Gatsby77

Ahem: from The Guardian's Justice League Review: Ben Affleck is unrelaxed and ill-at-ease in the role of Batman/Bruce, unconvincing in both the bat armour and the three-piece suit of the wealthy plutocrat...Really, Affleck spreads a pall of dullness over the film. He doesn’t have the implacable, steely ferocity and conviction that Christian Bale had; he seems to have a faint sheen of sweat, as if the Batcave thermostat is up too high, and his attempts at droll humour and older-generation wisdom make his Batman look stately and marginal. Maybe we should get George Clooney back for the role. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/15/justice-league-ben-affleck-dc-comics

I don't follow. Isn't it obvious that it's the opposite? Warner Bros. knew that Justice League would get trashed by critics, so they scheduled a last minute Monday night screening for fans nationwide to help counter that. Get the diehard fanboys who will show up four days early to feel special with a sneak peek and gush about it on social media. That creates positive buzz among the faithful before the professional critics slam it hard Thursday/Friday. The Friday announcement of Monday screenings screams last-minute damage control. *Good* movies screen 4-6 weeks in advance. Hell, a decade ago Juno screened nationwide nearly 10 weeks in advance. This is the same studio that allowed reviews of Wonder Woman to post 13+ days in advance.

I have little problem with their little "Score Reveal" BS compared to their not actually then posting the reviews (and updated score) to the site by Thursday at 9:00 am. Every other major release (and some minor releases) are up and running on the site, and they did their "score reveal" nearly 9 hours ago now. And they can't say this "wasn't screened for critics" because it was -- last night, if somehow they didn't already catch it Monday night.

They do now. Check out this morning's "See It/Skip It" re. Justice League on their Facebook page. Not only do they reveal the RT numbers as of 3:00 pm yesterday, but both hosts review it. And it's weird. The woman didn't like it, voted "Skip It." The guy didn't really like it -- listed out all its flaws and then voted "See It" despite that. Same deal with my boy Scott Mendelson at Forbes. His title says it all: "A bad movie but a great time at the movies." Then he writes paragraphs criticizing it before ultimately forgiving it just for the joy of seeing these characters on screen at all. He's always been a weird apologist for Batman Forever but equates this film to that one -- an attempt at a light-hearted kid-friendly over-correction for Batman Returns.

Probably both. Obviously a typo. But probably also subconscious annoyance. I'm still waiting on some books that were received by CCS on July 10th and are currently sitting in CGC at "Verified." However, I did do the slowest of all slow tracks -- CCS review, pressing, regular track Silver Age, but still. Didn't think when I sent them in early July they'd be Christmas presents.

Or...maybe it's simply not good? From the reviews it sounds a lot like Suicide Squad -- solid first third where we get to revel in individual character origin moments and then get to see how the team comes together. Culminating in the formation of the Justice League for the first time on film! But then the last third is bunk, weighed down by too-busy CGC, parademon gnats, and a weak-sauce villain. And apparently the CGC on Clark's face to hide is mustache could have been better. So good characters and fun to see on screen, but zero plot. Suicide Squad's first half hour was amazingly well done. It establshed Amanda as a bad- and introduced the other characters in cool moments as well. But then, rather than have them coordinate in a Mission Impossible-style adventure that plays to each of their strengths (a la Ostrander's '80s series), it has those characters do nothing but literally walk through a deserted city at night, occassionally fighting zombie rejects from House of the Dead II. With those characters, and that set-up, one of the best scenes is just them sitting talking at a bar. So much potential... So wasted...

I'm confused. I just watched the reveal show. And I get that the RT score was 43% as of 3:00 pm yesterday, but there's still no score (or, more importantly, links to reviews) on the Rotten Tomatoes site itself. That's just dumb. Seems RT really cares more about advertising for their Facebook channel than the functionality of their site itself.

Maybe - but the show only debuted two weeks ago. This is just the third episode, so conspiracy theories have a tad bit of sway. That said, I just watched the first episode, where they revealed Thor: Ragnarok's (then) 96% rating. Split vote -- One of them voted "See it;" the other didn't like that they turned it into a comedy, voted "Skip it"

Meanwhile, Metacritic's got it at 49, based on just 40 reviews. Again, neither of these early ratings means much -- we probably won't get a decent picture of the rating until Friday morning, when there's a critical mass of at least 110 reviews.

But the macro view as a comics fan? Even the most optimistic opening domestic weekend projections for this film put it just short of $130 million. Which means that our very first Justice League film -- with (at least) Superman, Aquaman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Batman on screen working together -- will gross less domestically in its first weekend than a Suicide Squad movie. That is absurd. That it's also projected to do less well out of the gate -- to the tune of ~$40 million -- than did BvS, also points to the gross mismanagement and missed opportunities so far.

Flagging the San Francisco Chronicle review because it's well written - guy didn't like it, but he has a lot of fun writing this: http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Justice-League-is-no-Avengers-12359946.php "Basically, Superman can do everything and needs no one else. And Batman can do nothing. And there’s a few in between who can do a little here and a little there. For example, they can bring Superman coffee. The one exception is Wonder Woman, whose powers are mighty and indeterminate, and whose face in close-up is enough to make a whole audience go completely still. In 2017, Gal Gadot has the most powerful face in movies. For long stretches, these close-ups are the only thing to look forward to. The audiences sits there waiting for Gadot, and in between must endure weak computer graphics (lots of red sparks everywhere), flying skeletons with teeth and a villain, Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), who wasn’t born to be wild but born to look silly. Hinds, in his real incarnation, is a formidable presence, but the computer renders him ridiculous, with a weak mouth and comical-looking horns pointing down."

