87. Trailer Review : Justice League

I saw the trailer of "Justice League" yesterday and the wonder that why DC comics movies don't work better than Marvel became perfectly clear to me.

"DC comics movies are too dark and there is no fun."

I love Marvel comics characters and I am not in any way biased. I haven't read any comics from either brand. Just like any other Indian middle class kid, I grew on overdoses of Raj comics, Manoj comics and Diamond comics which had characters like Nagraj, Dhruv, Doga, Hawaldar Bahadur, Bankelal, Chacha Chaudhary, Pinki, Billu and many more, every one of them inspired and copied from foreign comic characters but were nonetheless interesting. I never had access to superman comics though I watched superman on TV every Sunday and I loved it. That is my memory of Superman, Batman and Spiderman. When the first movie of Ironman came I had no idea who he was, neither did I know anything about Deadpool. I have lived in a completely different world. Now I follow all these movies like a crazy fan that we all have become and mostly I enjoy them all.

Superhero is meant to entertain us. They do things that we only dream of. They have powers that we wished we had, that too without making any effort, by chance or by accident which fascinates us more because who wouldn't like it.

The problem started with a man called Christopher Nolan. He created a near perfect Batman series and included in it the structural elements of movie making like character development, hero's journey along with literary hints and not t mention, philosophical bents. He ruined Superheroes for us. I love his Batman series but in his movies, Batman could have been anyone. The film would have worked on its own with any other character who could play a vigilante. In Nolan's movie, Batman was not a superhero, he was a common guy like you and me who decided to change his life and protect his city by the use of technology and a black Suit inspired by Bats. Batman isn't an enigma anymore as now we now everything about him. People know him in and out. Now I know things about batman that I could have lived without. There is too information which sadly takes away my fascination from that character. While Nolan succeeded in his task of creating a realistic superhero character, other directors do not have the similar capabilities like him. He is a literature major and his brother is literature major, they can do it. They have studied it. But when other directors try the same thing, they don't understand the concept of elevating the characters from their ditch of depression, showing the character developments to justify their journey, such that they often fail. Skyfall has ruined James bond for me forever. Who wants to know about James bond's history or where he came from. James bond is all about great watches, amazing gadgets, meeting beautiful ladies, defeating villains with great tricks and last minute plans, getting up from the blow but first adjusting the suit instead of fighting the goon in front of him.

Justice league has great graphics but what it lacks is great punchlines. Justice league has great characters but it misses the camaraderie between characters. The whole atmosphere is too dark like it exists on some other planet. There is an X-factor that is missing and in my opinion that X-factor has to be entertainment. The story has to be entertaining. The characters have to be interesting, they need to have great dialogues. The trailer does not introduce the character well and the end of the trailer needs to have a strong last punch that it forces you the replay the whole trailer just to see the last punch again.

I know the movie might be good and I really hope so but they should learn something from Marvel comics who have even made their average characters work like anything. My only advice is to make it interesting instead of dark and intense and don't do Nolan because only Nolan can pull Nolan kind of Cinema, no one else can.