Zack Snyder's Justice League

2021, d. Zack Snyder - HBOmax

[Preface - written prior to watching]

I have no love for the Snyder/Whedon hybrid Justice League from 2017, because, let's face it, there's little to love about it.  It's messier than a sloppy joe served on a napkin.  In my review of that release, I said "I don't even like Snyder's vision, and somehow I still kind of wish it were allowed to be completed."

The reality is Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was garbage as a Superman movie, not great as a Batman movie, and incomprehensible as a prologue to introducing the Justice League in what was then an already interminable DC Cinematic Universe.  But at least BvS was interesting in its wrongheadedness, it had a vision it was trying to achieve no matter how utterly ridiculous that vision was.  As such, I've been certain a Snyder cut of Justice League (no matter how much I don't really care if it exists or not) would be better than the hatchet job that came out nearly 4 years ago.

I've been a DC Comics fan nearly my entire life.  I've been waiting for a big ensemble superhero movie that had all the spectacle and grandeur in live action that the comics have on the page.  Justice League 2017 was not it, but I know for certain, without even seeing it, that neither is the "Snyder Cut" (as it's been called, but not actually named).  Snyder, we've learned from Man of Steel, BvS and even what remains of his vision in JL'17, has no idea what makes DC's heroes special.  He has his own motivations and half-baked philosophical discussions he wants to have utilizing these characters, and you know what...fine.  Countless people have had their way with these characters over the years, but it's just weird that, at any time the powers that be at Warner Brothers were like "yeah, sounds good Zack, you do what you want with them, make Superman grimdark and Batman a murderer."  

Since JL'17 we've gotten Avengers: Infinity War which is just about the greatest assemblage of comic book characters on screen that we're ever going to see, and not only that, it's a tight, captivating, fun, funny, epic rollercoaster of an event that ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers of all time, resulting in a follow up film that diverges from spectacle to delve into the emotional... all built on the back of a decades worth of set-up that didn't know what it was leading to.  It's comic books on screen as I've always wanted it to be.  Nothing about what Snyder has done, whether it be Watchmen, Man of Steel or BvS at all feels like comic books on screen.   I still want the DC version of Infinity War, but I don't think it will ever happen, and Zack Snyder is not the one to deliver it to me.  I'm ready to eat crow... but I don't think I will be.

[---Graig watches all four hours of Zack Snyder's Justice League with multiple breaks and one pleasant night's sleep in between---]
Spoilers?

It opens almost where we left off in BvS, as if it were a TV show continuing on from last week... with Superman dying (in slow motion) in his battle with Doomsday and screaming, sending a literal sound wave that's heard around the world.  We follow the sound wave as a device (a little Gaspar Noe Into the Void nod?) to see what's going on around the DC Cinematic Universe at this time.  Hey, there's Luthor in a wading pool with Steppenwolf (the adversary of this film), and Cyborg moping, and Atlanteans and Amazons watching as their hidden Mother Boxes (the macguffins of the film) awaken (it's speculated in the film that Superman's death awakens them but there's never a reason given why it would do that). Snyder's Amazon's are not the bright and powerful figures from Patty Jenkins' film, but rather female versions of his 300 Spartans, all shadowy and grainy with impressively defined musculature and rage faces.  The effects throughout this opening sequence, and much of the film, are not always the best, clearly the 70 million DC spent to let Snyder have his 4-hour epic was spread pretty thin.  An unnecessarily protracted fight between Steppenwolf, Parademons and the Amazons looks about on par with the arena battle in 2002's Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones in terms of how the many many performers handle squaring off against imaginary creatures.  And the subsequent chase on horseback, 90% CGI, is less big screen Avengers: Endgame, more small screen Game of Thrones.

There's a hubris to this production, presented in 4x3 aspect ratio (black bars down the sides) with the expectation of any eventual cinematic presentation being in IMAX (not sure how some of these effects will hold up on that big a screen).  The opening credits roll over a droning JunkieXL score, the camera panning across a desolate Nordic tundra, beautiful but cold and muted (the Snyder filter at its chilliest), following a traveler on horseback putting Bruce Wayne in a Nordic setting looking for the Aquaman.  I remember this scene from JL'17 and it was light, pithy, and full of bad green screen.  This one, not so light, certainly not pithy, but works (and looks) a lot better as it all takes place in a natural setting.  The hubris returns as Snyder pauses on a grateful village singing in their native tongue as Aquaman swims out to sea for a full minute.  Clearly this is a film not indentured to any running time and it's an early warning for laborious things to come.  It also drives home that there will be improvements upon what was done prior, but still not necessarily anything we were clamoring to see.

