 In 2012 a huge movie hit the big screen. It was an event that brought all walks of life out to the theaters to see their favorite superheroes on the big screen. A movie that was universally celebrated and would go on to spawn tons of more films in this universe for over a decade and counting. I'm of course referring to Marvel's The Avengers. Today, however, we're not talking about that. We're talking about the Justice League. Specifically, the Justice League. A movie that should have hit the same bar, nay, exceeded The Avengers. But due to its rushed nature, a director's shake-up, and an insane amount of rewrites and reshoots, this movie ended up being a glorified disaster. Let's roast this hog. The producer on today's video is YouTube supporter Master Sargent. He's a Mithril member, which means he has the opportunity to select a roast for me to do, and I will in fact do it. There's a beautiful list I put together with 70, 80, 100. I don't even know how many at this point. Movies on there for you to peruse. And Master Sargent shows wisely. Let's begin. The film opens with footage of a child's phone. I don't know what kind of phone that is, where the overlay icons disappear after a couple seconds. Usually the record button stays active. That's wild. Wild UI going on here. Man of Steel is perfectly framed up, looking good as always. Henry Cavill is just a specimen of a man. Nice lush head of hair, thick brows, and of course a mouth that looks like it was reflected off of a funhouse mirror. What is happening with his mouth? I know it only seems like 80 years ago, since this film came out, but Henry Cavill was actually pulling double duty. He was doing reshoots for this, and he was also working on one of the Mission Impossible films and had a thick stash for that. It was in his contract that he couldn't remove it. That's where the animators come in. That's where the VFX department comes in. And I think the final product speaks for itself. He flashes that Kodak smile, and then I remember he actually died in Batman v Superman. So I guess this was supposed to be a touching moment, since he didn't really have any of those in the last movie. He never really was a beacon of hope or freedom or justice or whatever the hell Superman was supposed to be initially. He spent most of those movies smashing through buildings and punching bad guys, and less about like saving cats out of trees. And you know, being that inspirational happy go lucky superhero a lot of us are familiar with. So they had to find a way to kind of rush that in now to say, look, yeah, he actually was well loved by people. They didn't hate him. Now we turn to Gotham City, where we see Batman stocking his prey. He uses the dude from Fight Club as bait so he can attract a bug alien. As one does. After a brief fight on a soundstage, I mean a rooftop, the dark knight nets the creature who explodes on impact, releasing a bulk of gack on the wall. The mutagen now spackled to the wall also contains three box symbols. For some reason. I hope when I die, my blood leaves the image of a middle finger. Just one final fuck you to the world. Jeremy Irons tells Batflick, it's time to assemble the Avengers, because Batman's useless now in the rest of this film. The dark knight does a couple cool jumps across the rooftop like the floor is lava, and then he inevitably falls to his death, I hope. That's not what happens. Let's keep going. We get a montage of sad stuff accompanied by a Nora Jones-esque version of Everybody Knows. The world has gone to shambles since Superman died. Crime is up. Homeless guys are too depressed to even jerk it in public. And the bad guys are getting more aggressive. And here's some of them now, as we transition to a robbery in progress. Without Superman around, there's no one to stop them. Or is there? I guess the dipshits forgot that there's still a strong female lead on the scene. And quite frankly, it's about crime. And how she's gonna stop it. That's right. Wonder Woman's back, baby. In all her short skirt crime fighting glory. Now, a thousand apologies, but I can't be certain who's the one behind the camera on some of this because I know a lot of this is Snyder footage repurposed, some of it's weed and reshoots. But one of these gentlemen has to be praised, has to get credit for the constant objectifying of Gal Gadot. The upskirts in this film are just chef's kiss. Very well done. Look at this. It's basically a teenager peering up through the bleachers during cheerleader tryouts. She does some cool action stuff, uses those bracelets of submission to put these