Zack Snyder's Justice League - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Connie Nielsen, Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe, JK Simmons, Diane Lane, Joe Morton, Ciaran Hinds, Kiersey Clemons, Ryan Zheng, Amber Heard, Jesse Eisenberg, Jared Leto, and Billy Crudup.

Written by Chris Terrio.

Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★★

If it helps, don't think of it as a 4-hour movie. Think of it as a 4-episode limited series.

I thought Man of Steel was a thumbs-sideways and that Batman v. Superman was a let-down, though they both had their qualities. Justice League was a mess and about on par with BvS for me. I thought at the time that Joss Whedon did what he could with the troubled production, but stories have spread since what Whedon's really like to work with, and I felt bad about the personal family tragedy that led Snyder to walk away.

Now he's been granted the ability to tell the story the way he wanted to. Rather than making Justice League I & II, we get a full 4-hour experience. It's not perfect and it still pales in comparison to a similarly-plotted Avengers Infinity War & Endgame, but it's a vast improvement, and I really liked how the movie was able to take its time with these characters. I'd also be curious to go back and watch the 2017 movie again to see how different it was.

Ben Affleck is great as Bruce Wayne, and I was grateful to watch him stretch his legs in the role one last time. He's picking up the pieces after the death of Superman, and he knows he needs more people with special abilities to unite in order to fight what's coming. He has Wonder Woman on his side but he needs more. He tries to recruit Aquaman, Cyborg, Flash, some more successfully than others.

Of all the characters, it's clearest Whedon gave Cyborg the shortest end of the stick. We get full backstory here and a better idea of who the character is, what he can do, etc. Steppenwolf is also a more fully-realized villain here. His design's more impressive, his fighting ability makes more sense, and he has motive beyond Shiny Alien Wants to Conquer Earth. He has wronged his master Darkseid in the past and figures he can get back in his good graces by enslaving Earth for him. We only caught a glimpse of Darkseid in the original but he sure shows up here.

Other actors like Willem Dafoe and Kiersey Clemons, who'd been cut from the original, are able to deliver and expand their parts here, and even ones who weren't in it (like Jared Leto's Joker) pop by.

There are still some Snyderisms I'm not keen on. The sky is always this burnt sienna sheen from the sun in a perpetual state of setting behind some clouds. The slo-mo speed-up slo-mo approach to action scenes can make them seem repetitive. But I for one am happy that after everything he and his family's been through, Zack Snyder was able to return to his baby and fulfill his vision.

The Best & Worst Movies of 2017

I put my top 15 and bottom 5 at the end.

Caveat #1 - Your Name is technically a 2016 title, so I've put it in my top five from last year. It'd be in my top five this year if it counted.

Caveat #2 - My top and bottom lists will change as I see more 2017 titles. Still haven't seen The Florida Project and many other movies getting year-end praise. Skipped a lot of bad movies I knew I wouldn't like.

Caveat #3 - Netflix would like to treat their movies as if they were theatrically released, but to me if they don't get that theatrical run, they're TV movies. And yet, I'm seeing some Netflix movies get on top ten lists and even nominations.

The 2017 Netflix movies I've seen:

MUDBOUND (★★★½) - Very well done; the racial injustice of 1940's Mississippi is infuriating. Great performances from all involved, but Mary J. Blige is a standout because it's so subdued. We don't expect her in this type of role.

I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE (★★★) - This dark comedy stars Melanie Lynsky and Elijah Wood are an odd couple who've had it with the unkindness of society.

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED) (★★★) - Adam Sandler in one of those rare movies where he tries, and he's great as the older neglected son of an eccentric, maddening sculptor (Dustin Hoffman) whose art might not be near as important as he thinks it is. Ben Stiller and Constance Zimmer are also really good.

THE BABYSITTER (★★★) - Fun horror comedy about a boy who discovers his babysitter is actually the head of a murderous satanic cult.

OKJA (★★★) - Weird but in a good way. Plus Tilda Swinton!

WHEELMAN (★★★) - Frank Grillo is my favorite blue-collar action hero right now, and it's a showcase for him since most of the movie takes place with him driving around.

GERALD'S GAME (★★★) - One of Stephen King's least filmable books winds up being a pretty decent thriller thanks to clever direction and a compelling central performance from Carla Gugino.

BRIGHT (★★) - It's like Suicide Squad but more serious. It was a miss for me.

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So of the 78 movies I saw in 2017, here are the middle 58.

Alphabetically...

