The DC Extended Universe films have been the victim of critical hyperbole which has created the idea in many people's minds that, as a franchise, it has failed to produce anything good. It started well with Man of Steel being nicely received while reintroducing a more realistic edge to the character. Then a combination of eagerness to match Marvel and executive oversight cutting out whole swathes of key details saw Batman v Superman greeted abrasively in cinemas by critics but the full cut on Blu Ray was better received sitting at 48 in all time Blu Ray sales. Director Zack Snyder was lambasted for crafting a humorless, colorless, grim and overblown feature by critics but was better viewed in audience minds. The follow up entry was Suicide Squad which, despite odd editing choices, pulled in 800 million with good audience reviews but critics once again condemned it. True enough, the music and editing was a little abrasive in the opening act with a mildly predictable closing but the performances were all good, the directing continued the gritty tone but with more levity and fun. Earlier this year, DC released the first of the modern wave Comic movies with a lady in the lead in the form of Wonder Woman. Perhaps it is today's progressive political climate which prohibited critics from failing the biggest all-female everything Comic Book blockbuster but it holds top ten percentile grades from critics and audiences. Or perhaps it's because it focused on building its own world mythos, free from the pressure of weaving in to upcoming films by being set in World War One. Sure, the final conflict was a touch underwhelming, though not enough to effect the rest of it's narrative efforts.

 

Next though, is the biggest gamble Warner Bros and DC have hedged - Justice League. Opting not to have seven or eight movies to establish individual members, DC is using the film (and its absent leading Kryptonian) as the catalyst to bring the team together. Standing alongside Ben Affleck's Batman and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman filling out the League's ranks are Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg and Jason Mamoa as Aquaman. Comic aficionados will note the absence of a green clad space cop but who knows if a Green Lantern will make an appearance in the third act or even a post credits scene. The Lanterns do get name dropped in the trailer so it is only a matter of when we meet Hal Jordan and/or Jon Stewart.

 

 

 

The trailer first released at comic con loosely outlined the plot for us; Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince are seeking out meta-humans to fight a coming evil (foreseen and forewarned in BvS) as without Superman the earth is vulnerable. The ultimate threat will be Darkseid down the line but for now we are getting his right-hand man and Uncle - Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). The trailer showed us the Mother box’s, glimpsed in the Cyborg tease in BvS, fully active. More so, we learn that one of the Boxes is stored on Themyscira meaning the Amazonians are going to involved in the battle against the hordes of Apokolips. We also glimpse Steppenwolf in Atlantis, bringing war to all the peoples of Earth simultaneously. It looks unlikely that those critical of the CG battles of BvS and Wonder Woman will be turned around by those in Justice League, but such is the nature of the genre that these battles are inevitable.

 

 

The other significant reveal in the trailer is the level of overt humour.  Though by the time of writing this piece, much of that could change. Real life tragedy struck director Zack Snyder causing him to reasonably step away at the back end of production. This could have been a disaster for the film but Warner Bros. brought in a dream substitute in the form of Avengers maestro Joss Whedon. Whilst initially it was thought he would simply be overseeing editing he has in fact contributed so much as to be given a full writing credit. Whedon maintains that the film is still as Snyder intended structurally and narratively, he just added his signature flair to some of the dialogue. It's a promising combination - the gorgeous visual stylings of Snyder with the quick, entertaining, energetic writing of Whedon.