guys in submission. I don't think she uses those even one time in Wonder Woman 84. In fact, in that film, she forgets she even has weapons at all. But I already roasted that. And if you haven't, please subscribe to the channel, Adam Does Movies. There's a new roast. I try to put them out every single week. So it just behooves you to stick around. And then you can check that one out. Anyway, now on the other side of the world, Bruce Wayne is looking for a merman. He puts up $20,000 to the poor person who can point the way to the mysterious man who comes out during King's Tide. Remember the fuck that means. I don't want to be that guy, but this is a pretty poor small village in the middle of nowhere and they're reliant on a mystical person from the water to bring them food once in a while during this King Tide thing, this whole ordeal. Maybe multi-billionaire Bruce Wayne could cut him a check regardless. Just throwing that out there is an option. Also, I looked up King Tide off-camera. It just means the wave is at its highest foundation. It's largest form. It's peak. Arthur finally shows up. These two knuckleheads exchange words. And then he steps into a completely different movie. Look at this shit. The green screen, the lighting is way off. This looks terribly rushed. Aquaman swims away after rejecting Bruce Wayne's pleas for help. Side note, because there's a lot of reshoots, you can noticeably see Ben Affleck's weight shifting throughout this flick. It's quite impressive. We're now with Ezra Miller, who appears to be checking into prison in real life. Seems on brand. But no, he's actually there to visit his fictitious dad. And it's not Ezra Miller, but Barry Allen. That's the character here. The flash. Side note, and it may just be me here, but the dude behind him looks like Bruce Willis. In this one shot. Just this one shot. Got a Bruce Willis vibe. Barry says hi to his dad. The scene is four seconds long. Now at Starlab. We see a scientist talking to his son, Victor, who's off in the shadows. He's super emo, sporting a hoodie like he's ready to step into a rap battle. Victor and his father talk about a car accident that made Victor who he is today and killed the mom outright. Bottom line, Victor, aka Cyborg? Not thrilled about the situation. In fact, he's pretty pissed. And he can fly. He shows off. He's like, look what I can do, dad. Thanks. Meanwhile, old timey janitor that Victor's dad briefly spoke to earlier in the film, he's in the hallway mopping up and oh, here comes an alien bug. We don't know what happens to Moppy. I'm guessing he died though. The scene is four seconds long. Suddenly at Themyscara on a budget, we're with the Amazonian gals inside of a chamber, chatting it up about a mother box they have in front of them. The box starts to stir for a little bit before a giant alien comes out of nowhere, crashes down in a supervillain pose, and he's pretty imposing himself. These ladies know who he is as one of them mumbles his name. Steppenwolf. He calls the box mother, which in 2023 could mean several different things. There's a good chance the teens today might think he wants to bang this thing. Steppenwolf releases the bug army into the Chamber of Secrets. We have a good old fashioned battle. Wonder Woman's mom, hippopotamus, needs to seal the room. She goes by the hammer brothers who smash beams, sealing Steppenwolf and the other women inside the chamber. Good luck getting out of that. Oh, he got out already. I'm not gonna lie, I dig this. This whole video game cutscene shit is really fun. I'm eating it up. I want more of it. Wolfie gets the box and disappears as Hippogriff yells out that they have to light the fires of a magical chimney so that Wonder Woman can see and do something about it because these ladies refuse to leave their island. Thanks for the help, gals. Thankfully it worked because Diana at that very moment was like touching up a statue she looks over and mumbles, Invasion. We're now treated to coffee with the girls. This is definitely a Joss Whedon scene. That's right, we have Martha. Why'd you say that name? Kent and Amy. I'm better than these films. Why am I in them? Adams. I went to the bathroom really quickly during this, came back and it was over. The scene was four seconds long. Cyborg, Moody as ever, is now looking through a digital scrapbook featuring our superheroes. That's nice. That scene was four seconds long. Diana swings by Bruce Wayne's shop and mentions her long lost love Steve. Shocker. It's now her only character trait. That's fun. They're now having a walk and talk about the mother