Justice League Review (2017)

Grade: D+

While watching “Justice League” you can easily discern which version of the film is Zack Snyder’s and which version is Joss Whedon’s, who was brought in late to finish the movie after Snyder had to step away due to a family emergency. Snyder’s picture can be found in the stylish slow motion action scenes and the muted, air brushed visual aesthetic. It can also be glimpsed in the thematic gloominess.

On the other hand, Whedon’s “Justice League” is contained mainly in the script: the silly one-liners and comedic repartee between our heroes that eases some of the gloominess. The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. There are a few funny moments--one involving Wonder Woman’s (Gal Gadot) honesty lasso and the cocky Aquaman (Jason Momoa). But you can’t just tape some goofy zingers on top of a muddled and all around uninspired screenplay and expect a good movie to emerge. I laughed occasionally but I mostly groaned as the bland, messy narrative unfolded.

“Justice League” features yet another one-dimensional super villain, a mythical alien with a Viking helmet named Steppenwolf, (Ciaran Hinds) who wants to turn the world into a flaming hellscape, literally. His army of loyal demons resemble mutant zombie Man-Mosquitos and can apparently smell fear; a point that’s brought up twice and not really expanded upon. Steppenwolf uses portals to travel around the globe. He’s looking for three powerful energy cubes that will help him carry out his master plan. It’s obligatory for superhero movies to contain at least one portal and one meaningless Macguffin. “Justice League” has at least five portals and three Macguffins.

Anyway, while Steppenwolf is off doing his bad guy thing the rest of the world is in a dark place, due to Superman’s (Henry Cavill) death in last year’s “Batman v Superman.” The opening credit sequence is a sad montage of people being sad about Superman’s death, racists harassing an Arab shop owner in Metropolis and a homeless man looking sad with a sign that reads: “At least I tried.” There’s unrest and very little hope, a perfect environment for Batman, (Ben Affleck, looking like he doesn’t want to be here) Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller, whose entire performance consists of smart alecly comments) to join forces.

But they’re not teaming up to ease the pessimism and pain in the world, they’re teaming up to face off against a rote CGI villain in a climactic CGI battle and they have to recover three CGI MacGuffins. The apocalypse brewing at the center of “Justice League” is hollow and contrived. The comedic interjections further undermine the film’s serious intentions.

Maybe the most surprising thing about “Justice League” is that, at just under two hours not including credits, it’s not long enough. I’m all for action movies being leaner but this is clearly a big film that’s been severely abridged in the editing room. There’s a lot of ground to cover—establishing new bad guys, introducing new superheroes and having superheroes join forces. These are crucial narrative stages that have been squeezed into a small time frame and as a result the movie is in a constant state of fast-forwarding.  So much of “Justice League” is rushed, convoluted set up that our heroes don’t get a chance to gel as a unit and find a consistent comedic rhythm.

“The Avengers” worked because Disney played the long game. There were five movies that focused on the individual Avengers before they teamed up. Warner Bros. is trying to force things and it shows. “Justice League” has to do the work of four movies. Brand new character Cyborg goes from being a conflicted outsider who doesn’t want to join the Justice League in one scene, to an essential part of the team a couple scenes later, taking on tasks like he’s been a member for years.

Chunks of the film are so condensed and disjointed. A section involving Super Man in particular feels gutted, like the remnants of a larger sub plot. Emotional scenes between Superman and girl friend Lois Lane (Amy Adams, in a thankless role) are sappy and tonally inconsistent. When the team enters a top-secret base there are awkward lapses in logic and continuity. Maybe a two and half hour Snyder cut wouldn’t have been better but this trimmed down version doesn’t work.

Ultimately, I walked out of “Justice League” feeling apathetic more than anything else. The movie sets out to establish the core unit of the Justice League and it does so in the blandest way possible. There is comedy, sure, but it increasingly feels strained and out of place. The blending of Whedon’s wit with Synder’s aesthetic doesn’t feel organic. “The Avengers” was a satisfying commingling of heroes we had gotten to know, the result of years of build up and anticipation. “Justice League” is like a dull, tonally uneven TV pilot. But Whedon can walk away from this experience saying, “at least I tried.”

