There was an 8 year old boy in my showing of Batman v Superman. I remember distinctly how excitedly he said "it's Superman!" when Superman first came on screen. I remember feeling sad and angry for that little guy when he left the theater looking sad and bored. It fed a lot of the anger and disappointment I already felt about that movie and Zack Snyder's drab and cynical take on the ultimate fictional altruist hero.
There was an 8 year old boy at the showing of Justice League. I heard him cheer multiple times. I cheered with him. Sometimes that's all that matters.
Justice League is not a great movie. I'm not even sure it passes some neutral, objective standard of good. There are plot holes, thin characterizations, half-assed origin stories, weak villains, and some comically long exposition dumps. The CGI makeup for Henry Cavill's mustache deserves the mockery it gets. There are times when the tonal whiplash from the parts of the movie surving from Zack Snyder's cut to Joss Whedon's cheerful re-shoots leaves you disoriented.
In the end, though, I didn't care. There's a lot of good here. Primarily in the cast, where Gal Gadot shines again as Diana, Ezra Miller delights with his quippy Barry Allen (though I wish they'd just gone ahead and made him Wally West), Jason Momoa's Aquaman is the swaggering badass from Brave and the Bold combined with Momoa's natural charm, and Ray Fisher is a revelation as Cyborg (sadly the movie's most underserved character). Ben Affleck brings less energy to it as Batman this time around, but the subdued take mostly works for a guilt-ridden version of the character. Henry Cavill finally gets to smile and have fun as the big blue boy scout, and he really sells it. I hope we get to see this version of Superman, cheesy one-liners and all, again.