boxes. Exposition dump time. We get a cool little war sequence featuring some cameos from Green Lanterns and a guy from 300. She explains how these three boxes were given to different races. The hot chicks, the mermaids, and the dipshits. The Amazonians seal it in a room with 24 hour protection. The Atlanteans do something similar, deep underwater with patrols all over the place. The humans? They just bury it. Just throw it in the fucking ground, walk away. It's awesome. The scene ends with a camera pan over to Victor who is hooded up behind a tree listening in. Just crack a smile once Eminem. You're supposed to be happy shouting boo-yah, not boo-hoo. Barry Allen opens up his man cave only to find Bruce Wayne sitting in his second favorite chair, his words. And in my own personal headcanon, I'd like to think Bruce Wayne was sitting there for five hours or more. Just plain angry birds in the dark waiting for Barry to return home. Alfred gets on the calm pleading him to come back to the mansion, but Bruce is not having it. He's just sitting there like, no, this is gonna be awesome. He's gonna come in, he's gonna be like, whoa, how did Bruce Wayne get in here? What is going on? And I'm just gonna be like a boss in his chair going, yeah, who's got next? No, he's not out of town, Alfred. Don't lie to me. I know he's coming back. Outside of a terrible joke about brunch, this is actually a fine scene. Cyborg slides into Diana's DMs and sets up a nice little meet and greet. This scene only exists to get Gal Gadot in tight leather pants. No notes. I guess technically, she convinces Victor to join the team, fine. But how does this independent, strong, beautiful, intelligent, individual woman get him to join the cause? Well, by crying, of course, about Steve Trevor again. Works every time. She knew Steve for like an extended weekend. I cannot get over how this is her only character trait now. How embarrassing for her. By the way, this scene was four seconds long. Under the sea, Jason Momoa and Amber heard fight Steppenwolf. There's no setup to this. There's no talking at all. The scene just happens instantly. This movie's hilarious. After a 30-second fight, Steppy grabs the box and he's off to the races. Mira makes an ugly CG bubble and they step inside and once again into a completely different film. This looks so bad. They chat for a bit about unrelated matters like what a healthy relationship looks like or how to win a civil suit in court. Steppenwolf looks to have set up shop inside of a decommissioned Russian nuclear plant. There's a family nearby. They don't seem thrilled with the new neighbor. J.K. Simmons is for some reason in this now. He plays Lieutenant Gordon. I love this guy. I can't wait to see what he brings to the table as far as this character's... And this scene's done. It's over. It was four seconds long. Oh wait, now he's back? He turned on the bat blob symbol in the sky. Oscar award winner, J.K. Simmons. Two minutes of screen time, maybe? Batman does this really stupid hop down. Were you guys impressed? It's so funny. Every scene he's in going forward is a complete shit show. He's just different levels of cringe. He looks at everyone who's clearly more powerful than him. Wonder Woman's a fucking Amazonian. The flash can run faster than the speed of light. Aquaman has super strength. He can communicate with fishes. And Batman's just this rich old dude. So he's constantly like trying to find ways to flex and peacock. Did you see that jump? Did you see the hop down from the ledge? It was like a good... It was like a good eight feet up. Anyway, at least now we get some time with J.K. Simmons character and I can see why they picked him for... And the scene is done again. It's over. It was four seconds long. Our Justice League awkwardly jumps down into the sewer. This is such a terrible shot. Why? This whole film is really nothing more than a collection of silly jumps. Oh, there's Wonder Woman. Almost full cheek out at this point. I'd like to think that off camera, Joss Whedon is whispering into the ear of the onset seamstress to keep removing inches at a time of Wonder Woman's skirt. So that by the time the movie's fully completed, she's daffy ducking it. Full porky pig. Steppenwolf is now trying to find the location of the brilliantly hidden box underground. So he's grilling some of the locals. One of which is Victor's dad. We have another fight scene, and Wonder Woman gets to square off one on one against Steppenwolf. Batman gets to try out his new toy, the Nightcrawler. And you know what? That's actually a sweet jump. I