Marvel didn’t only establish a cinematic universe with the success of movies like “Iron Man” and “Captain America: The First Avenger,” it changed the shape of Hollywood.  In many ways, it was no longer enough to make a good movie; every big budget flick also had to establish its own universe to compete with Marvel’s runaway money train.  Others have done it successfully (some even before Marvel) but for every “Harry Potter” or “Hunger Games” the average movie goer got to see, they were also subjected to a dozen “Maze Runners” and… it breaks my heart to say this, movies like “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of who even cares anymore you showed us the whole movie in the trailer.”

I honestly enjoyed “Man of Steel,” had a pretty good time with BvS, and even liked “Suicide Squad” the first time I saw it.  When I tried again (sober) a few months later, however, there was no question: DC movies were so interested in establishing a universe to market future movies, they forgot to make any good ones now.  That wasn’t the only problem with them, of course.  Zack Snyder, who helmed “Man of Steel” and BvS is clearly an incredible cinematographer, but he’s not a very good story-teller.  His movies are ripe with hauntingly beautiful imagery and not much else.

As I rewatched the director’s cut of what should have been the culmination of 30-some years of nerdery in “Batman V. Superman” recently, it was clear: Zach Snyder is just still making that smelly turd of an art film glazed in super hero spandex, “The Watchmen.”  Sure, it was a pretty movie and it managed to tell a decent story, but once you got past the beauty of its aesthetic, you’re just stuck with three and half hours of some blue guy’s junk waving in the breeze on Mars while he writes breakup poetry about space. “Wonder Woman” was a blessed reprieve from DC’s general suckery, but it wasn’t enough to convince us about the franchise as a whole.

You can’t review a movie like “Justice League” without first going over all of that for a reason.  DC’s critical failures leading up to their latest outing don’t just represent the elephant in the room as you take your seat in theaters, they’re weighing you down, dragging at you from the depths of bad movie hell.  If you look at the social media traffic leading up to the release of “Justice League,” you’ll find words like “hope” and “please” in abundance, because fans, like me, want to like these movies… if only they’d give us a reason to.

And I’m relieved to report that they finally have.

We’re surprised too.

“Justice League” is far from a perfect movie.  It isn’t easy to put together an ensemble cast of protagonists, many of whom haven’t seen much screen time before, and allow for character development, a healthy plot, and a kick-ass villain.  “Justice League” chose to focus on the character development primarily, the plot to a lesser extent, and its villain Steppenwolf was… well… forgettable enough that in a few weeks, a Google search for his name will go back to yielding more results for the song “Born to be Wild,” than the disposable CGI monster featured in the movie.

With that said, what “Justice League” did right was bridge the gap between DC’s quality animated universe and sub-par cinematic one.  The tone of the world is both realistic and cartoonish in just the right ways to let us focus on the fun stuff.  As much as I loved Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, for instance, his effort to ground the hero’s journey with financial troubles (somehow stealing stocks made them shut the power off at his house?) just reminded us that money is fleeting, my power bill is late, and maybe Batman should lay off the airplanes and focus on mutual funds.