Female Chauvinist Movie Review: Justice League
Man-Candy: 5
Feminismishness: 2
Hurt-the-Pretty: 1
(all scores out of five)
I had every expectation not to like this film. It had gotten lackluster reviews, and I am generally in the Marvel camp, both in comics and in movies. However, Justice League pleased me greatly and I can give you three very good reasons why.
Jason Momoa, god of sexiness, would give any movie Man-Candy points on his own, but he goes the extra mile, with two lovely shirtless scenes and one scene where, while he is wearing a shirt, it is dripping wet and he is chugging a bottle of whiskey, walking slow-motion into the camera while the White Stripe's Icky Thump plays and I will watch that clip over and over and over again. It was perfect.
So Jason is three points of manliness for this review.
Ben Afleck is swole as heck, almost too swole for his age and bodyframe, and I did find myself wondering if his bat suit wasn't a bit... puffy. So No points, Ben. Besides, it'd be like oggling my brother. A hot half-brother, perhaps, but still.
Ezra Miller - EEEE EZRA MILLER OOOOOH DARLING! He was so... adorable! I mean... every scene he was in, he just kept REACTING. Like an actor? Reacting? Acting? Yeah. So fresh to see in a DC film! I just couldn't get enough of every twitch and side-eye. Oh Ezra. Tell me you're old enough to drink?
Ray Fischer - pretty face, but we never see anything BUT that thanks to his whole "I am a cyborg" shtick, and I was like... uuuuh couldn't his dad have saved a little more body than that? Half a point because I pretend I like to look at men's "eyes".
Henry Cavill is a bit odd-looking (I'm probably the only one who thinks that. Something about his face bothers me.) BUT he is also swole as heck, and has the good grace to keep his shirt off nearly the entire time, treating us to a lovely naturally bushy super-chest. So he fills out the extra half-point to take us to five.
Man-Candy: this movie had it.
Feminismishness: Oy. Definite downturn here. Gal Gadot of course shoulders most of this, but it's largely in the tired old "Gosh I kick butt even though I have boobs" way. There's even a joke where she calls the other JL'ers "children" which is a negative for me because it reinforces the stereotype that women have to be the adults in the room and guys are allowed to have fun. BOO.
So half a point just for having Gal Gadot, and half a point for muscular amazons shoulder-pressing a mountain in one clip.
But the real feminismishness hero is Aquaman's unnamed, er, sister? Half-sister? Queen? Fuck I don't know who she is but she KICKED ASS. For one scene. Hey, Justice League, why not have her??
(I am looking forward to the Aquaman movie SOOOO HARD.)
Hurt the Pretty:
Ugh. None of the truly pretty boys seemed to take much wrenching emotional damage. A tiny bit with Cyborg. Lovely moments with Flash and his dad, but I don't know if they quite count... I'm giving them one point and advising they do better next time.
The movie did run long and could have benefited from cutting as much as possible from all the Batman and Superman bits, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. It's negative reputation is not earned but probably more a reflection of how over-the-top madcap AWESOME Thor: Ragnarok was, and it opened first. So... sorry, League. Next time get a drunken Valkyrie on the team and we'll talk.