Ouch -- now right-wing outlets like Breitbart and Fox News are claiming collusion among Warner Bros. and Rotten Tomatoes (which is 30% owned by Warner Bros.) to delay its aggregate rating and minimize the damage to this weekend's box office: http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/11/15/rigged-merger-rotten-tomatoes-protects-time-warners-justice-league-awful-reviews/

Yessir. But we cited the same source. Doesn't mean it's any more or less credible.

Not sure if this is credible, but hey - why not? Comic Book.com is claiming that the RT score so far has leaked: http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/11/15/justice-league-rotten-tomatoes-score-leaks/ Puts it at 48%. Even if this were the real thing it doesn't matter, as Forbes' Scott Mendelson has said the "critics screening" (where he will be watching it, among many others) isn't until tonight. So they'll likely be a lot of movement between now and Sunday, at which point we should the score should have settled in with 130+ reviews tallied.

Meanwhile, I can't tell whether the NYT review is positive or negative. It's headline is "Better Than the Last One" but the opening paragraph makes clear that doesn't mean much: "Justice League, the newest DC superhero jam directed by Zack Snyder is looser, goosier, and certainly more watchable than the last one. The bar could scarcely have been set lower given that the previous movie, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," was such an interminable slog. The superhero and villain dynamic is much the same (slayers going to slay, etc.), but there are a few fresh faces now and Wonder Woman has more to do than play backup. The story is a confusion of noise, visual clutter and murderous digital gnats, but every so often a glimmer of life flickers through."

Wasn't just me, though. There's a reason the critics came down on Man of Steel (and, even moreso, BvS). And it was the needlessly dark, brooding nature of Superman. I've read a few hundred Superman comics -- the closest I've ever seen to Snyder's version was in the initial Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil run in 233-245 or so. Superman is *supposed* to be America's boy scout, an idealistic adopted farmboy from Kansas who stands for truth, justice and the American Way, a la Captain America. Not a pissed off alien with the look of a constipation-induced scowl. Again - Supergirl gets this right.

The only TV reviewers I trust are from The Onion's AV Club. I've loved watching episodes of Orange Is the New Black, Homeland, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist and then comparing their individual episode reviews (like, 600-800 words each) with my own assessment of those episodes. Also, the AV Club's letter grade assessments generally correlated with my own (i.e., A or A- episodes tended to be the best of the season while B- or the rare C+ were usually the worst).

This. I liked Man of Steel a lot. Even the editing was tight, particularly in the Lois-Lane-does-her-investigative-reporting scene. Great film, Oh...up until Superman betrays everything he's ever stood for by turning into a homicidal maniac and straight murdering Zod, after he'd already been neutralized. Why does this matter? I don't think Joe Public wants to see a dark, brooding Superman -- particularly after the brilliant light-hearted versions of him shown in Superman, Superman II and even Lois & Clark. That tone is something that the Supergirl TV show has gotten perfectly right.

This is BS. Wonder Woman got great reviews because it was a great movie. BvS and Suicide Squad were not. Again, for me it comes down to the story. Can it pass the test of being a decent film if you took out the superheroes? Wonder Woman could remove the god elements, and it would still have worked as a decent war/espionage thriller. Ditto Winter Soldier -- what made it great it was that it was a post-9/11 Fear-the-Patriot-Act spy thriller, it *also* happened to be a great Captain America movie. See also The Dark Knight -- Nolan made a superb crime thriller that just also happened to feature Batman & the Joker. Not everyone has an agenda.

Yeah - It's the level of negativity that's concerning. Whereas with BvS, reviews seemed to be balanced but just this side of negative (say...rating it a 40-50%, but which still counted as negative for RT) here, some folks are just trashing it. The Chicago Tribune, for example, gave it 1.5 stars. Vanity Fair trashed it. Even Bleeding Cool News (who are our people) called it mediocre.

Forbes review is up from Mark Hughes. He predicts $120M domestic opening and a global box office tally of ~$900M. Seems about right to me. On the one hand, it's got pretty much clear sailing for four weeks until Star Wars opens; on the other, if the reviews really are that bad, we could be looking at BvS-level drop-offs after a strong opening weekend. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2017/11/15/review-justice-league-successfully-delivers-fun-and-heroism-audiences-want/#34cc05eb1e27

Some of the reviews I've read are ok, but some (particularly by high-profile outlets) are downright brutal. I stand by my 40-55% prediction.

Early critics' reviews look good. 72% positive on Rotten Tomatoes so far! (Vs. 17% for Iron Fist).

Two movies I'll defend to the death: Top Gun (Rotten, 56%) Waiting (with Ryan Reynolds) (Rotten, 31%)

My two minute scan of Wikipedia determined that Rotten Tomatoes is currently owned 30% by Warner Bros. and 70% by NBC Universal/Comcast. Metacritic, meanwhile, is owned by CBS. Disney owns no part of either.