Yesterday I wrote about the just released Justice League and, based on some of the negative reviews, worried this film might be suffering from a reviewer’s bias.  Critics seemed to so hate the movie this one is a direct sequel to, 2016’s Batman v Superman, that I couldn’t help but wonder if that might cloud their opinion of this film.

While in between we’ve had the release of Wonder Woman, which met with near universal adoration, that film wasn’t directed by Zach Snyder and, let’s be clear here, Mr. Snyder is the individual receiving most of the blame by certain critics and fans who don’t like these films.  And like it or not, Justice League is his third foray into the DC Universe.

I’ve beaten this particular dead horse for a while, but I liked BvS, though I will admit the theatrical version of the film doesn’t hold a candle to the extended “ultimate” cut that came later and was released to home theater.  Obviously Warners/DC were anxious with the film’s original run time and wanted to cut the thing down for theatrical release so that it wouldn’t cut down on showtimes but, in the end, a hacked product was released and the longer version was clearly the intended version which should have been released.

Regardless, the theatrical cut of BvS received some absolutely brutal reviews/reactions and with work already initiated on Justice League Warner Brothers got nervous.  They attempted to win back the fans/critics by offering several of them an extended visit to the Justice League set while the film was in production and had Mr. Snyder talk about how this new film would be a different animal, much lighter in tone versus the more somber BvS.

Then in May, word came that due to a family tragedy Mr. Snyder was leaving the film before it was completed.  Co-screenwriter Josh Whedon, who made a splash directing both Avengers films and was announced as the director of the upcoming Batgirl film, would finish the film up and be responsible for any re-shoots.

Mr. Snyder’s departure was due to the suicide of his daughter and, while an undeniably great tragedy, there were those who wondered -an icky thing- if he was going to be fired from the DC works eventually anyway.

Regardless, with Mr. Whedon in charge of finishing up the film, there was renewed skepticism regarding what the finished product would look like.  Would the film be a mess?  Re-shoots, rumored to be pretty extensive, were made with Mr. Whedon in charge.  Again, how coherent would this film be?

Two days before the film was officially released Warner Brothers lifted the review embargo and new controversy flared when rottentomatoes.com pushed back the release of their score for the film to promote See It/Skip It, their new program which was meant to “premiere” scores of new films.  Fans, understandably, were again skeptical: Was this Warner Brothers’ doing?  Were they nervous about the film’s score?  If so, did they force rottentomatoes to hold back on the reviews?

Ultimately, the rottentomatoes score was released and… it wasn’t terribly good.  The movie currently sits at a below average 40 percent positive among critics.  Interestingly, the fan reaction is considerably more positive.  Among fans, the film sits at 86 percent.  Over on metacritic, the movie stands at 46 percent positive among critics and 7.2 (out of 10) among the fans.

A wide disparity indeed!

As a fan of BvS, there was never a question that I’d see this film.  But, based on all that stuff I just wrote about above, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the overall product.

This Saturday morning, I had the free time and decided to give Justice League a try.  I entered the theater with the proverbial “hoping for the best” attitude but, deep down, expecting the worst.

The opening minutes of the film proved something of a slog.  While not terrible, the opening act was a very slow burn and I wondered if the rest of the film would go this way.

Things picked up considerably when we get to the introduction of Cyborg, Flash, and Aquaman.

After these characters were introduced and integrated into the film, the movie, IMHO, started to soar.  That, in a nutshell, proved to be Justice League’s greatest strength: The characters and their interaction among each other.  It was just so much… fun.

As good as it was, the film kicked into another, even higher gear with the return of the character everyone knew was coming back: Superman.  I won’t go into the hows and whys of the character’s return, but suffice to say when he does return, things get even better, and his interaction with the Flash, in particular, is (dare I say it?) super-fun.

Now, the movie does have its issues and I’m in agreement with many who have pointed them out: The villain is not the most memorable character but I personally felt he was good and scary enough.  The CGI effects, at times, weren’t as good as one would have hoped, which is strange given the fact that the movie had as big a budget as it did.  Perhaps this was due to time constraints.  Who knows.

But those two things for me were the only two things that one could point to as being true negatives.

I should also note that this is the first of the DC films to use what has become standard with Marvel films, ie the end clips.  Justice League has two of them, and both of them are delightful, IMHO.  The first one, featuring Superman and Flash, was pure mana to a comic book geek like me.

Now to address the elephant in the room: What about cut scenes?  There was something like 45 minutes to an hour reportedly cut from this film.  When I saw BvS in theaters, though I liked the film, I could sense the fact that things were missing.  With Justice League, I didn’t have that same reaction.  It felt like all the “important” stuff was there.  Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious as to what was left on the cutting room floor.  I fully anticipate a longer, “extended” cut of the film when it eventually makes it to the home video market.

In sum, while not perfect, I very much recommend Justice League.  It presented flesh and blood versions of very familiar and beloved characters in a fun and at times rousing way.

I hope we’ll see more… especially what was hinted at in that second post-credit sequence.