Justice League finally hits cinemas this week and the first reviews are now in.
And while the critics seem to agree it's better than Batman v Superman, that's not saying much, as they've also hit out at the film for being "garishly unattractive" with a plot that's a "mess" and "sub-par VFX".
Basically, it's not Wonder Woman.
Take a look at some of the first reviews below:
"The increasingly turgid tales of Batman and Superman – joined, unfortunately for her, by Wonder Woman – trudge along to ever-diminishing returns in Justice League. Garishly unattractive to look at and lacking the spirit that made Wonder Woman, which came out five months ago, the most engaging of Warner Bros' DC Comics-derived extravaganzas to date, this hodgepodge throws a bunch of superheroes into a mix that neither congeals nor particularly makes you want to see more of them in future. Plainly put, it's simply not fun."
"First, the good news. Justice League is better than its joylessly sombre dress rehearsal, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Now the 'but'... you knew there was a 'but' coming, right? But it also marks a pretty steep comedown from the giddy highs of Wonder Woman. [Justice League] is a placeholder in a franchise that's already had too many placeholders.
"Some day, hopefully soon, DC will get the recipe right again and duplicate Wonder Woman's storytelling magic. But today isn't that day, and Justice League unfortunately isn't that film."
"In superhero movies, sheer lively deliver-the-goods competence can be a quality you're grateful for – or one that seems awesomely innocuous. In Justice League, it's a little of both. The film is the definition of an adequate high-spirited studio lark: no more, no less. If fans get excited about it, that may mostly be because they're excited about getting excited. Yet the movie is no cheat. It's a tasty franchise delivery system that kicks a certain series back into gear."
"Justice League is supremely hokey stuff. After vibing a little on a 2016-shitstorm sense of a world horribly gone wrong... it dives headlong into a scrappy, Swiss-cheese plot which, while true to DC Comics' mix-and-match mythology, clumsily slaps together its disparate elements... None of which is helped by sub-par VFX, which reach their nadir with an overblown final conflict.
"It's breezily fun at times, in a what-the-hey way. But, lumbered with a story that struggles to find resonance beyond its improbable plot devices and preposterous MacGuffinry, Justice League isn't about to steal Avengers' super-team crown."
"Well… it's not awful. That's a victory of some sort.
"The tone is all over the place, the plot's a mess and Batman should never be cracking jokes. On the other hand, watching these icons gather together to fight evil is a reward all its own and the set pieces are invigorating. Sure it's six of one, half dozen of the other, but considering where we started, I'll take it."
"Zack Snyder's painfully titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had all the worst attributes of modern-day superhero storytelling: unearned gravitas, a bloated running time, and interchangeable CGI-stuffed battles. Justice League offers a tepid mea culpa.
"The movie struggles to match its epic scope with a reason to care. Danny Elfman's forgettable score (sadly, there have been many in recent years) does nothing to enhance the suspense, and the vibrant cinematography by Fabian Wagner, making his feature-length debut after years in television, provides a dizzying assemblage of swooping camerawork that rarely lingers on a single face."
The first Twitter reactions to the film – which made full use of the new 280-character limit – were revealed last week, and they were a pretty mixed bag too.
Most say it's fun – or at least more fun than most previous DCEU movies – but that it suffers from the familiar DC and superhero movie issues when it comes to the villain.
Justice League has officially been confirmed as the shortest movie in the DC Extended Universe to date at 119 minutes and 54 seconds long.
That means Justice League is two minutes shorter than the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad, 20 minutes shorter than Wonder Woman, 22 minutes shorter than Man of Steel and 30 minutes shorter than the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman.
Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman, has also been confirming that there is a post-credits scene – even though all previous DCEU movies, except Suicide Squad, didn't have credits scenes.
"You've gotta sit through the whole thing. Go through the credits," he teased.
"Listen, I walked out with my kids. And everyone was like, 'Ooh, ooh, ooh!' and I had to run back in because I forgot that it was in the script."
Justice League is released in cinemas on 17 November.
