Review: Zack Snyder's Justice League
Zack Snyder’s Justice League, directed by, well, Zack Snyder, tells the tale of Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), who both team up to assemble a team of super heroes after the death of Superman (Henry Cavill). Things end up being more difficult than they thought however as the heroes they recruit have some emotional baggage of their own to deal with. But when the EVIL Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) arrives to Earth to prepare it for the arrival of his master Darkseid and his army of Parademons, it’s up to our rag-tag group of heroes to defend the Earth before it’s too late.
A long time ago, Zack Snyder was tasked with bringing together the Justice League on the big screen as a way to keep up with Marvel’s pace. Later on during production, however, Snyder’s daughter Autumn dies from suicide, and despite his best efforts to finish the film he had to step down as a result, leaving the project in the hands of writer/director Joss Whedon who also directed Marvel’s The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
After some extensive reshoots and studio meddling, we got 2017’s Justice League, which was a mediocre mess at best. Mixed reviews and middling box office results caused Warner Bros to scrap future plans for Justice League sequels, but the rabid DC fans insisted on seeing a mythical “Snyder Cut” of the film; one without Whedon’s reshoots and made with Snyder’s COMPLETE vision realized. After some fierce campaigning from the fans, Warner Bros relented and finally released the Snyder Cut in all it's four hour, uncompromised glory, and needless to say it was SIGNIFIGANTLY better than the theatrical cut.
Evidentially a lot of the story issues from 2017’s film was a result of crucial elements being cut out of the film. All the new introduced characters in this film now actually have character to them. Cyborg especially gets a lot of much needed personality here that was missing from the 2017 film, and Ray Fisher delivers exceptionally. Ezra Miller’s Flash also gets a huge improvement in his character from the 2017 film with this film fleshing him out to be more than the comic relief in a otherwise dreary film.
The film’s main antagonist Steppenwolf is now a lot more interesting as a villain; no longer is he just some big CGI monster the League has to defeat, he actually has motivation in this film. The progression of events is now tangible and purposeful, a lot of plot details in the film are thoroughly explained compared to the 2017 film where things happen because why not, and the action is a LOT more brutal and stylized here than in the 2017 film. There’s a lot of blood and gore here, people get spattered into walls, chopped in half, decapitated, burned to disintegration, they even drop multiple F-bombs for good measure. The film embraces its edgy nature for better or worse, depending on your view of if violence automatically make a movie better.
Snyder’s direction is a flashy as you’d expect, which might be cause for celebration or concern (again, your preference) as almost every scene is saturated with Snyder’s trademark use of slo-mo. It gets ridiculous at times, but at least I know this is a 100% bonafide Snyder film, compared to 2017’s film which was a Frankenstein project between two vastly different filmmakers. The film’s use of a boxed 4:3 aspect ratio was also a nice touch as everything now feels focused on the action. It’s stylish, ambitious, and it’s sure to satisfy even the most casual of DC fans.
My biggest issue, as you’d probably imagine in a four hour movie, was the fact that it’s a four hour movie. This is a lot of movie, and unfortunately the pacing’s pretty damn inconsistent. You got a lot of scenes that move the film along incredibly well, but you also got scenes that take their sweet time focusing on information that’s ultimately pointless for the purpose of this film. The last fifteen minutes of the film especially alone holds this film back from being truly great as it wastes a lot of time teasing a movie that’s most likely never going to happen. A lot of side characters either in the original cut (Willem Dafoe’s Vulko) or added at the last minute as a result of this film’s announcement (Jared Leto’s Joker) feel pretty unnecessary, turning the film into even more of a four hour slog-fest.
On a side note, the new score from Junkie XL was also wildly hit-or-miss from me. At times it’s appropriately awesome or meaningful, and at others it’s painfully derivative and annoying.
Overall despite being a four hour monster, it’s an enjoyable four hour monster. I honestly have no problems checking this film out again in the future. It’s a significant improvement over its predecessor and a testament as to why studio meddling only makes a film worse. I’m incredibly glad Snyder gets to show the world the film he wanted to make from the get go and if you have HBO Max is definitely worth checking out for yourself. Time will tell if this film will resurrect the DCEU and continue the story Snyder set up for the League, but for now this is a well made satisfactory send off for a problematic cinematic universe.
Final Verdict: 7/10