New Justice League Movie: Costumes Vs. Plot

Will Zack Snyder’s Justice League finally break the curse that plagues the DC Extended Universe?

By Shrey Sankalp

To say that Warner Bros.’s foray into shared universe building a la Marvel has been underwhelming is an understatement that will most likely elicit laughter. Of all three films released so far, not one has garnered either consistent acclaim, met box office expectations, or generally proven to be non-divisive. This begs the question – what exactly is Warner Bros./DC doing wrong? They have characters who are arguably the most popular characters in the world, they have managed to recreate their general appearance and costumes well enough (minus the Joker costume, which is more or less widely derided and the Harley Quinn costume, which is sometimes criticized for not being more faithful to the comic costume) and generally look visually stunning.

Some digging will lead you to three answers:

1. DC’s characterization is off.
2. Their tone is too bleak.
3. The studio meddles with the films far too much.

Now I will say that the 2^nd point is completely excusable, because not liking a sombre story and preferring a lighthearted one is a personal preference, but the rest are pressing problems. Of all DCEU movies, Man of Steel is arguably the best, as it provides a Superman for a new generation (whose costume thankfully does not involve wearing red underwear inside out like the costumes of yore) without the camp, and while the film never fully capitalizes on its themes, that’s not an issue for me. My issue, is that Superman doesn’t feel like Superman. Superman is supposed to be this bright and hopeful character who saves lives, and Henry Cavill’s Superman just wasn’t that – all he did was mope, kill General Zod (and no, crying about it in the end does not make it okay) and show shocking disregard for human life while destroying Metropolis in his grudge match against Zod. And this sad and depressed version of Superman was carried over to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice too, ensuring they were sticking with this version of the character. They may have brightened up his costume for the sequel, but his attitude remained as bleak as his old costume. This darkness was present in Batman too (who has a fantastic comic accurate costume), but it made sense there, and while this Batman was satisfactory, he killed people which is again way, way off! And I’m not even going to talk about Lex Luthor, I just can’t handle that disgust. Suicide Squad got the character dynamics and the characterizations themselves right, but I can’t praise them spinning Joker and Harley’s relationship as a love story any more than I can praise Jared Leto’s horrible costume, which more or less goes with his horrible Jim Carrey impression which was supposed to be the Joker. This leads me to my next point about studio meddling. It’s widely publicized how WB messed about with Suicide Squad and Dawn of Justice and completely smothered them in a bid to grab some cash and set up fifty future movies. This is a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away.

DC/Warner Bros

Justice League is already beginning to feel like a made by committee film with how they are incorporating humor and changing tones and whatnot. It doesn’t feel like they’re doing it because of the feedback and to respect the source material, but because they have to if they want to keep filling in seats and keep fans happy. Just because they gave each character’s costume a ‘new movie, new costume!’ upgrade and brightened the colors on the said costume doesn’t mean the film is fixed. Zack Snyder is infamous for putting visuals above storytelling, and coupled with studio meddling, you have another potential disaster. And that’s not even counting the fact that the film is already overstuffed, with how it needs to introduce the core cast, especially characters like Cyborg and Aquaman who the casual audiences know nothing about (but both of whom have been given great costumes), introduce the villain, build character, reintroduce Superman (the black costume’s appearance not guaranteed) and wrap everything up without looking like a blatant The Avengers ripoff. And let’s not forget the newly added Deathstroke (who again has a great looking costume—man, DC does some great costumes) See the issue? Marvel made it look easy because they had a very strong foundation, and even then they could have messed everything up. How they didn’t, is a miracle.

There is no reason Justice League can’t prove me wrong and be an absolute smash. I’m hoping it is, because I need good DC movies. But with all the circumstances and evidence surrounding Justice League, I can’t be confident. I’ll buy my ticket anyway, and maybe that’s all WB is aiming for anyway.