Review: Not even Wonder Woman can save ‘Justice League’

It’s hard not to feel a little bad for the DC Comics films at this point.

They have the unenviable task having to form an identity in the shadows of the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which are usually good and rarely unwatchable, and the continued glow of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which are seeming more and more like transcendent anomalies as we get deeper into this never-ending cycle of super humans crowding our multiplexes. DC got off to a rocky start and then Patty Jenkins went and made a very good “Wonder Woman.”

And yet somehow it is no surprise that “Justice League “tips the balances back in the wrong direction. Although marginally better than “Batman v Superman” and “Suicide Squad,” director Zack Snyder’s latest is still a profound mess of maudlin muscles, incoherent action and jawdroppingly awful CGI. It is big, loud, awful to look at and oh-so-dumb.

With Superman (Henry Cavill) dead, and the world facing yet another devastating threat (yawn) this time at the hands of some ancient creature named Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) and his army of giant alien mosquitoes, which look like Saturday morning Power Rangers villains, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman/Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) go in search of some new recruits: Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller), a quippy “kid” who’s excited to join the team; Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) who talks like a surfer bro and looks like a Nordic bodybuilder with ombre locks and fishermen’s knits; And Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher), who is still in the sulky “why me” phase of his superhero career.