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A month ago, I opened HBO Max and saw Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Who is Zack Snyder? More importantly, why should I care? After a few minutes of hasty research, I quickly moved from laughing at the title to being intrigued at the idea of it.
For those who don’t know about Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I’ll do a brief recap. In 2017, the original Justice League movie came out. It had a very poor reception by critics and fans and ended up costing Warner Brothers, an anomaly for a superhero movie, which usually has a broad audience. In other words, it was a flop. This was largely credited to Snyder being forced to leave during production for personal reasons. A different director, Joss Whedon, came in, added almost 80 pages to the script, and, according to some reports, used less than 50% of the footage that Snyder shot. Due to these reports, and the horrid status of the theatrical version of it, a #ReleasetheSnyderCut movement grew and mounted more pressure on Warner Brothers studio until March 18, 2021, when Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released in its 242 minutes of glory.
The directorial cut was critically praised by film critics and audiences for its creation of complex characters. Yet, I found most of the characters to be simplistic. Aquaman, played by Jason Momoa, is essentially just a grumpy, old guy who, for some reason, is unable to do much. Cyborg, played by Ray Fisher, and his character is the most fleshed out of anyone’s, yet it is still incredibly simple, epitomized by his quote at the end of the movie: “I’m not broken and I’m not alone.” I mean, come on! You’d be hard-pressed to find a quote more explicit. I liked Flash, played by Ezra Miller, and the apparent simplicity, shown by his corny jokes, which alluded to a much more complex, interesting character. Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot, was simply portrayed as a good person. Batman, played by Ben Affleck, and similarly to almost all of his previous roles, plays an old, grumpy man. Henry Cavill’s Superman was perhaps the most interesting, due to his resistance to helping the world, a trait not found in any of the other characters.
Halfway through the movie, I found myself detached from the plot. I didn’t understand what was going on, and, in all honesty, I didn’t care. Zack Snyder failed to show how Steppenwolf, the movie’s villain and played by Ciaran Hinds, would impact the world by achieving his goal of mass destruction. Additionally, Steppenwolf did not have a clear motive for this violence aside from pleasing his boss.
I expected a movie that ran 242 minutes to create a complex story due to the extended runtime. Surprisingly, this movie was simplistic and, despite this, was still able to confuse me about the narrative. Likely, the runtime is so long to entice viewers who had watched the theatrical cut to watch the directorial version under the pretense of new footage. This leads to many irrelevant scenes that are never followed up on. It also leads to the addition of a slow-motion shot of a sesame seed slowly getting closer to the camera. On a larger scale, it means that getting through the movie required three separate viewings.
One negative aspect of the genre of superhero team-up movies is that it inadvertently leads to comparisons between the superheroes. I found myself attempting to determine who was the strongest superhero, which is much more difficult to do in solo superhero movies. Zack Snyder’s Justice League Cut takes this to a whole new level. Much of the first three hours of the movie are filled with the five members of the Justice League – Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman – fighting Steppenwolf to a standstill. This all changes when Superman arrives. He crushes Steppenwolf in two minutes on his own. By doing so, he, and Snyder, make the entire past three hours of the movie irrelevant. What’s the point of the Justice League if they only needed Superman? What’s the point of the past three hours of getting the Justice League together?
The movie wasn’t awful in every regard, even though it may have been close. The visual effects were quite fun to watch. Steppenwolf had a very cool sheen of armor. The slow-motion was used far too much, but at points it added a sense of epic-ness to the viewing experience.
With all this being said, it’s important to give some context. Who defines what a good movie is? It’s an individual decision due to everyone’s personal values. I believe that superhero movies are not movies, but rather money-making devices for large production studios. Despite believing this, I thoroughly enjoyed Infinity War. It had a compelling narrative, was able to create a sense of true epic-ness through all of its heroes, and I had a connection to some of the heroes from watching Iron Man and Spiderman movies. Which brings me to my next point: if you have some connection to the DC Universe, it’s possible you would enjoy it to see your favorite superheroes battling bad guys. At some point, it doesn’t get better than that. Yet, even if I had such a connection to these characters, I don’t think I could find a way to get past the multiple issues with it.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League failed to live up to the hype created. It had a boring, unclear narrative, it destroyed the value of the Justice League, and was far too long. If ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League Cut’ is truly much improved from the theatrical ‘Justice League’, I shudder to think what such a movie might contain.