The Stanford Prison Experiment Review (2015)

It doesn’t take long for the Stanford Prison Experiment to stop feeling like an experiment and start feeling like a real, unpleasant prison situation. It doesn’t take long for the eighteen year old boys who’ve been selected to play mock prison guards to become too drunk with power and the boys who’ve been selected to play mock prisoners to be abused and degraded and thinking they’re actually prisoners. However, Stanford Psychology professor Dr. Phillip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) keeps the study going.

Kyle Patrick Alverez’s alarming, uncomfortable “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is about the psychology behind the abuse of power; what kinds of situations make seemingly normal people turn cruel? It’s also a fascinating portrait of an obsessed, egotistical professor who’s determined to see his experiment through until the end. Additionally, the movie forces you to step into the shoes of the characters and think about what you would do in their situation  

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted from August 14, 1971 to August 20, in the cramped, windowless basement of the Stanford University Psychology building. The goal of the study was to test the effects of prison on an individual. It took less than forty-eight hours for test subjects to assimilate into their dominant or submissive roles. The mock guards began inflicting psychological torture and humiliation—making them do continuous push-ups and jumping jacks, making them recite their prison number again and again, taking their beds away, making them go to the bathroom in metal buckets, tying them up, etc.

It’s disturbing how much a brown uniform, a pair of sunglasses and a nightstick can empower someone. It’s even more disturbing to see the pleasure and glee some of the “guards” take in humiliating their prisoners. In the movie, the meanest one (Michael Angarano) adopts a phony southern accent, imitating the sadistic prison captain Strother Martin from “Cool Hand Luke.”  On the other side of the coin we witness mock prisoner Daniel (Ezra Miller) have a complete mental breakdown. Within two days, he goes from cocky and loud-mouthed, not taking the experiment very seriously, to a hysterical and frightened wreck.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” is intense and unsettling; I went from nervously clutching my shoulders to violently biting my nails. Through a minimal, unassuming docudrama style, Alverez establishes an unnerving sense of heightened realism. He makes good use of the cramped “prison” setting, making an already stressful watching experience more stressful and claustrophobic. Cinematographer Jas Shelton often employs tracking shots taking us up and down the hallway, imitating the action of one frantically pacing back and forth. While watching, the picture hits you on a visceral level; you feel angry at the actions taking place on screen. How can these guys be so cruel?

And yet, when the credits role, the movie forces you to think logically about the situation. Your initial gut instinct is to pass judgment on the boys but it’s easy to do that from a position of spectatorship. It’s easy to say, “I would never do this” but if you were actually in their shoes, would that be the case? Similar to “Compliance” and “The Hunt,” “The Stanford Prison Experiment” evokes such a strong initial reaction out of you but then forces you to go back and examine it more closely. In the end you may be firm in your stance that you would never do such cruel things but hopefully you will have also considered multiple sides. We may all be capable of inflicting psychological torture.

 A bevy of talented young actors mostly seen in independent projects portray the test subjects--Miller, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons and Thomas Mann, among others--who all give authentic performances, even if their characters remain somewhat underdeveloped. However, Crudup is the standout-- delivering an obsessive, unsympathetic, slightly sociopathic performance that really digs deep into the character’s psyche. The study ends up taking Zimbardo some dark places, places I’m sure he never thought he’d go. Near the middle he says to the other Psychologists assisting him, “I had no idea it would turn out this way, but this is important to me.” He’s become so intertwined in the experiment that he demonstrates a disregard for his subjects. Things get iffy early but he pushes on because of a selfish determination. He even becomes so obsessed that he alienates himself from his girlfriend and fellow psychologists. By the end of the film it’s just him, watching the action unfold on a video monitor from another room.

“The Stanford Prison” is an engrossing psychological drama; one that affects you on a gut level as well as a cerebral one. A movie capable of conjuring up that kind of duel response is nothing short of successful.

B+