So The Justice League Of America (JLA) is going to become a movie. Jessica Biel is strongly rumoured to play Wonder Woman, but Christian Bale and Brandon Routh won't be reprising their roles as Batman and Superman, respectively.
Now, I'm not a comic-book nerd, but I have enjoyed various superhero-related cartoons, television series and movies throughout my life, so why does the prospect of JLA fill me with utter dread and boredom?
I think it's because a live-action JLA movie is doomed to fail, like the 1997 TV Pilot. Here's why:
1. Recasting Batman and Superman, two iconic characters that have undergone expensive and successful "comebacks" recently, is a supremely bad idea. JLA will immediately be perceived as a strange interloper for casual fans, and the poor actors who get these roles can expect endless vitriol from fans of Bale and Routh. Yes, it's more likely JLA could actually find a Superman who's better than Routh (sorry Brandon), but do you really think anyone is going to top Christian Bale as Batman? Not a chance.
2. The concept of "superhero groups" has always been crap, in its purest sense of just lumping a bunch of established characters together. Everyone knows it's a feeble, imaginatively bankrupt idea to get attention and appeal to multiple crowds of fans. Just take Aliens Vs Predator.
Do you like Superman? Love Batman? What about Wonder Woman? Do you like The Flash? How about Green Lantern? You do? Cool! Well, imagine a film with all of them co-starring together! Yeah, I can imagine, actually... I can imagine a hideous mess. A case of too many cooks, in fact. Superheroic groups only work if it's part of the film's theme (The Incredibles), your heroes aren't actually designed to be a functioning team (Heroes), or the gang has since broken up (Watchmen).
4. It's one thing to suspend disbelief so a businessmen can fight crime dressed as a bat, or alien kids can grow up to wear capes and become humanity's savior, but do we really buy that these characters exist together in one universe? Maybe in the realm of comic-books, or in a cartoon, but with a "serious" movie, with real actors? I just don't think so.
Batman and Superman movies have cutesy references to each other's location (Metropolis and Gotham), but that's tolerable in-jokery. It's nothing as troubling as having them both exist in each other's world! I mean, why the hell do the citizens of Gotham City need some playboy with a bat fetish if Superman is flying around?
5. Audiences are up to speed with Batman and Superman. They know the score with those characters after decades of them floating around in pop-culture. But the rest of this team? Wonder Woman is only known to the masses through the kitsch 70s TV series. Green Lantern? Most people just don't have a damn clue. The Flash. Hmmm, yeah the guy who can run really fast, right? Yeah, I remember a shitty 90s film with him in...
So straight away, JLA has to explain THREE less-popular characters to comic-book virgins. That's a big task. Batman had a whole movie dedicated to explaining his origins to people who already knew that character! Are audiences really going to get sufficient explanation of Wonder Woman's history, or how the Green Lantern and Flash gained their powers? Not a chance! You'll either get brief flashbacks, or it'll be left unexplained -- with the audience left to accept some bloke in red lycra can out-sprint Superman.
6. Either way, some great comic-book characters are going to be snubbed and treated badly. You know it, I know it. The Flash deserves his own film, as was planned before JLA was announced. Ditto Wonder Woman, with Joss Whedon writing and directing (fingers crossed). We could get solo films for these characters if JLA is a success -- a "spin-off", of sorts -- but if JLA bombs... kiss bye-bye to that great Wonder Woman script or David S. Goyer's meticulous plan for The Flash.
7. Fantastic Four: four great superheroes, two bad movies. X-Men: a truckload of superheroes, two good movies, one stinker. Both franchises concern superhero groups, but only X-Men worked. Why? Well, because Bryan Singer is a talented director and a fan, who assembled likeminded writers and has an eye for casting.
But, both were helped because there were blanket reasons for the disparate heroes' powers (evolution and a cosmic cloud). Compare these factors with JLA; which has George Miller directing. Yes, Miller -- a man in his 60s who's been dining out on Mad Max since 1979, but whose more recent work includes Babe: Pig In The City and Happy Feet. Yeah, Happy Feet was a big hit, but was that because of Miller, or because kids like dancing penguins? I rest my case.
8. The idea that any threat would need the services of five superheroes (working as a team) just doesn't ring true for me.
9. Justice League Of America. God, how jingoistic can you get? Do these superheroes only help Americans now then? Superman has some explaining to do. I know they're American comic-book icons, but I've always thought there's misplaced patriotism in JLA's title.
Look on the positive side, you say?
Okay. Well, I sincerely hope that Warner Brothers' decision to halt production of Superman: The Man Of Steel to make JLA, based on a script by Kieran and Michelle Mulroney, is because JLA actually has an amazing script (one that answers all of my criticism). If it's just because some greedy producer was amazed the Mulroney's script was legible, has $ signs where his eyes should be, and gets an erection at the concept... it's not so good. It's bad in fact.
Oh, and Jessical Biel is a wonderful choice to be poured into those star-spangled blue hot-pants as Wonder Woman. So good casting there, if it pans out. I just wish Biel could be given a whole movie to herself, without having to share the limelight. She'll just become the Jessica Alba of this movie, believe me.
And that's about it. Everything else has disaster written all over it. After The Dark Knight tears up cinemas next year, I advise director Christopher Nolan becomes a hermit to avoid watching his excellent work on Batman get pissed up the wall by a JLA cash-in film.
So please Warner Brothers, just leave the "juicy" prospect of JLA's multiple superheroes alone. It won't be a big-screen version of TV's Heroes, which is what you're secretly hoping. The idea works in the comics, but it should stay there -- as Smallville proved recently
What do you want? One big, expensive, conceptually-unlikely behemoth that cheapens your Superman and Batman revamps... or three superhero films to roll out each summer, introducing characters like Wonder Woman and The Flash to movie audiences properly?
Your choice.