Thumbs up (30)

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (★★★) - Michelle Williams gives a performance we've never seen from her before as the ex-daughter-in-law of the richest man on Earth who refuses to pay the ransom when her son is kidnapped. Christopher Plummer came in at the elventh hour to shoot all of his scenes in the wake of the Kevin Spacey scandal, and he nails it. His J. Paul Getty is wily, driven, selfish, happy, cruel and has that general billionaire craziness.

AMERICAN MADE (★★★) - Tom Cruise charms it up as Barry Seal, a pilot who helped smuggle guns and drugs for Pablo Escobar under CIA orders, or at least that's what he thought was happening.

ATOMIC BLONDE (★★★) - The plot may be trashy John Le Carre, but this movie more than makes up for it with style, including a ten-minute fight scene on a staircase that all take splace in one take. Charlize Theron's great; I wouldn't mind a sequel.

BEAUTY & THE BEAST (★★★) - This live-action remake has its charms, but it's also a little too faithful to the original, with several scenes that feel like they're going for shot-by-shot remakes.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (★★★) - Beautiful cinematography, slowly paced, probably wouldn't have lost anything being fifteen minutes shorter, but good work from Ryan Gosling and stand-out work from some actresses who haven't had opportunities to shine like this before (Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks).

THE BOSS BABY (★★★) - Surprisingly complex plot for a kids film that relies on kindergarten-level potty humor. Alec Baldwin nails it as his Glengarry Glen Ross character in baby form.

BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 (★★★) - Vince Vaughn gives his best performance in years as a drug trafficker who must do some time after a deal goes bad. The longer it goes, the darker it gets; the blackmail subplot is so evil, I'm upset anyone even thought of it.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (★★★) - There are numerous pleasant bike rides in this film, but its scenic detours only enhance the slow romance that builds between Armie Hammer and the Oscar-nominated Timothee Chalamet.

DARKEST HOUR (★★★½) - A perfect companion piece for Dunkirk, this shows Winston Churchill's first month in office as prime minister, after confidence in Neville Chamberlain has collapsed and Germany is marching through France. Gary Oldman, with help of makeup, loses himself in the role of Churchill.

DETROIT (★★★) - Harrowing horror movie that's difficult to watch. Based on the true events of the Detroit Riots of 1967, it focusses on a group of innocent bystanders who are tortured and taunted by some racist cops who just feel like they need to find someone guilty after they came in with guns blazing. Will Poulter is frightening, and the movie is in-your-face about police brutality.

THE DINNER (★★★) - Four adults need to figure out how to handle the fallout after their two boys wind up committing a shocking crime together. Good work from Richard Gere.

GOOD TIME (★★★) - If ever anyone doubted that Robert Pattinson could act, and one could hardly be blamed after the Twilight movies, this movie should put that notion to rest. It's a feel-bad movie about a selfish thief trying to survive the night with his brother without getting caught.

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (★★★) - Not often we get original musicals on screen. This film takes gigantic liberties with the life of P.T. Barnum, but it's a decent entertainment. It wouldn't take much to convert it to a stage musical.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 (★★★) - Fine, but not as good as the first.

HAPPY DEATH DAY (★★★) - Groundhog Day, but where the heroine gets killed at the end of every day. She has to figure out who's killing her or she has to keep living it. It's well done for what it is. I liked that my first and second guesses as to whodunit were wrong.

HOSTILES (★★★) - This Western can sometimes be too brutal, and the ending left me a bit hollow, but Christian Bale commands the screen as a tightly-wound Union soldier doing his best to suppress the murderous rage he feels against the Natives when he is ordered to escort a dying chief back to his tribe.

IT (★★★) - Engaging period horror flick based on half of Stephen King's bestseller. Bill Skarsgard is great as Pennywise, and most of the kids are great too. I came away a little disappointed that it wasn't scarier.

JOHN WICK 2 (★★★) - He's back! Not quite as good as the first, but still fun.

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (★★★½) - Plenty of laughs to be had as Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan play four teenagers who are sucked into a video game and have to function with their avatars' powers, allowing all to play against type. Johnson's the geek, Hart's the jock, Gillan's the loner, and Black is the stuck-up babe most traumatized by her new body.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (★★★) - Good ol' fashioned monster movie mayhem.

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (★★★) - Tons of laughs. Fades from memory quickly.

LIFE (★★★) - Sure, it's a ripoff of Alien, but it's okay horror in its own right. The larger "Calvin" grows, the scarier it becomes.

MOLLY'S GAME (★★★½) - Turns out that Aaron Sorkin is very good at directing his own words. This look at Molly Bloom's high-stakes poker game will make you... really not like Tobey Maguire.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (★★★) - Bring on the Agathaverse! Kenneth Branagh amuses as Hercule Poirot, and plenty of good actors make the most of their screen-time, from Johnny Depp to Judi Dench to Michelle Pfeiffer to Willem Dafoe to...

