Justice League: 29 Easter Eggs & References You Need To See

7. Joss Whedon's Trademark Random Civilians

The weirdest subplot in the entire movie involves a Russian family that is left caught in the middle of the battle between the Justice League and Steppenwolf's army.

Plotting of this sort will be incredibly familiar to anyone well-versed in prior superhero movies directed by Joss Whedon, because he pulled a similarly bizarre, laughably cheap trick in both The Avengers and its sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The Avengers had the random waitress saved by Captain America (who had a much larger role in scenes that were ultimately cut), and the sequel had the young Sokovian woman whose brother went missing amid Ultron's reign of chaos.

Just as with those scenes, the Russian family felt like a lazy attempt to imbue the digital carnage with some additional humanity, but in each instance, Joss Whedon forgot one thing: the audience doesn't really care about random people they don't know, no matter how cute they are.

It's a filmmaker signature at this point, and a bad one at that.