Zack Snyder's Justice League
The theatrical cut of Justice League (2017) turned out to have such a rough production history between filmmaker Zack Snyder having to step down due to a tragic family incident and the executives at Warner Bros efforts that included enlisting Joss Whedon, which affected the final product. Ever since that debuted, an immense fan campaign has been vocal throughout the years to publicly release the reportedly finished "Snyder Cut", which was the directors intended form. There had been no plans on doing so from the executives agenda until AT&T purchased the studio. Those higher ups ordered that directors version of the film to premiere on the streaming platform HBO Max, attempting to bring in more subscribers. This brings us to Zack Snyder's Justice League, which was his 4 hour cut of original footage. After revisiting the previous film as well as the theatrical cut to prepare (on HBO Max), my viewing of this directors lengthy vision not only surprised me with the immense quality difference but showed how inept the studio executives were.
*=I realized I never gave the first 2 DC films in this universe a review since I started the blog in 2016 so I felt the 2nd entry was more important and I didn't visit it much.
What's it about? Taking place after the previous film, the story follows Batman and Wonder Woman recruiting new allies to combat an imposing alien force looking for important MacGuffins. Let's make something clear right off the bat: this is the best telling of this story when compared to the studio compiled one. The runtime mostly benefits here as it allows both the narrative and the characterization to be far more fleshed out. Those who watched the big screen adaptation of this will recognize some moments but the way they are implemented here is different in terms of more serious tone and more reduced comic relief. These heroes feel rather genuine with one another instead of forced awkwardness with jokes and that gets better moving forward. The antagonist manages to emerge as a more competent threat between his more impressive design and motivations, which allows him to better serve his purpose for the conflict. The biggest difference is the third act, which has a far better execution and altered direction from before that it deserves to be seen.
For all of the good of manages to accomplish, there are still problems holding it back quite a bit. Something to note is that the directors love of utilizing slow motion in chunks of his works is definitely here and that's hit or miss with scenes that are great along with some very unnecessary spots (insert joke about how length could be shortened by speeding them up a bit). There are non-slow motion parts that could have definitely been removed such as a weird choice of having an Icelandic song happen for a minute or 2. The aspects involved Lois Lane and Clark Kent are weakness anchors due to how the former is being treated as a plot element with repercussions (may happen if studio allows it to be explored) and the latter just lacking as a character in general. The teasing elements as a whole are in flux at the writing of this review as it's uncertain whether it will be reset or explored later on.
How are the actors? In regards to story importance, the actors to focus on are Ray Fisher, Ciaran Hinds, Ben Affleck, and Ezra Miller. Ray gives a pretty good performance for this tragic role with enough emotional weight that he delivers well to care about the stakes. Ciaran provides solid voice acting as the villain who can make an audience feel bad him based on his delivery as well as his animations during scenes where we learn more about him. Ben proves himself again as great Bruce Wayne as he feels like that rich somewhat of a jerk guy who would act as a coach bring people together and strategize that next move while learning from past actions. Ezra (alongside Ray) is another improved performer in this style of the journey as his more caring side is showcased with a slightly toned down humorous side.
Honorable mentions go to Jason Mamoa, Jeremy Irons, Joe Morton, and Gal Gadot for having some nice scenes of their own between one another and the other main actors. Dishonorable mention goes to Amber Heard and Amy Adams due to the formers bad acting for her scenes while the latter is a pretty good actress who has been mismanaged by the writing as well as the directing in this role.
Overall Consensus: Zack Snyder's Justice League gives its ambitious journey solid value it deserves in fleshing out its narrative, good characterization, wonderful visuals, great action sequences, and memorable entertainment, despite some writing and directing choices. ⭑⭑⭑⭑ Runtime: 4 hours 2 minutes R
Reasons to watch it: You are a fan of the aforementioned actors and/or filmmaker Zack Snyder. You have (or haven't) watched the 2017 interpretation of this and are interested in watching the original footage as it was intended. You enjoy DC content and wanted to see how it compares to other media within that property. You don't mind the directors preference of slow motion sequences (including those that feel like a music video, which happens here). You want to see the beautiful visuals often associated with Zack's filmography. You like having chapter separators in long films just in case you want to plan out how to view it (there 7 parts total, 6 acts and an epilogue). You don't mind a different aspect ratio that's not wide screen.
Reasons to avoid it: You aren't a fan of the aforementioned actors and/or filmmaker Zack Snyder. You have (or haven't) watched the 2017 interpretation of this but aren't interested in watching the original footage as it was intended. You are annoyed with the directors preference of slow motion sequences (including those that feel like a music video, which happens here). You find long runtime lengths too intimidating to take on.
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