PHANTOM THREAD (★★★) - Daniel Day-Lewis gives another genius lived-in performance, this time as a meticulous fashion designer whose exacting ways alienate anyone who tries to get close to him.

THE POST (★★★½) - Compelling story about how the Washington Post found itself up against the wall when the White House threatened prison if owner Katherine Graham allowed the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, classified documents that showed that the US government had been lying about the situation in Vietnam for decades. This is the type of movie that was greenlit immediately after Trump won the 2016 election, and you can see the fingerprints over its efforts to draw a parallel between Nixon and Trump, but it also accidentally makes a point that Republicans had been complaining about for fifty years. When Democrats JFK and LBJ were in office, the liberal-leaning media was buddy-buddy, covering up all sorts of sins. But once the unlikable Nixon got in, they decided no more, and the contrast between how Reagan and the Bushes were covered compared to Clinton and Obama lingers. Settin that aside, it's the kind of movie that'll make aspiring journalists everywhere go "Yes! This is why I want to do this."

THE SHAPE OF WATER (★★★) - A twisted love story only someone like Guillermo Del Toro could tell.

SHOT CALLER (★★★) - Game of Thrones's Nikolaj Coster-Waldau takes on a very different role as a fairly decent fellow who goes to prison for a DUI that resulted in someone's death, but he's forced to commit heinous crimes in that prison in order to stay alive. I'm glad they used a non-linear approach to tell the story.

SPLIT (★★★) - M. Night Shyamalan made two good movies in a row, which hasn't happened for fifteen years.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (★★★) - Well made, but it can't be my favorite when it's designed to get you to root for the extinction of the human race.

Thumbs Sideways (18)

ALIEN: COVENANT (★★½) - This is one where I liked it at the time, but it's gone down in my estimation since. Interesting Hammer horror take, but the xenomorphs are given a back seat to Michael Fassbender's David, and we're not here to see David: Covenant. Ridley Scott had another Alien prequel movie planned to take place between this and the events of the original Alien, but I think it's okay to just let this franchise go for a while. I'd rather see a sequel in a few years that ignores Alien 3, 4, and the two Predator tie-ins.

ANNABELLE: CREATION (★★½) - Bad dialogue but at least this is a horror director who knows what he's doing.

A CURE FOR WELLNESS (★★½) - Sure it's too long but I still enjoyed walking down this weird detour-filled trip in a wellness facility that hides some dark secrets. A guilty pleasure for me.

THE BEGUILED (★★½) - Sofia Coppola seems to have a specialty for delicate female characters. I loved the scenery, but the story never took off.

THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (★★½) - Fun idea that unfortunately gets too predictable once most of the cast has been killed off. In fact, if you know the number of survivors, you can probably guess correctly which ones they'll be in the first few minutes.

FREE FIRE (★★½) - Plenty of actors are having fun, and I enjoyed the mix of all of them together, but there's really not much that can happen once the gunfire starts.

A GHOST STORY (★★½) - I didn't mind it, but you really have to be in the mood for it and know what you're getting into in order to not be bored watching Casey Affleck spend most of the movie under a sheet, just watching life pass everyone else by while he is dead.

THE GREAT WALL  (★★½) - I liked this more than it deserved. Matt Damon is not the white savior the previews made him out to be, and I loved the drums, but the "true story" of why the wall was built in the first place doesn't make sense. The battles felt too much like Starship Troopers.

IT COMES AT NIGHT (★★½) - Nothing comes at night, and I think the movie would have been stronger if something had, at the end. This is about paranoia.

JIGSAW (★★½) - Blends together with most of the sequels. Okay enough twist ending.

KILLING GUNTHER (★★½) - Mockumentary has its moments. SNL's Taran Killam writes, directs, and stars in this film about a hitman who assembles a team to help him kill Gunther (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the best assassin in the world.

LADY BIRD (★★½) - Annoying characters. I intellectually recognize it was well made, well acted, and I was never bored, but I had a rotten feeling when the end credits rolled. I know I'm in the minority on this one.

THE LITTLE HOURS (★★½) - Its stupid humor sometimes works. Alison Brie (Glow) and Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation) are a couple of foul-mouthed 14th century nuns who must fight that forbidden feeling when the deaf-mute handyman (Dave Franco) shows up at their monastery.

THE LOST CITY OF Z (★★½) - This one never really took off for me. The cinematography was disappointing and it got a bit repetitive. Good work from Robert Pattinson though.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (★★½) - One of the better Pirates sequels, despite zero character growth from Captain Jack Sparrow.