like how he did that. He tucked the knees up. That's pro level. He, of course, ruins this instantly by saying, I didn't bring a sword. What? The fuck even said so? Who brought up swords? Why is that the line he uses? And also, can people even hear him? It's not like there's Bluetooth headsets in their ears. I assume this thing is armored, bulletproof, soundproof. He said that for himself. He said that to make himself feel cool. No one else heard it, and that was a terrible. Lame line to say. On top of that, he doesn't actually do anything with the Nightcrawler. He smashes up a couple levels. I think he fires a little bit of the machine guns, maybe takes out two or three of these bug things. And that's it. That's it. Usually when you say a cool line, in this case it wasn't a cool line, but it was an attempt to be one, you do something cool afterwards. You don't say, like, knock, knock, and then start shooting twice, and then get taken out. You're supposed to be like, surprise motherfuckers. Steppenwolf looks over. They blow up half the bridge. Batman's kicking ass. He launches himself out, starts throwing his batarangs, spear hooks a dude in the chest. How do you like me now? Pulls out his trusty shotgun that Batman's known to have. Nothing of that happens. And now for the most pointless scene in the entire film. The fall. The sword tip. It's all absolutely useless. Flash runs around in circles, quick silver-esque style with a lot more lightning. Tips Wonder Woman's sword back to her. She grabs the sword, and as she's falling, turns and cuts one of these para demons I believe they're called, hits the ground, and immediately has to be saved by flash. Otherwise, that thing is gonna crash down on her, whatever the debris is that's falling. Probably Batman's tank I already forgot, and I took notes on it. So what was the point? To kill one para demon? What was it gonna do anyways? Shoot Wonder Woman with its little P-Gun? Oh, ow. I forgot. I'm impervious to bullets and lasers. Stupid. Oh, and then it gets even better. Flash gets taken out, he trips, breaks his ankle presumably, falls down. Uh-oh, what's gonna happen? Nothing! He gets right back up and saves Wonder Woman two seconds later. There was no point to that at all. There's no tension, there's no stakes. Why? Why? But oh, don't worry. After he saves her, he lands on her chest so we get that comical moment that no one in the world laughed at. Amazing. Thanks for the reshoots, Joss Whedon, you hack. Cyborg does what Batman can't. Gets inside the vehicle, the nightcrawler activates its different missiles and functionality and starts busting up shop. He does get off a couple missiles too, but unfortunately, Steppenwolf, lettered in baseball, catches the thing and then just tosses it against the side of the wall which blows open, revealing a bunch of water and Aquaman who was just there. He was just sitting outside. Like, I don't know what he was doing, talking to some fucking fish and he comes in, kind of bails him out and it doesn't matter because Steppi's gone. We then cut to a shot of Arthur Curry making fun of Bruce Wayne for dressing up as a bat because of course he does, Batman's a complete joke in this. He's a clown show. Now thankfully, we get to spend some more time with this Russian family who's absolutely critical to this film. The girl pulls open the cupboard, grabs some bug spray and that's it. That's the entirety of this clip. It was four seconds long. In the Batcave, the team is finally together and there is still an hour left of this film. I hate myself. Bruce Mock's Wonder Woman which I gotta give him respect for but then she barely shoves him and he's like, I assume every bone in his body broke and he's just fighting back the tears and pain like but I know that fucking hurt. He then comes with the dim-witted idea of resurrecting Superman. His best friend. That's right, they're gonna use one of the Martha boxes to bring this guy's ass back to life because again, Batman can't live without this guy. They had such a personal bond, such a bromance in BVS for all of seven to 10 seconds. In an attempt to make the audience care even a little about this film, Victor and Barry head out to the grave to dig up Superman's old bones. I sure hope it works. The scene was four seconds long. They prepare for resurrection inside a Kryptonian ship. Cyborg does a bunch of Cyborg stuff to make this thing work but he still needs Flash to set a spark and he has to do this right as the box touches the fluid. I hope this works. The stakes couldn't be lower. Barry has already started his dumb