“Release the Snyder Cut,” has been a rallying cry for nerds across the internet since “Justice League” premiered in 2017 to lukewarm reviews. On March 18, fans finally got their wish when HBO Max released “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” A four-hour film that feels more like a miniseries than a movie, it’s a lot to unpack.
I recently re-watched the original theatrical version of “Justice League,” and just like the first time I saw it, I thought it was okay. The only DC movie I really enjoyed was “Wonder Woman,” and I don’t like most of Zack Snyder’s other films. I had low expectations for “ZSJL” going in, but I was pleasantly surprised.
There are plenty of minor differences between this version and the theatrical version along with some major differences ones as well. The best things about “ZSJL” are the ways the characters are fleshed out, something that’s especially important since Flash and Cyborg never got their own movies. Cyborg’s backstory in particular is well-explained and fits nicely into the rest of the narrative.
This version does a much better job of showing how the Justice League comes up with a plan to defeat Steppenwolf and how they get where they’re going. In the first movie, it felt like they teleported around and magically knew information.
All of these are positive additions. Now, let’s talk about some of the less positive ones. There’s at least an hour of extraneous material in the Snyder Cut. The epilogue lasts half an hour and sets up a bunch of subsequent films in the DCU which will never get made. Ben Affleck is noticeably thinner in the last scene than he is in the rest of the movie, presumably because it was filmed several years after the rest of the film.
Even without the epilogue, “SNJL” includes several unnecessary subplots involving tertiary characters, specifically Commissioner Gordon and DeSaad. There’s a scene where the Flash gets a job in a pet store after saving a woman from a car accident. There’s nothing wrong with the scene itself, but we already know that the Flash uses his powers for good and that he works several minimum wage jobs to pay for his college tuition, so it doesn’t add anything.
There’s a lot of unnecessary dialogue with the Amazons. It feels out of place in this movie, like it belonged in “Wonder Woman” but got put here instead. There’s a seriously long sequence where Lois Lane walks around the city looking sad, as well as several exchanges between Aquaman and characters who are never seen again. There’s nothing terribly wrong with these scenes individually, but together they add at least an extra half hour to an already long movie.
Overall, I liked this version. I liked the continuity and the characters. Steppenwolf still looks like a video game villain, but now he’s shinier and has a deeper voice. The addition of Darkseid was good, although he basically looks like a grey Thanos, which seems like it might cause some proprietary issues with Marvel. Steppenwolf’s role as an emissary of Darkseid helps explain his generic supervillain motivation and gives him a little more depth.
There’s also a surprising amount of humor, even completely eliminating Joss Whedon‘s reshoots. The flirtation between Wonder Woman and Batman feels contrived, but it’s not a deal-breaker. No, my main criticism of “ZNJL” is the same one I had for “Batman V Superman,” which is that Alfred is played by Jeremy Irons.
Irons is one of the greatest living dramatic actors, and he’s still a sex symbol in his 70s. In this movie, he makes tea for Wonder Woman. That’s the most exciting thing he does. Snyder either should have given Alfred something meaningful to do or he should have cast an actor without Irons’s magnetism. He dominates the screen in all of his scenes, and I kept waiting for him to do something interesting, which distracted me from whatever else was happening.
In conclusion, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is a good four-hour movie that would have been a better three-hour movie. I’d still recommend it.
MacKenzie Tastan
Reporter