ROMAN J. ISRAEL ESQ. (★★½) - Great Denzel performance; slow, dull movie.

VALERIAN & THE CITY OF 1000 PLANETS (★★½) - Terrific visuals wasted around a miscast Dane DeHaan and a disjointed, lurching story.

Thumbs Down (8)

BRIMSTONE (★★) - Terrific performances squandered in this 2-1/2 hour Western epic about a young tongue-less woman (Dakota Fanning) who is trying to avoid the wrath of the recently-arrived preacher (Guy Pearce). The movie is filled with cruelty, rape, torture, slow deaths, and the preacher is so ridiculously one-dimensionally evil, it wouldn't have surprised me if the movie revealed at the end he was literally Lucifer in human form.

THE BYE BYE MAN (★½) - This movie borrows heavily from the Slender Man mythos, and it took advantage of getting into theaters first. It also takes some ideas from Oculus. Weak cast, predictable death order, not one scary moment to be had.

THE COMEDIAN (★½) - Robert DeNiro attracts a great cast to this passion project that winds up getting listless direction from Taylor Hackford (why must every scene transition with sad percussions?), and one central problem - DeNiro is not credible as a once-successful stand-up comedian.

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (★★) - Worst one in a while, where it made me wish they could just dump some of the deadweight characters. Paul Walker's missed, but Ludacris wouldn't be.

GHOST IN THE SHELL (★★) - Points for style, but ultimately boring remake.

JUSTICE LEAGUE (★★) - It had its moments, but DC just needs to get un-Snyderized to save itself. Steppenwolf is a terrible villain. I would be interested in the Justice League 2 teased in the post-credits stinger if a new creative team took over these films.

KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (★★) - Disappointing sequel. Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges are hardly in it, and Eggsy's love interest from the first movie dies in the first ten minutes. Why?

THE SNOWMAN (★★) - The weirdest Val Kilmer appearance ever. Key plot points missing because they didn't bother filming the entire script. An "act of God" thwarting the villain at the end. Chloe Sevigny as twins. What is going on here? Good cast keeps most of it watchable, but the movie itself is a big misfire.

WISH UPON (★½) - Unscary. Bad acting.

XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE (★½) - This franchise exists to make Fast & Furious look realistic.


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===BOTTOM FIVE===
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5. THE BAD BATCH - Sixty minutes of an intriguing idea stretched out to a hundred and twenty, with thirty minutes of the good idea cut out. This dystopian drama has a lot of people walking around silently in the desert. Buried in this is a good extended-cameo performance from Jim Carrey as a hermit who won't speak.

4. THE CIRCLE - This "thriller" about invasive technology feels like it's years out of date, and it can't get over its glaring central flaw: why would a woman allegedly as smart as Mae (Emma Watson) be so gullible and stupid? How can so many supposedly-bright employees not see the evil implications of the Circle? It then ends with a jaw-droppingly bad anticlimax.

3. THE MUMMY - I'm a Tom Cruise fan, but this movie made the mistake of being a "Tom Cruise movie" instead of a story about the mummy. If you thought DC was awkward in the expanding of its universe, Batman v. Superman has nothing on this. Why have Dr. Jekyll show up halfway through it, other than cynical brand expansion?

2. UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS - Put a stake through the heart of this vampire franchise already.

1. RINGS - This spin-off of The Ring squanders its potential by not caring about what the rules are with Samara, and it's never scary. It goes through the motions of what scary movies do without seeming to know why.

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===TOP FIFTEEN===
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15. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING - Michael Keaton's Vulture was one of my favorite MCU villains yet. He was blue-collar with an understandable motive. The tension in the car when he realizes who Peter Parker really is... (*chef's kiss*)

14. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI - Frances McDormand is a shoo-in for an Oscar nod, and she might even be the front-runner. It's a uniformly good cast from Woody Harrelson to Sam Rockwell. My one complaint would be that there are two violent felonies committed during the movie where they just don't bother to charge the guilty parties.

13. LOGAN LUCKY - Steven Soderbergh gives an Ocean's 11 type heist movie but sets it in West Virginia. Daniel Craig looks like he's having the time of his life as a redneck robber.

12. THOR: RAGNAROK - Few Marvel movies have allowed themselves to be so gleeful. Funniest one since the first Guardians movie.

11. I, TONYA - Margot Robbie is terrific as Tonya Harding, in this wild dark comedy about the infampous figure skater. It's mostly true, and it sure increased my sympathy for Tonya. Despite her talent, she never had a chance at a normal life.

