This is the resentful and strained offspring of the Snyder-verse; incessant needle drops for “coolness” and extremely facile song choice, unrelenting slow motion with a reliance upon it that borders talentless crutch, and a storytelling depth on par with that of a Saturday morning cartoon. This is a film is so inane and callow that I feel bad for chastising it for its lackings, having been made for children and not myself, but I know it wants to be more adult and had the ability to do so much better. This is some Snyder-lite that would do just fine with it’s punched up tunes and slow-mo-gasms if it was in the video game cutscenes that it seems intent for.
It’s so hard for me to embrace this 5-year old’s story with a 13-year old edgelord sensibility. It is trite and dopey. It reminded me of the comedy and taste of Terminator 3 (yeah, that’s the ‘talk to the hand’ and “learn to smile” one). They distinctly shy away from any actual moral ambiguity; something that is especially galling when your lead is a villain-come-anti-hero. Provide some nuance and some ambitious gray into this cookie cutter capes black & white/good & bad so that I care.
It doesn’t care about fleshed out characters or even true worldbuilding, rather it just wants to dump more toys into the playpen. Characters like Dr. Fate and Hawkman could have provided some potential, but feel like unenthusiastic old facsimiles of other franchises (I like Dr. Fate and even Brosnan’s nodd, but he is 1 million % here a “been there & done that” Dr. Strange) or odd mishmashes (Hodge’s Hawkman is Batman meets Captain America, but with unexplained magic metal wings & tech). Eternium, though a minor element within the DC comics, is a mix’n’match hodgepodge of Vibranium from Marvel/Black Pantherand Avatar’s Unobtanium. Begs the question of why it would only be used in Khandaq, and not sold and proliferated throughout the world, seeing how it is controlled by a group of mercenaries (I’ve heard they like money) and seems to be literal magic rocks. The JSA are a silly mixed up X-Men analogue (not in any literal sense, but old wizened mentors recruit young kids with powers on a mission conducted from a super-science jet that emerges from under a palatial estate - so almost literally) that don’t feel new or that interesting. The strangest element of all is that, and this is pointed out, the JSA seem to be blind thugs to a global fascists regime of the norm. Sure, they think something bad will come in the end of it all with Black Adam being around, but they don’t really care about the plight of the oppressed, but rather just doing the bidding of the Western elites which one can only assume are profiting from the current system. It’s like Jedi in the prequels - acting righteously only when it is in their narrow self-interests, and even then, taking selfish actions that are uncaring of larger inequities.
I also don’t understand Amanda Waller’s aims here, who appears through holograms as the ultimate puller of strings. Why try and get rid of him? Why not manipulate him to your side? Why not use your kill squad for this? Why not use Superman if you have him in your pocket? It makes sense on its face, but if you have seen any of this extended DCU films, the logic quickly falls apart. Also, why does Hawkman & the JSA want to do her bidding?
The characters around the plot are not only simple, they are laughable in their desperate need to fill viewer likeability quotas while attempting the least possible. We got “hip skater rebel” kid, “know it all/center of the story” powerful woman/mom, and the hapless, overweight, loves the 80s kitsch songs brother - all of these characters are meant on the surface to ground the film and provide emotion, but it is impossible to care about any of them.
What is the point of the villain? Is this a man who wants to become a super demon? Could we maybe learn that at some point? A complete CGI non-entity throwaway, especially with their played out skellington soldiers that can be defeated with a single rusty pipe swing from a middle aged nobody. It’s all wholly uninteresting, unimaginative and pointless.
In the end, this fails because it is a dour facsimile of cool, which constantly is sucking the enjoyment and charisma that The Rock can bring. Yeah, he is muscly as all get out and imposing, but does that matter? Shazam looked muscled and big, but Levy most certainly is not. (Aside: now that I have mentioned him, SHAZAM is insanely absent here, being as this is his arch-nemesis from the comics and they reference the powers and characters of that film. Maybe they thought they could do a ‘Venom without Spider-Man' scenario, but that film was at least about some character and was re-envisioned outside the world of Spider-Man; with this they didn’t even attempt) The whole thing felt miscast, mistaken in tone and aim, and a miss in the enjoyability aims.