ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE:
SNYDER CUT DOES THIS “LEAGUE” MUCH MORE JUSTICE THAN ITS ORIGINAL 2017 RELEASE!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** out of 4
HBO MAX/WARNER BROS. PICTURES
The Flash, Superman, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Aquaman in Zack Snyder’s Justice League
Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300, Watchmen) finally brings his original vision to the (small) screen in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the highly anticipated director’s cut of the 2017 DC Extended Universe film, Justice League. For those who don’t know, Justice League had a very difficult production and reportedly Warner Bros. was unhappy with the results of Snyder’s original cut despite his best efforts to flesh out the characters and lighten the tone of this film because of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’s criticisms of being too dark and lacking in humor and fun.
So, ultimately Warner Bros. brought the director of the first two Avengers movies, Joss Whedon onboard to rewrite the script and help with reshoots until Zack Snyder’s daughter passed away several months before the film’s release, so he along with his wife and producer Deborah Snyder left the project with Whedon finishing the film. When Justice League was finally released it received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office resulting in Warner Bros. changing the DCEU’s direction to focus more on standalone films like Aquaman, Shazam!, and Birds of Preyrather than a shared universe.
However, things changed when news broke out about the footage that was shot before Snyder stepped down, fans and even cast and crew members petitioned and demanded that this director’s cut be finished and released to the public, most notably through the #ReleasetheSnyderCut hashtag which pretty much took over the internet. Because of this, Warner Bros. finally allowed Snyder to finish the movie the way he originally intended and release it on HBO Maxas Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Despite not being the biggest fan of Snyder’s previous DCEU films (Man of Steel was okay while my thoughts on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice are extremely mixed!), I was very interested in seeing his original vision of Justice League but also a little skeptical because it was going to have a 4-hour runtime. Avengers: Endgame was 3 hours and while I enjoyed that movie a lot, I felt it didn’t need to be that long, same goes for this.
Now that we have this “Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” version of Justice League, how does it hold up? Honestly, it’s pretty good. Yes, the 4-hour length is pretty excessive for a movie like this, but it’s much better paced, a lot more exciting, and establishes the characters and their backstories even stronger than the original where it felt like two completely different directing styles clashing with one another.
The plot is pretty much the same as in the original, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck-The Town, Argo, Gone Girl), Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot-Fast & Furious franchise, Triple 9, Ralph Breaks the Internet), Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller-The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Fantastic Beastsfranchise), Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa-Stargate Atlantis, Game of Thrones, See), and Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher-True Detective, Women of the Movement) join together to stop the villain known as Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds-Munich, There Will Be Blood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) but they also have to resurrect Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill-The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible: Fallout, Enola Holmes) who was killed in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, in order to stand a chance. But this version also more backstories to characters introduced in Justice League like Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg as well as a much better depiction of Steppenwolf with more scenes that show just how much of a threat he really is, and unlike in the original version he’s the henchman of iconic DC Comics villain, Darkseid (Ray Porter-Almost Famous, ER, Teen Titans) this time.
This version also expands upon various scenes from the original and gives more backstory, most notably when Wonder Woman tells Bruce Wayne about the origin of Steppenwolf (Now the origin of Darkseid) and when Amazons, Atlanteans, Kryptonians, and Lanterns engaged in battle against his forces and Cyborg’s origin which was barely touched upon in the original version, it shows that Snyder clearly has a better understanding of these characters than Whedon whereas with him it felt like he was trying to do what worked in the Avengers films but with DC and failing.
This version also fixes one of the most disappointing aspects of the original film, the climax. Snyder’s cut removes the saving a single family from Steppenwolf and his army climax with a more team-based one that showcases just what the Justice League is capable of doing together, THIS IS THE AVENGERS-STYLE BATTLE THESE HEROES DESERVED! And it delivers all the exciting superhero action you’d expect from the Justice League.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League follows in the footsteps of other great extended cuts of superhero movies like Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Daredevil: Director’s Cut, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Ultimate Edition, and Spider-Man 2.1 and is sure to please longtime fans of the source material. It expands upon what worked in Justice League while reducing and removing what didn’t, resulting in a far more interesting and exciting cut with a coherent narrative, consistent tone, and the vision of a director who I think will finally get the credit he deserves after the release of this film.
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