10. THE LAST JEDI - I don't get why this movie has been so divisive among Star Wars fans. It just makes me glad there was no internet in 1980. "Ben Kenobi's a ghost now? That's dumb!" I liked how writer/director Rian Johnson redeemed the prequels, honored the original trilogy, and wasn't afraid to take risks and tear a lot of old things down to make way for the new. The first seven movies were about Good vs. Evil, but this one lets shades of grey in. Biggest tragedy is that Leia was set up to have an awesome story in Ep. IX, but now they'll have to tell a different story. Mark Hamill gives the performance of his career, and Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson are allowed to make Kylo and Hux more interesting.

9. WONDER WOMAN - The best DC movie since The Dark Knight, and much credit must go to director Patty Jenkins. Only thing it suffers from is its conventional CG-infested final showdown with the main villain.

8. THE BIG SICK - This semi-autobiographical tale from Silicon Valley's Kumail Nanjiani is a good testament to love and commitment, and a showcase for Holly Hunter and Ray Romano as his future in-laws.

7. GET OUT - Jordan Peele's social satire/horror movie has stood the test of time, or at least the few months since it came out.

6. LOGAN - The gritty final chapter to Wolverine saga allows Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart to go out on high notes. It's unlike any X-Men movie before it.

5. BABY DRIVER - Arguably Edgar Wright's best movie yet, and I love Wright. This is just a fun classic B-movie, with a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) who has to mingle with scary and dangerous people, all the while listening to his own personal soundtrack. Really enjoyed the edge that Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm brought to their roles.

4. DUNKIRK - Christopher Nolan foregoes any kind of traditional narrative to give us a more immersive you-are-there experience, when soldiers had their backs to the wall at a crucial time in WWII history. Recognizable names like Tom Hardy and Kenneth Branagh are there for support, but it's Fionn Whitehead who carries the bulk of the movie using not much more than his expressive face.

3. WIND RIVER - I will watch any movie Taylor Sheridan writes. His previous two efforts were Sicario and Hell or High Water. Sheridan took the directing duties himself and he patiently navigates through tribal politics after a young Native American woman is found dead just outside of her reservation. Jeremy Renner does his best work since his Hurt Locker/The Town days as a ranger who's really good at tracking and helps the FBI with the case.

2. THE DISASTER ARTIST - One of the best movies of the year is about the making of one of the worst movies of all time. Director James Franco guides himself to his best performance in years, as the enigmatic millionaire Tommy Wiseau who decides to make his own movie with his friend Greg after everyone in Hollywood shoots him down. Laughed more at this than any other movie this year. (It's even better if you've already seen The Room.)

1. mother! - This wild, wild home invasion thriller winds up being something much more epic. It was a bold and daring decision by director Darren Aronofsky and star Jennifer Lawrence to make something as polarizing as this, but the crazier it got, the wider I grinned.

Justice League - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, JK Simmons, Ciaran Hinds, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, Joe Morton, Billy Crudup and Amber Heard.
Written by Chris Tessio & Joss Whedon.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★

Justice League was deep into pre-production when Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice opened. Zack Snyder had Dawn of Justice, Justice League, and Justice League 2 mapped out when he dove in. Darkseid was going to be DC's Thanos, the superpowerful villain who takes a few movies before he steps forward as the main villain. After the reviews of BvJ came out, Justice League plowed ahead as planned. After a personal tragedy, Zack Snyder had to bow out in the final weeks of shooting, leading to Joss Whedon stepping in and finishing the job, doing extensive rewrites and reshoots to try to save it. It shows.

The Frankenstein's monster of a movie that emerges is ultimately better than BvJ or Suicide Squad, but not by much. It's weaker than Man of Steel, and seeing Gal Gadot try to make this work after the far superior Wonder Woman dominated the summer is a little embarrassing.

Let me go into what I liked. I thought Flash (Ezra Miller) was hilarious. He was my favorite character, and he should get his own movie. Henry Cavill, who is billed second so you know Superman won't stay dead, has the best scene in the movie during those first few minutes after he's been resurrected. When he shows up, I thought to myself, "Yeah, Superman's been missed." I kinda liked Jason Momoa's Aquaman. The tiny tiny amount of work Jeremy Irons and JK Simmons were given as Alfred and Gordon respectively made me hope Matt Reeves keeps them when he makes his own Batman movie.

Now for what I didn't like. And this will take longer.

