Why I Refuse to Watch Justice League

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Why I Refuse to Watch Justice League

Illustration: Sushant Ahire

Iremember the day like it was yesterday. It was a July morning; my 15-year-old sister and I woke up early to catch a show of Man of Steel. The film was written by David S. Goyer, coming off writing credits on the Dark Knight Trilogy, and the trailers were jacked with Russell Crowe’s undefeated voice, a big, good-looking British bro Henry Cavill, and an Amy Adams who has never done a bad movie. Typically, there was a problem with the film’s print in Delhi, so we ended up going to six different theatres, and eventually walked out of one around 2 pm.

The movie was actually comparable to a pile of horseshit. Zack Snyder broke my little sister’s faith in fucking Superman – the nicest alien they’ve ever made a movie about – the asshole.Henry Cavill was more push-ups than human, and the movie was darker than the Karni Sena’s view on Bollywood. What’s worse, it acted as a launch pad for the unnecessary havoc Snyder would wreak onto our favorite superheroes growing up.

Ever since the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy, DC and Snyder have been on this trip to recreate Christopher Nolan’s gritty aesthetic, without Christopher Nolan. All villains were fated to be puny post Heath Ledger’s electrifying performance as The Joker. Marvel, the smarter of the two studios, went with casting dumb aliens for villains, and instead creating conflict between its heroes. It’s a clever move and one of the reasons they keep cashing cheques on every box office in the world.

Meanwhile, Snyder comes up with this shit: Why don’t I replace Christian Bale with Ben Affleck and make a Batman vs Superman. Man what the fuck? Even my sister refused to watch it with me. BatFleck was a disaster, his Batvoice somehow even stupider than Bale. Batfleck also had weird fascist tendencies, like the kind of dude you’ll find lurking in an alt-right sub-Reddit.

Flash is basically a wannabe Spider-Man, and the kind of guy at the club drinking a Breezer in a see-through vest

Now Snyder and DC want to take my money for Justice League, they might as well rob me at gunpoint. The trailer initially got me hyped for a few reasons, but none stood the test of time. Jason Mamoa aka Khal Drogo aka Our Future Overlord looks like a dude who has walked out of a jewellery store in Karol Bagh. Cyborg seems like he was CGI’d with the same technology that was used to make Tetris in the ’80s. Flash is basically a wannabe Spider-Man. Plus he seems needy. He’s the guy at the club drinking a Breezer in a see-through vest. No one wants to hang with that.

DC will have to accept, especially after Ragnarok(with Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther looking like flames), that Justice League is going to be an irrelevant superflick. Gadot may be nice, but she isn’t charismatic enough. I challenge everyone to watch Wonder Woman again and pick out scenes where she was fun or charming without relying on Chris Pine or Robin Wright or Lucy Davis as the secretary. As for her role in Justice League, without Patty Jenkins directing her, there is little hope.

After watching mostly all previous superflicks on the weekend of their release, I have decided I’m not going to watch Snyder’s latest pile of garbage. Dude, my eyes still hurt processing the 3D of Batman v Superman. I watched the director’s cut a few months ago thinking I might have misunderstood the film. Well, those are three hours of my life I’m never getting back. Oh and I haven’t even mentioned Suicide Squad, which might’ve ended the great Will Smith’s career faster than leaving Scientology did.

Snyder has reduced DC fans to the last phase of the jilted lover, where we’re just meandering around the universe with a bottle of gin in our hands, looking for some shelter from the rain. The number of fucks I have left to give now is equal to the number of decent movies DC has made in the last five years. I’d rather stay home and watch Bigg Boss. You should too. At least it ends in an hour.

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