Oh DC, I know that watching the Marvel Universe expand and make all that money must have been like watching your ex go for someone clearly not as awesome as you. “I’m fucking BATMAN,” you screamed into the abyss, “We have SUPERMAN!”

Deep in your mother’s basement that you call your Batcave, fingers coated in cheeto dust, watching Captain America Civil War for the thirtieth time, you knew you could do this better. This inner conflict, group-takes-sides bullshit was always better with the Justice League. “This is bullshit,” you cried. “WE invented self-policing of the supers. THE ENTIRE JUSTICE LEAGUE TURNED THEMSELVES IN TO CONGRESS!!”

And so you decided you would reboot for the 230948307424923 time (although mercifully only subjected us to like a cumulative 10 minutes of angsty Batman origin story flashbacks – thanks for that, Edible Arrangement on the way) and give us a Superman movie, and then a Batman vs. Superman movie, and then Wonder Woman, leading up to the introduction of the Justice League that would give you all the branched out individual movies and side buddy stories that the Avengers have enjoyed on their own for far too long.

“Thor Ragnarok? Wait ’til they get a load of Flash/Cyborg!” You tented your fingers like a real world Mr. Burns, imagining the fan bois lining up for the awkward friend making that they would totally relate to.

So I’ll give it to you, DC, that you thought to make Aquaman hott because Aquaman is LAAAAAAAAAAAME and Momoa totally turned that around for me in this movie, and the Flash as the awkward kid was on brand and good too. But we need to talk about just a couple of things because this movie was better than I expected, but less than I deserved. So sit down, because I have some truth nuggets for your earholes that you need to hear. From a friend.

1. Stop making Diana be this wide-eyed, rolls her eyes, reactionary “girl.” She’s Wonder Woman for god’s sake MAKE HER TAKE CHARGE AND LEAD.
2. Having Superman die in the second movie was dumb, and the short resolution to his death made it all feel disingenuous and worthless. I know to true fans the backstory to all of it makes sense, but to us casual fans it felt…I don’t know, pointless.
3. Listen carefully to this one. It’s very important. BATMAN. IS. NOT. THE. COMIC. RELIEF. EVER. He is not quippy. He does not provide the punchline. He isn’t flustered. HE’S BATMAN. This movie was absolutely SHAMEFUL when it came to that. I was embarrassed for DC and Batman.
4. That villain was kind of cool, but he was too easily dispatched. Why did it all rely on Superman? The Justice League is a team, but they were getting harcore slapped around until Superman flew in and basically just punched him once and ended it. Also there was not really any suspense. 3 cubes that shouldn’t come together, and if they do they have to be separated? I’m shaking in my boots. No emotion, too predictable, and a moderate boss made for a “meh” plotline.

Despite these aspects, the movie was better than I expected. There were quite a few laugh out loud moments, and the graphics and visuals were impressive. The Flash was funny, Cyborg was intriguing, and Momoa as Aquaman was a good decision. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman were not quite themselves, but hopefully by the next movie they’ll be more united.

Now I am just waiting for a decent Green Lantern movie. A girl can dream, can’t she?

I was not looking forward to this movie. DC and I have been in a “fool me twice shame on me” kind of situation and I was hesitant to touch the hot stove again. You can’t give me Green Lantern like that and not expect me to have trust issues. But then the reviews began to roll in and I let myself get excited. This was DC’s saving grace, supposedly, and so I thought, “okay, I will give it a chance.” If this sucked, I was NOT going to see the Justice League movies, I don’t care how amazing Jason Momoa looks as Aquaman.

The movie didn’t blow my socks off but it was definitely an improvement on the other DC stories (I’m looking at you, Green Lantern). Diana’s history on Themyscira is a cute story, and the interaction between Antiope and Hippolyta concerning her future is so nice. Destiny plays a huge role in this story, and discovering Diana’s is one that takes the entire movie to reveal, with a cute little twist you may or may not see coming. I only did because as I’ve written about before, my brain seems to seek out where people or things might be trying to trick it with a vengeance.

There are spoilers after this so stop here if you don’t want them.

I have a few squabbles about the movie. First, Diana is SUUUUUper wide-eyed about the real world, like she’s never worn a dress before? Granted she is very sheltered and has never left the island, so I guess I have to give this issue a pass, but I wish she had been more in control in the movie instead of being portrayed as a bumbling, ignorant, naive child.

Ares. We need to have a short talk about the god of war. I get that we needed a British actor and Benedict Cumberbatch is taken by Marvel but did we really need to pick the super lovable werewolf from Harry Potter? The story was good, but I was distracted because I was looking at Lupin and not a god. David Thewlis is not really god of war material. So, casting has some ‘splainin’ to do on that one.

There was so much I liked though. The story was very solid. The doctor that made all the poisons was 100% terrifying. And Chris Pine can just keep on keeping on playing the plucky, arrogant, determined hero in as many movies as possible.

Someone told me once that when you shop for an engagement ring, the salesmen are trained to sell you using the Goldilocks technique. They will show you something AMAZINGLY EXPENSIVE then something way under your price range, then something a teeeeensy bit above your price range and guess which one you’ll accept? This was a good movie, but with Marvel showing out and DC giving us scraps, this is a movie that we are excited about for many reasons, one of which is probably that it wasn’t horrible. Luckily it was also good on its own. I look forward to seeing more from Gal Godot and the Justice League.