1. Steppenwolf. He is the main villain. He's a lesser DC entity, and as soon as he showed up, I was disappointed. You've got the great Ciaran Hinds playing him; why not use more than his voice? Steppenwolf had this generic CGI monster face complete with a double axehead for a helmet. Why not put Hinds in makeup? Or at least try to look like him a little? Plus he has those dragonfly zombie monsters from the dumb dream sequence in Batman v. Superman as his minions. As his CGI creatures that are easily killed by the dozens. Flying orcs, they.

2. The plot. Steppenwolf has three magic boxes, called mother boxes, that he must unite and it'll give him ultimate power. Feels like the same thing in Marvel with Thanos collecting infinity stones, right? Wonder Woman gives this expositional monologue about this space battle that brought Steppenwolf to power, and I remember thinking, "Did the women from Wonder Woman know all about space battles before this movie? Sure, they're goddesses, but they marveled at a WWI plane." They must have, because apparently they've been guarding one of the three mother boxes for thousands of years. Yeah yeah.

3. Cyborg. I don't know if he's the most poorly written character, or if Ray Fisher is just boring playing him. Probably a bit of both. He's definitely the Hawkeye of this bunch, where there's no desire to see him get his own stand-alone movie.

4. The direction. Snyder loves to do the slo-mo freeze frame speed-it-up-again shots in action sequences, and there are a lot of them. Plus once again, most of this movie takes place at night. Or in darkness, or shadow. Or maybe most days are cloudy.  Brighten this world up already. I love Batman in darkness, but Superman? Wonder Woman? Flash? These are DAY characters!

The post-credits teaser is kinda cool, but I just hope the fruits of that teaser are allowed to breathe a little, grow more organically.

As a kid I always thought DC had overall cooler heroes and villains than Marvel. Marvel movies have blown DC out of the water lately, and I'd like DC to get back on track. Wonder Woman showed they can be just as good, now for the people in charge of the other characters to catch up and elevate their games.

Dunkirk is #1 at box office

For the weekend of July 21-23, 2017, Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk was the big hit. Nolan is still one of the most bankable directors in Hollywood, and he has made another critical and commercial success. The WWII drama, which is really about the largest evacuation effort of the war, managed to bring people in despite not having any stars in the main roles.

A notable success in its own right was second-place's Girls Trip. It may have looked like a similar effort to summer's earlier flop Rough Night, but reviews were much kinder and this one didn't have the twist of the girls accidentally killing a guy.

Valerian & the City of 1000 Planets is a bomb in the US. With a production budget exceeding $200 million, it'll need to be a massive overseas hit if it wants to make its money back. Personally I think Luc Besson should have tried to find someone more recognizable than Dane DeHaan in the title role.

Wonder Woman is now officially the domestic winner of summer. It'll pass $400 million soon, and it's been made official that the sequel will arrive in December 2019.

Opens July 28
THE EMOJI MOVIE with the voices of James Corden, TJ Miller and Patrick Stewart.
ATOMIC BLONDE with Charlize Theron, James McAvoy and John Goodman.

Transformers 5 is #1 at box office

For the weekend of June 23-25, 2017, Transformers: The Last Knight grossed $5 million ($69 million in its first five days), making it $265 million worldwide. The last two Transformers movie grossed over $1 billion each. This one will likely not get there. I don't know if the negative reviews would be much of a factor. These movies have never had a Fresh rating at RottenTomatoes. (In fact, Michael Bay's only managed one fresh rating his entire directing career, with 1996's The Rock.)

It'll be interesting to see where final numbers land for Cars 3 and Wonder Woman. I think WW will have the edge and hold on to #2. In fact, WW is on pace to pass Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to be summer's highest domestic grossing film. The only two upcoming titles that might have a chance to catch them are Despicable Me 3 and Spider-Man: Homecoming.

All Eyez on Me had a colossal 77.9% drop in its second week. Straight Outta Compton, it is not.

The Mummy is tanking in the US, but it's doing well enough overseas to be profitable. Just not by much.

In limited released, Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled and Michael Showalter's The Big Sick did great.

Opens June 30
DESPICABLE ME 3 with the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig and Trey Parker.
THE HOUSE with Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Allison Tolman and Jason Mantzoukas.
BABY DRIVER with Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx.

Wonder Woman buries Mummy at box office

For the weekend of June 9-11, 2017, Wonder Woman managed to hold off Tom Cruise and any other challengers to her box office throne. Anything less than a 50% drop in a second week is a great sign for longevity.

The Mummy is off to a rough start for the planned Dark Universe, where Frankenstein, Wolf-Man, Creature of the Black Lagoon, etc., are supposed to be part of this eventual franchise. It's the first big-budget movie Alex Kurtzman has directed. He's known mainly for producing films like Cowboys & Aliens and Star Trek into Darkness. Critics hated it. I expect it to break even thanks to overseas business.