ass run. What is this run? No one in the world runs like this. Kaboom! The ship ejaculates a freshly birthed Kryptonian. He lands appropriately next to a broken statue of himself. Broken statue. Broken franchise. He turns to face the team who's all there minus Batman because Batman forgot the bike at home. Diana, sensing danger, does her very best to stop a fight from breaking out and in order to really inspire and convince Superman not to do anything drastic, she yells out in a low tone Cal-L now. I'm honestly surprised it didn't work. With the amount of passion she put into that, the raw energy on display. The performance there could have moved mountains. Hell, it moved me. Cox on the table. I actually like this scene quite a bit. It's fun. It's silly. I like how Flash is doing his run in slow-mo and Cal-L does the eye turn. Like, yeah, I'm just as fast as you, bro. Batman's here after presumably stealing a kid's tracicle and biking his ass over. I love this scene. Batman is such a douchebag. Superman picks him up by his fucking face and pulls him in and says, tell me, do you bleed? And then he just throws him and we don't even hear him hit the grout. He's just off camera. He's just like, ugh, he's so pathetic. And the reason he threw him and I think the reason Batman took so long is because he got on the horn with Amy Adams and convinced her to come calm her man down. Lois Lane comes up and she's like, hey, son's getting real low, big guy. The final nail in the Dark Knight's coffin is this beautiful top-down bird's-eye view shot of him keeled over on the ground like he's in a family guy's skit. Just sitting there, ugh. Oh my God, it's so bad. It's so bad it's good. And just to put a cherry on the top, Bruce forgot to secure the mother box. He just left it behind. He left it behind. Steppenwolf takes it. They just see the portal of him leaving. And Batman's like, oh, fuck my ass. I forgot to secure the box. Oh, this is embarrassing. Gets back on his tricycle. Tried to get out of dodge. Needless to say, the team's a bit bummed. Their plan didn't work out in the slightest. They are however determined to win the war with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whatever it takes, they'll even hire on Joss Whedon, the guy that did the Avengers films. Diana, now we're in a shawl for whatever reason, I guess they needed to have her in another wardrobe. Whedon's like, ah, quickly, what can we do? We gotta sell another toy. Here, throw this shawl on. She does some chiropractic work on Bruce and brace herself. This is gonna be pretty crazy to hear, but she brings up Steve again. Chalky! At the Kent Farm, Lois and Clark are standing in the cornfield. Because that's what normal people do. They don't stand in the front yard. They don't stand in the driveway. They don't go into the house. They take the time to walk a ways into the cornfield with the bugs and the pesticides and all that. This is a normal thing people do. It's relatable. I know when I go to Grand Pappy's house for a picnic, the whole family gathers in the center of the cornfield. We put out the picnic tables and, you know, there's stocks kind of hanging over on the food, but it really feels like home out there. He explains how being back from the dead is itchy and they hug. It's powerful stuff. Sure glad he was killed off so we could bring him back for these profound moments. Martha comes back just in time for a good old-fashioned corn hug. She runs out there as well as all people do. Now, to some, this may not be relatable and it may come off a bit... corny. But to me, it works. Apologize for the pun. It's time for one last ride. The team gears up for a fight in Russia, specifically inside of a giant purple ball sack shield. Embrace yourself. The rest of this film is presented in ugly-ass retrovision. The color grading is atrocious. It's actually way worse than I recall. I don't know what happened. Batman's in the Batmobile and he's leading the Parademons away from the rest of the crew that can hopefully actually get something accomplished. He knows he's useless, so at least he became bait for the good of the cause. Batman gets on the horn with Alfred and says, they're coming. They're all coming. Maybe just a once-over on the script would have been fine. The bad guys from Killzone 2 start attacking the Batmobile. Thankfully, all the other members aren't near as useless as he is and they come to his aid. So the diversion was kind of kind of pointless, I guess. This ride ain't over yet, my man. It's pandemonium. A lot of fighting going on. A lot of reds and oranges