Despite the initial reviews of this movie being horrible, I decided I'd take it in at a matinée simply because it's a comic book movie and watching it would keep me up to speed with the DC Cinematic Universe. I'm glad I did. This movie isn't at all as bad as the first reviews suggested.
Granted, one disclaimer to that statement would be that this isn't a terrible movie for the genre of movie it finds itself in. This is a comic book fan's comic book movie. It's a movie that introduces over half a dozen characters to the silver screen, and a movie whose plot revolves around a somewhat stereotypical "good" guys vs. really powerful bad guy type of story.
Still, the movie tells its story well for the most part, and the overall production isn't terrible. The characters are likable enough, so much so that it has inspired me to want to look up the ones that I know the least about so as to learn more about their comic book versions. The acting was good on the whole (albeit Will Smith has the uncanny ability to always play Will Smith in any role that he's given), and the effects were tolerable overall, even if a bit underwhelming by today's standards.
The biggest flaw I found in the movie is that some of the characters are given more robust introductions than others. Katana, in particular, shows up out of nowhere with little to no introduction outside of a flashback scene that doesn't really tell you much by way of introduction. The lopsidedness of the introductions felt a bit off to me--but I will say that the group seemed to allow for all of the characters to join in the fight scenes as the film progressed, so I suppose that helped to equal out that issue.
All that said, I'm giving this movie 6/10 stars. That means that I find this to be a good movie overall, but one that just barely crosses the good/bad movie threshold. It's enjoyable enough, but not really a top notch film that you have to see before you up and die.
One last note: It should be obvious enough if you know anything whatsoever about the film or its source material, but this film is violent and uses a lot of foul language--so much so that I'm surprised it got a PG-13 rating. In my opinion it's more rightly an R rated film, and so don't assume that just because this movie is based on a comic book that it's going to be family friendly. It's certainly not that at all.
Granted, one disclaimer to that statement would be that this isn't a terrible movie for the genre of movie it finds itself in. This is a comic book fan's comic book movie. It's a movie that introduces over half a dozen characters to the silver screen, and a movie whose plot revolves around a somewhat stereotypical "good" guys vs. really powerful bad guy type of story.
Still, the movie tells its story well for the most part, and the overall production isn't terrible. The characters are likable enough, so much so that it has inspired me to want to look up the ones that I know the least about so as to learn more about their comic book versions. The acting was good on the whole (albeit Will Smith has the uncanny ability to always play Will Smith in any role that he's given), and the effects were tolerable overall, even if a bit underwhelming by today's standards.
The biggest flaw I found in the movie is that some of the characters are given more robust introductions than others. Katana, in particular, shows up out of nowhere with little to no introduction outside of a flashback scene that doesn't really tell you much by way of introduction. The lopsidedness of the introductions felt a bit off to me--but I will say that the group seemed to allow for all of the characters to join in the fight scenes as the film progressed, so I suppose that helped to equal out that issue.
All that said, I'm giving this movie 6/10 stars. That means that I find this to be a good movie overall, but one that just barely crosses the good/bad movie threshold. It's enjoyable enough, but not really a top notch film that you have to see before you up and die.
One last note: It should be obvious enough if you know anything whatsoever about the film or its source material, but this film is violent and uses a lot of foul language--so much so that I'm surprised it got a PG-13 rating. In my opinion it's more rightly an R rated film, and so don't assume that just because this movie is based on a comic book that it's going to be family friendly. It's certainly not that at all.