Justice League was supposed to be this massive, record-breaking blockbuster that would have set the stage for DCEU to expand and branch out into newer avenues. DC fans after a prolonged losing streak (except Wonder Woman) was banking on the success of JL as it featured some of the most popular and beloved DC superheroes, but it fell way short of expectations. Having said that, there was definitely an improvement from the previous movies as it was certainly a step in the right direction.
One of the factors that we love about the DCU is the fact that Ben Affleck is the one playing Batman. He is just the perfect and comic accurate version of the Caped Crusader that we could ever get. He has the right look for it, he knows and totally understands the character and plays it extremely well. People may not have liked it when Zack Snyder took the character to extremes and made him a killer, but we did love the warehouse fight where Batman took out around 20 thugs with his bare hands.
The warehouse fight was probably the best moment in the entire DCU, and apart from that if you think about it, Batman has been showed to be pretty dumb which is what frustrates us as fans. Bruce Wayne has a high intellect and the skills of a human at the peak of his abilities. But in these movies, Batman could not be the detective he is from the comics.
He is the world’s number one detective and could not figure out Superman’s secret identity in more than a year. Lex Luthor figured out who Superman was and who Batman was but Batman could not do that with all the resources at his disposal. Then came the Martha moment which was just outright dumb! Later during the Doomsday fight, Batman hid on the sidelines and did nothing but run. He only got to fire a grenade, that’s it. We know that he is just a human but in the comics, he has a plan for anything and everything, and here he played chicken.
In Justice League also, the parademons overpowered him in every aspect and throughout the movie, he barely managed to kill almost 10 of those damn insects and kept getting beaten or rescued by others. In the entire movie, he kept on moving from one gadget to another and we did not get any memorable moment like the Warehouse fight. If you look at the animated feature ‘Justice League War’, Batman kicked a lot of butts and managed to take down the Parademons who were a lot stronger than the ones in the live action movies. Also, all his gadgets and vehicles just kept crashing and were easily demolished when attacked. He brought the Nightcrawler, that was taken down, the Flying Fox did nothing but transport the League and then crashed.
Then came in the dumb final plan where Batman expected to distract all the Parademons while the League goes in and fights Steppenwolf in order to save the planet. This plan was so stupid as he attracted the Parademons towards him while riding the Batmobile which got in so many new upgraded weapons, but he did not last a second as the Parademons took out the guns within a second and it was of no use, and Batman was rescued by the team yet again. If the team would not have rescued Batman there, he would have been killed for no reason and all the Parademons would have been back with Steppenwolf and the League would have been one man short.
Even though Batman does not have any powers, he still is the most useful member of the team and here he was kind of this useless weak member that needed a lot of saving. Along with all these the biggest factor that angers hardcore Batman fans is the regular use and dependence upon guns. Batman does not use a gun no matter what happens. Here, he used the guns of the Parademons, he used guns in the Knightmare scene, his kryptonite grenade launcher was basically a gun and his tracker also came out of a Sniper. Batman takes out the bad guys with his gadgets, and even though we got to see that as well, but he still had to depend upon a lot of guns.
Then comes in the biggest thing which we did not like about Batman in Justice League. Most people may disagree, but Batman became the king of Quips in the movie in the name of lightheartedness. Every scene he was in, he made a joke. Batman does not do that at all. He may make a sarcastic comment because of his big attitude and make us laugh, but he does not crack us up in every scene he is in. Joss Whedon sort of ruined Batman for us if you get what I am trying to say over here.
Batman got no moment to shine except the Warehouse fight like he does in the comics or animated movies and shows or anywhere else for that matter. As much the makers tried to overpower him, he actually became quite under-powered than he actually is. If Affleck stays, then we need to see this fixed.
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