Lower-budget fare like It Comes at Night and Megan Leavey didn't break out either.

Opens June 16
CARS 3 with the voices of Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt and Larry the Cable Guy.
ROUGH NIGHT with Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon and Jillian Bell.
ALL EYEZ ON ME with Demetrius Shipp Jr., Danai Gurira and Kat Graham.
47 METERS DOWN with Mandy Moore, Claire Holt and Matthew Modine.

Wonder Woman - Movie Review

Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock and Lucy Davis.
Written by Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder & Jason Fuchs.
Directed by Patty Jenkins.

★★★½

After she stole the show in Batman v. Superman, I'm not surprised Wonder Woman is still winning in her own movie. The real surprise is that DC has delivered its first really good movie since The Dark Knight.

We met Diana (Gal Gadot) in modern times, but this is her origin story. Diana is being raised to be the next queen of the Amazons, but when WWI pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on to their beach, these women need to confront the outside world they've been able to ignore for millenia.

Patty Jenkins (Monster) does a good job balancing action and humor. Act I has the beach fight; terrific. Act II has No Man's Land; excellent. Act III has the big-explosions showdown with the main villain. Honestly that might be the movie's weak link, in that all of these movies tend to end with big-explosions showdowns.

Gadot captures the combination of fierceness and naivete of Wonder Woman. She has the physiciality down, but she's quite charming in her fish-out-of-water scenes where this Amazon, who's never met a man before, must now fit in 1917 England. The chemistry between Gadot and Pine is solid. Like Christopher Reeve/Margot Kidder solid.

Really enjoyed it. It's in my top five for 2017 so far.

Wonder Woman opens to over $103 million

For the weekend of June 2-4, 2017, Wonder Woman broke some records. Highest opening ever for a female superhero movie. Highest opening ever for a live-action female-directed movie. And while it didn't open as well as previous DCEU movies, it wasn't expected to. In the long run, Warner Bros can see this as their biggest hit for all of the positive word-of-mouth this film will generate.

Wonder Woman is also the third-highest opening of 2017, behind Beauty & the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

The other new wide release was Captain Underpants, based on a kids book series. I saw hardly any publicity for this, and its budget doesn't look like it was too much, so Fox is probably happy with these numbers, particularly when they saw the Wonder Woman wave coming.

Everything else dropped dramatically. Everything Everything was the only movie in the top 12 that didn't drop by more than 50%.

Next week Wonder Woman has a good chance of holding off The Mummy to be #1 for a second week. Pro.BoxOffice currently projects that film to open to $39 million.

Opens June 9
THE MUMMY with Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella and Jake Johnson.
IT COMES AT NIGHT with Joel Edgerton, Riley Keough and Christopher Abbott.
MEGAN LEAVEY with Kate Mara, Tom Felton, Common and Bradley Whitford.

Summer 2017 Box Office Predictions

Another summer of big-budget blockbuster sequels, remakes and spinoffs!  Here's how I see the summer going with domestic grosses.

1. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (7/7) - $470 million - As long as it's good, it'll be huge. It's been only three years since the disappointing Amazing Spider-Man 2, but now with a younger Spidey who's part of the official MCU, complete with Iron Man as his co-star, I see this being the biggest winner, as much as any Avengers movie.

2. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 (5/5) - $400 million - Oh look, another huge comic-book movie. Most of the reviews seem to be "as good or almost as good as the first one" which is usually the best a sequel can hope for. (The Dark Knight is a unicorn.) Someday a Disney/Marvel flick will flop. BUT NOT THIS DAY.

3. DESPICABLE ME 3 (6/30) - $355 million - The first two were huge, and Minions spinoff was even bigger. There's always one animated film that rises above the others, and I see this one as the most likely.

4. WONDER WOMAN (6/2) - $225 million - I'm betting on this being the first good DC movie since it became Zack Snyder's universe. And ironically I don't see it making as much as disappointments like Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, but it'll show itself to be a step in the right direction. If this movie sucks, I see some heads rolling.

5. TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (6/23) - $210 million - People keep seeing these nmovies, so they keep getting made. Is there something special about this script that tricked Anthony Hopkins into joining the cast?

6. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (5/26) - $184 million - Johnny Depp's star power has taken a hit lately, with big flops (Mortdecai, Alice Through the Looking Glass) and the allegations he abused his ex-wife Amber Heard. I think it helps this movie's chances that Javier Bardem looks like a formidable villain.

