out slowly and max the use of the characters.

The only thing they get right perhaps was people not liking Ben Affleck as Batman with all this chunkiness to the weapons, ears on the cap and bat logo.  I know they are leaning into the actor strengths, but I still feel Vale was the best Batman.  Of course, Christian Vale was done with Batman so they needed one.  If he had never played, I would say Affleck is a good Batman.  Its just that this actor doesn't look graceful, so you kind of doubt he could do the stunts as a real-life Batman, but Batman is totally impossible in any case, so does it really matter?

Why do you think they lead with Wonder Woman on the front for ads?
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Well, the last movie in the series was Wonder Woman, which totally kicks ass against a foe in WWI and loses her near boyfriend Steve.  That movie blew away expectations, but I think people were hungry for a really good Wonder Woman movie, since so many female heroine films have fallen flat in the past.  The only thing I kind of dislike is that in this film universe, Wonder Woman has laid back in the scenes from WWI to 2017, really? How lame of a story connection is that?  I mean in the comic books she starts in WWII fighting along the allies.  She really just sat out WWII? Of course, they never would have made 20 Wonder Woman movies, so the transition makes sense kind of in the comic book/film world.

What did you think of Flash?

I liked the character of a young fast guy that is grappling with his ability to move fast and join a superhero team Justice League.  I think this is where critics think of the Marvel copy with the young Spiderman/Old Ironman and young Flash/Old Batman.  This is one way to see it.  In the comic book world there were up to 4 characters playing the Flash; I'm not sure why they changed characters over time, since for example Batman and Wonder Woman always had the same origin story.  But if it's messy in the comic book world, it leaves it open for the film as well.  I like his transition from lost boy with a father in prison to Flash.

What did you think of Superman?

There's a really nice plot twist that seems implausible, but makes sense in the comic book world.  His character is essential to the team of the Justice League as Batman admits, he is more human, which is kind of weird as Batman is the only non-mutant, non-god, non-alien real human they have.  I think that's one reason fans hated the Batman vs. Superman movie.  I personally thought it was a bad movie in the essence of Superman could easily kill Batman in 2 seconds in reality by tearing off his head or flying him into Space, etc. Batman really needs to be beyond clever to make up for all these non-super human powers.  Its really up to the director though to make that work with a good story on Batman.

Do you see people tiring of superhero movies?

No, not really.  I mean all of us read these comic book stories as kids and would have loved to see these movies back in the 70s or even earlier.  A good hero movie never gets old.

Did your art encompass any comic characters from DC?

Ride the dragon on the plains of slaves - 24x48

Well, not exactly.  One painting I did encompasses the world of the Matrix.  I put in the moment that Morpheus presents the choice of the red or blue pill to continue down the rabbit hole.  My story parallels the dual universes the movie lives in with the real life duality of the US-China relationship.  On one hand you have the biggest trading partners in the world and underneath the surface you have a warm cyber war fought over patents being stolen, copied and profited on.

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