Justice League

It's a world without Superman, and humanity's hopes have been dashed. We know this to be true because the latest Zack Snyder comic book blockbuster, "Justice League," begins to a downbeat rendition of the already downbeat Leonard Cohen song "Everybody Knows" while a montage of the planet's troubles plays out. In one vignette, a couple of white nationalists attack a Muslim shopkeeper; in another, a homeless man sits, his face a deeply-lined mask of resignation, with a cardboard sign reading "I tried." You'll certainly identify with his sentiment of despair if, as the song laments, your father or your dog just died -- or, for that matter, your favorite superhero.

Snyder and screenwriters Chris Terri and Joss Whedon don't bother to explain how, exactly, but it seems that the death of Superman has resulted not only in the crushing of humanity's communal soul but also in the reappearance, after a long exile, of a horn�d, armor-wearing demon named Steppenwolf (Ciar�n Hinds). Equally inexplicably, Superman's exit from this mortal coil has breached the thin membrane between parallel worlds: In this case, Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" bleeds profusely in the DC Universe. Steppenwolf's backstory comes straight from the opening minutes of "The Fellowship of the Rings." It seems that five thousand years ago the horn�d demon was defeated by an alliance of Amazonians, Atlanteans, and ordinary human beings. Instead of nine rings, the various races parceled out a trinity of "mother boxes," mysterious cubes that, when merged, initiate the Apocalypse. With Superman out of the way, all that Sauron... I mean, Steppenwolf... has to do is gather up the boxes, superimpose them into one another, and then stand back laughing while his army of zombielike insect men ravages the planet and the earth's crust melts away into a sea of lava.

If this muddle of plot elements has left you confused, don't worry; Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), a.k.a. Batman, has sorted it all out and knows exactly what to do. He sets about gathering a band of resistance fighters to stand against Steppenwolf and his legions of dittoheads. Wonder Woman (Gal Godot) has already signed on, so Batman begins the recruitment process by locating and appealing to Frodo.

Ha! Just kidding. Venturing far North to some frozen Scandinavian country, Batman approaches the reclusive Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), a.k.a. Aquaman, to join the cause -- a good move, since Aquaman is the King of Atlantis, and his people, like Wonder Woman's Amazonian sisters, have long had a part to play in guarding the ancient mother boxes.

Steppenwolf is two steps ahead of Batman, though, and in a pair of bravura raids, he snatches the mother boxes from both the Amazonians and the Atlanteans. Faced with defeating Steppenwolf the hard way -- in battle, on the ground -- Batman and Wonder Woman finish assembling their team, adding super-speedy (and socially awkward) Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a.k.a. The Flash, and the mostly-mechanical Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), a.k.a. Cyborg, to their ranks.

There's one more mother box to defend -- the one hidden away by the humans. And, in order to frustrate Steppenwolf's plans, the newly-formed Justice League is going to have to find the missing box, venture to a Chernobyl-like patch of Russian wasteland, and overlook J. K. Simmons' unconvincing makeup job as Simmons, once a part of the Marvel Comics movies as Spider-Man's boss, leaps into the role of Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon. (In a less dizzying jump, Billy Crudup joins the cast - not as Dr. Manhattan from Snyder's "Watchmen" movie, but as Barry Allen's jailbird father.) But can they defend Earth once again from an enemy whose goals are so absolute (namely, utter death and destruction), methods so vicious, and dialogue such an irritating blend of the larky and the trite?

At least there's nonstop action and fan service galore. The film is crowded with familiar faces in recurring roles, among them Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Connie Nielson as Queen Hippolyta, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Diane Lane as Martha Kent. Even Superman (Henry Cavill) shows up, opening the movie in a documentary-style bit of cell phone video where he's interviewed by a couple of excited young kids who wonder what he'd rate as Earth's top attraction. (The big guy pauses at this, as though uncertain whether to name the Grand Canyon, Walt Disney World or the "Arkham Asylum" video game.) There are plenty of callbacks, too, to earlier movies in the DC Universe series. This film is tightly glued to its predecessors, which gives it a certain consistency sure to please nitpicky partisans, but by the same token, the story and action feel starchy and stifled.

The most consistent feature of the new movie is how it hews to a certain tone and style. Snyder's films tend to veer between the four-color excitement of comic books and the pessimistic, gray-washed tone of graphic novels. "Justice League" is less angsty than "Man of Steel" and by no means as sour as "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," but it's far from the breezy inventiveness of last summer's "Wonder Woman." Every beat in this flick has a heavy, rote feel that scads of testosterone-driven (and fairly flat) badinage fails to leaven.

As if to make up for that, there are many instances of the team's male participants whooping and hollering like a bunch of frat boys, even as they hurl themselves into full-on cartoonish battle. After a while they seem less like noble warriors than male archetypes clumsily re-tasked for the film's purposes; you have the drag racer (Batman in his Batmobile, Bat-Spider-Crawler-Tank vehicle, or whatever), the surfer dude (Aquaman), the geeky guy who's equally ill at ease with around pretty girls and cool jock types (Flash), and the strong, sulking fellow who feels misunderstood (Cyborg).

Wonder Woman, sad to say, ends up being used, and misused, as female characters too often are; in the middle of a pitched battle the twitchy young Flash ends up atop her for a moment, only to yank himself away with a sparkle of lighting and an embarrassed look. (Exploitative objectification with a wink is still, you know, exploitative objectification.) Elsewhere, exasperated by how the guys are behaving, she laments, "I'm working with children." You mean these big, burly dudes who are strapping physical specimens of manhood but who act about fourteen? Well, yeah. That's sorta what these movies seem to be about. Doubtless, Wonder Woman is looking forward to getting back to her own standalone movies, where she can remind us what grace, wit, and maturity look like. So are we.

Meantime, you might as well enjoy this ham-handed adventure for every ungainly thrill it has to offer. Papering plot deficiencies with decibels and fireballs is a time-honored technique, and even if half the CGI effects look like they could have used twice as much time to develop and refine, you'll probably be so shell-shocked by noise, light, and incongruous twists you won't notice. In short, you'll love it.