7. CARS 3 (6/16) - $178 million - It looks like it's going to take a wildly different direction that the spy caper that was Cars 2. A final trailer for it should drop this week that lays out the story more, but the basics are that Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) gets into an accident and realizes he's having a hard time keeping up with the younger racing cars.

8. WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (7/14) - $156 million - I don't see this being quite as big as the first two, but it also feels like the completion of the Caesar trilogy. Once again, none of the humans from the previous film return, but the supporting apes (Cornelia, Rocket, Blue Eyes, etc.) are all still there.

9. THE MUMMY (6/9) - $148 million - Tom Cruise is a good beginning for an anticipated Monster Cinematic Universe. This will tie to Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man (in development), and presumably Dracula and Frankenstein will eventually join them.

10. DUNKIRK (7/21) - $140 million - WWII dramas are generally reliable, but with director Christopher Nolan attached, I expect this to be an event. Nolan faves Tom Hardy (Bane) and Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow) star with Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles. Yes, THAT Harry Styles. This is also the first movie on the list that isn't a sequel/spinoff/remake.

11. THE EMOJI MOVIE (7/28) - $120 million - Hey, if the Angry Birds movie can make over $100 million, why can't this, with slightly more timely characters? It has four weeks of space after Despicable Me 3, and you have to either be really original (Kubo & the Two Strings) or really bad (Ice Age 5) to be an animated movie in summer and not make money.

12. BAYWATCH (5/26) - $118 million - Dwayne Johnson is a hit machine. It continues the trend of taking old TV shows and turning them into raunchy R-rated comedies, and for every 21 Jump Street, we get a CHiPs, but this looks like it'll work. The Rock and Zac Efron look like they have good chemistry.

13. ALIEN: COVENANT (5/19) - $115 million - While Prometheus may have disappointed some people, this looks like it's getting back to its vicious roots. My only fear is it looks a little too much like the original, and one thing that worked about the original is that it was a true ensemble and it wasn't clear that Ripley was the main character until after the captain died. From the trailers I already feel like I know who's left alive at the end of the movie.

14. ROUGH NIGHT (6/16) - $101 million - I see this attempt to find the Bad Moms audience as a successful one. Scarlett Johansson, Kate mcKinnon, Zoe Kravitz and Jillian Bell are a group of friends having a bachelorette party when they accidentally kill their male stripper. Hijinks ensue.

15. THE HOUSE (6/30) - $100 million - Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler play a couple with money problems who decide to open an illegal casino in their basement.

16. THE DARK TOWER (8/4) - $95 million - I think there are enough fans of the books that this should do okay, though I'm gathering fans are really divided by the trailer. (Felt a lot more sci-fi than I thought the first movie should.)

17. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS (6/2) - $94 million - Haven't seen much advertising for this, but it is the first animated movie of the summer, so it should have a decent opening regardless of quality.

18. ANNABELLE: CREATION (8/11) - $77 million - Hated the first one, but the marketing for this has been smart. I see it being like Ouija 2 where the sequel is a vast improvement over the predecessor.

19. ATOMIC BLONDE (7/28) - $72 million - Charlize Theron kicking butt. That's not a guaranteed hit formula, but it looks like the movie's taking the right approach.

20. SNATCHED (5/12) - $70 million - I used to think this would do better, but there seems to be this backlash against Amy Schumer right now.

Other Notable Releases:

ALL EYEZ ON ME (6/16) - The Tupac Shakur bio.

BABY DRIVER (6/30) - Snazzy preview but looks too niche to do much better than The Nice Guys.

DETROIT (8/4) - Kathryn Bigelow's hotbed drama about the 1967 Detroit Riots could be a surprise hit.

GIRLS TRIP (7/21) - Another entry in the Bad Moms/Rough Night genre, this one starring Regina Hall and Jada Pinkett Smith.

THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD (8/18) - Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard of Samuel L. Jackson's hitman. Mother-effin hijinks ensue.

KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD (5/12) - Been hearing this is a mess, so I'm going to guess it doesn't crack the top 20.

VALERIAN & THE CITY OF 1000 PLANETS (7/21) - Looks like a gloriously expensive bomb. But I'm rooting for it.

Horror Flicks:

47 METERS DOWN (6/16) - This year's The Shallows.

AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING (6/30) - It's been in the can for three years, so I don't have much faith in it being good.

IT COMES AT NIGHT (6/9) - Thriller looks like it's about paranoia but there might actually be something out there.

POLAROID (8/25) - Don't know anything about it but it's opening in the Don't Breathe slot.

WISH UPON (7/14) - Joey King (The Conjuring) finds a box that grants wishes but things start to go horribly awry.