After the commercial and critical success of Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. hopes to have yet another great hit with Justice League. The superhero movie will release in November, and despite the movie’s premiere being weeks away, the review embargo is in place. The embargo may bode ill for this movie, but if the Wall Street Journal is to be trusted, then Justice League’s screening score was very close to Wonder Woman.
A “Crowd Pleaser”
Although the movie was dubbed a “crowd pleaser,” there was an aspect Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz had a problem with and that was the villain, Steppenwolf. In a tweet that is no deleted, Fritz wrote:
“I don’t do reviews but I will say this after seeing “Justice League”: Ezra Miller’s Flash really is a standout. Steppenwolf is not.”
While the Flash’s role is very positively received and that is a good thing for DC, the negative reaction to Steppenwolf is what may hurt DC regarding reviews. Although at first, the audiences took to CGI villains in superhero movies, critics have disliked computer-generated characters, and now, fans complain about the superhero genre’s heavy use of CGI.
For some time, Marvel and DC have struggled to make villains believable, and a weak villain does not mean that the movie will fail at the box office. Superhero movies have major box office pull despite having a poor antagonist. Even Wonder Woman’s villain, Ares, was a huge let down in the movie in the CGI-suffused final act but the movie broke many records. If many people find Steppenwolf as a poor adversary, then DC may be unable to keep up the momentum of the newfound critical success.
Why Justice League Needs To Do Well
It isn’t just the fate of Flashpoint that rests on the success of Justice League: the film is expected to introduce us to various members of the team who will all, in due time, have their solo movies. If the response to the film and its characters isn’t positive, the development of upcoming solo features will be hampered, slowing down the development of the DCEU itself, and thus many movies that are still in pre-production may be paused, or pulled off the slate entirely. Critics have also argued that Wonder Woman’s shot at the Oscars next year also hinges on how well Justice League is received, which goes to show why this team-up movie needs to be a hit for Warner Bros.
Of course, it’s hard to tell just what the critics thought of the film before the embargo is lifted. Till then, we can hope that Justice League turns out to be just as amazing as it has looked so far in the trailers.
