Justice League: The one problem with this DC movie

Justice League has one major flaw.

I had a fun time when it came to Justice League. It had interesting characters, exciting action moments, and a few comedic moments that played off very well. You can read our review of the movie here, but unfortunately other recounts of it have not been kind. Although there were plenty of problems with the film, there was one that really stuck out to me that I was absolutely surprised made it in the film. If you want to know what the problem is, read below and be warned that spoilers are ahead.

As noted, Justice League has issues but there’s one that stood out. It wasn’t how terrible the editing was (with obscure scene transitions and jarring scenes altered with cheap looking re-shoots), it wasn’t all of the lame jokes from The Flash, or how utterly boring Steppenwolf was as the villain — we literally saw the characters digging up Superman’s grave.

First of all, although I like to avoid as much marketing as I can, Superman’s return in Justice League was an open secret. I didn’t exactly know how they would bring him back, but I was excited to see how. The only sign of Superman in the trailers was a close-up shot of Alfred talking to presumably Superman about how he may be “too late” to help in the fight. However, that scene was not in the movie, and was potentially left out after reshoots and editing.

Instead, we saw Cyborg and The Flash shoveling dirt to retrieve the coffin of Clark Kent. And while they are doing this really disrespectful thing, Flash is trying to crack jokes with someone who also was brought back from the dead, Cyborg.

After that, they smuggle the coffin to the Kryptonian ship and try to resurrect him using the alien technology, a Mother Box, and a perfectly-timed lightning strike from the Flash. It wasn’t how they did it that bothered me, it was that they showed Superman’s corpse, pale skin and other details I didn’t want to know about in my superhero movie. That aspect of the film was incredibly morbid. Even though some of the characters like Flash and Aquaman say they think it’s wrong or disrespectful, that isn’t an excuse.

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Out of all this movie’s problems, the image of these heroes digging up a characters grave and carrying his lifeless body felt incredibly out of place, like they were creating Frankenstein’s monster or something. Those moments felt like a slap in the face to the character we’ve gotten to know over two movies. But after that, I enjoyed all the other scenes that included Superman (besides the fight in the beginning that wasn’t needed or could have been shorter). So if you can get over the awkward morbid aspects if this story, Justice League is still a fun time at the movies.