happening. While Cyborg is trying to insert himself into the mother boxes. I heard how it sounded. While this is taking place that super important critical family is trying to escape Ivan Ooze's purple CG blob tentacles. Batman's blaster is out of juice. So he's out of ideas. Thankfully, Superman shows up to save the day. Rendering everyone else in this film absolutely useless. So Batman's not alone. Which is nice. Superman hears civilians in danger, though, so he leaves right away. He's like, boom, I'm here. Hey, Steppenwolf. Wait, I gotta go. And Batman's like, yeah. There goes my best friend. We're best friends. He catches up to the fastest man alive, the Flash, who I guess was running at half speed, up until that point. He had a massive head start on Superman. And Superman caught up to him like it was nothing. After saving pretty much everyone, the man of steel goes back and starts fighting Steppenwolf again. Bailing out the rest of the team members. If the team members weren't around, Superman wouldn't have to do all this juggling of saving people. It'd be way easier if they just died. He, and I guess Cyborg helps, separate the mother boxes. It explodes. And Batman's worried that Superman didn't make it out. He's like, oh, my friend, Clark, Clark. Oh, he's okay. Thank, oh, thank, thank Martha. Oh my God, thank Martha. The celebration, however, is short-lived as Steppenwolf is back, baby. But the parademons smell with the rocks cooking and they take off after their master because he's living in fear now and they feast out that. That's like the one decent callback that Joss Whedon set up in that reshoot at the beginning on the fake rooftop. That's like the one callback that's okay. This movie's such a shit show, it doesn't matter. And I have to say, this is a bizarre shot of Wonder Woman. Look how happy she is to see this guy get absolutely wrecked, eaten alive. It's the only way she can achieve climax now. These creatures pull him into the Bifrost and back to Asgard. The Justice League winds down, has a nice heroic pose and looks on at the world they saved. Surrounded by CG. And yes, you can stop holding your breath. The Russian family has been saved. What a relief. We wind down with Barry's dad being proud of him. Lois writing some lame story. And for some reason, she's narrating the movie now. She didn't open with the narration. Why is she closing it out? She's barely been in this film. Bruce gives Diana a tour of a room that will never be used again in future films. Flash does his dumb fucking run again. No one runs like this. And Wonder Woman looks hot. Oh my god, there's Gordon again. This scene lasted four seconds. And we finally end with Superman flying away from this movie. And this franchise. And I have to say, I love how this movie starts with the world in shambles mourning the loss of their savior, their hero, Superman. But we don't get to see them celebrate his return. Why kill him off if you're not even going to do the payoff bringing him back and letting people rejoice and be happy again and see things better. It's just so awful. Just miserable. Well, there you have it. The Justice League. A messy cartoonish waste of time and talent. It's a watchable hot mess that there's no reason to ever watch. These actors and characters are likeable. There's a couple bright spots in the flick. I think all of them are from Zack Snyder. But this should have been an easy W for the franchise. Bringing these awesome characters together characters that were way more popular before the MCU took over. Like Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash. These guys were all way above Iron Man. But then they just got freaking steamrolled. They got embarrassed. It's sad. It's just, it's a shame. Thank you, Master Sgt. Once again for the pick. Have you seen this film? Did you, did you suffer through the two hour flick? Let me know in the comments below. If you're new here, again, I would ask you to subscribe. I would appreciate it. I post movie content each and every week. A lot of it, it's good stuff. I mean, and if you really like it, I encourage you to join up on Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies or become a member right here on YouTube via that join button. And if you are subscribed, get the notification bell so they show up in your feed. You have to, you have to hit the bell. You gotta fly up and punch that bastard. Oh, and good news fam. Next week's roast is already on the docket. It's been picked out by a Patreon supporter. It's Suicide Squad. We just can't quit the DCEU, I guess. It's gonna be good.