I still can't get over the empty weight of Superman's death in the previous movie, but the grand importance Snyder tries to imbue it here.  It was a tonal disconnect Whedon's version tried its best to acknowledge quickly, then ignore.  A set piece involving a group of terrorists introduces maybe the fourth and fifth slow motion sequences of Justice League, barely 20 minutes into the film (the first of literally dozens upon dozens of slo-mo shots we'll see over four hours), only to move into some sort of hyper-speed as Wonder Woman's actions against the badguys need to be superhuman.  It doesn't look good, and is unsurprisingly at odds with how we see this same Wonder Woman through Patty Jenkin's eyes in both her films, especially considering the blood splatter, swearing and aggressive violence.  A Justice League or Superman or Wonder Woman movie that can't play to children, and hiring someone whose vision is such, is just an outright mistake.  This is not for kids.  It's a hard PG-13, excessively violent for what it is and laden with swearing. 

An anxious, brooding Batman frantically tries to assemble a team, stating that he "spent too much time trying to divide us, I need to bring us together and make this right."  It sounds like a mea culpa from Snyder...but is it?  It's really not.  He doesn't do well at team building (Snyder nor Batman), considering it's more than 2 hours into the film before there's actually a team, and another 30 or 40 minutes before they resurrect Superman... and then another 45 minutes before Superman actually joins them.  There's a lot of time spent on the importance of Batman building, basically, a flying troop carrier, and when it finally takes flight, it's destroyed within minutes.  It's funny, but not intentionally so.

There's no economy to Snyder's storytelling here.  Points are labored over, and over, and over.  (The Amazons' fight with Steppenwolf ends with Hippolyta noting to send the flare that invasion is coming. We return to Paradise Island two scenes later to witness them sending the flare.  We go to another scene for Diana to learn about the flare's existence.  Another scene later Diana visits the sight of the flare to confirm its existence, which then leads to Diana discovering a cave that tells the story of Darkseid's first invasion.  This is intensely laborious when we got the point so much earlier.)  Many sequences are basically orchestrated to be music videos that maybe deliver tone, but not purpose (Aquaman walking out along a stone pier drinking whiskey for a minute...). Of course Snyder's been given free reign to do what he wants in his editing, as was his deal with Warner Brothers.  He didn't get paid, just free reign.  Without restrictions you get matchstick houses like Zack Snyder's Justice League.  It's 4 hours long, but it's not bloated, as it's not really full of anything.  It's empty and flimsy devoid of any direct purpose.

There are multiple flashback/storytelling sequences in the film which are real momentum killers (were there any true momentum to kill).   At the hour mark Diana shares with Bruce what she just learned of a great battle between the champions of Earth (Atlanteas, Greek Gods, the Amazons, a Green Lantern) and Darkseid's invading forces.  It's a sequence extended dramatically from JL'17, and is superior in it's excitement, but Gadot's voiceover feels phoned in (possibly literally) and it seems completely detached from the scene that bookends it.  It seems like it should have been the entrance point for the film, not Diana's storytime.  Similarly, Cyborg's father leaves him a recording in which he narrates Cyborg's capabilities, his powers over top a montage of images, some of them Lawnmower Man grade, but all of them handled with Snyder's usual subtlety, which is to say not at all. It's bizarre but not in a good way, portentious.

The biggest benefactor to ZS'sJL is Cyborg.  I can see why Ray Fisher was so dissatisfied with what resulted in JL'17 (on top of the behind-the-scenes issues with Whedon).  Cyborg is pretty much a non-existent character in what was released to theatres.  Here he is the only character with a genuine story arc and is the most integral member of the team (despite all the weight given to Superman's involvement this is really Cyborg's show).  Even still, his origin story is told shortly after Flash's introduction (a truly pointless sequence) and features the second car crash in less than ten minutes.  Again, economy of storytelling is not this film's strong suit.

Flash in this movie... well...he's a choice that's being made.  There's no attention paid to how he got his powers (I'm not sure we need more than one origin story in the film) but it's not the "crime lab technician gets doused in chemicals and hit by lightning" origin from the comics because here he's a college kid struggling to even find a job.  His speed powers, as presented in his many scenes, are not consistently visualized, which is maddening as Snyder doesn't seem to care for consistency in presenting how they work, only that they look cool (and Ezra Miller's floppy wristed "running" style still looks just as goofy as it did in JL'17).  So when Flash breaks his only rule late in climactic showdown, it's like...what rule?

This film assumes you know a lot more about this world and these characters that you do.  When JL'17 was released, Wonder Woman had not yet released, Aquaman was still a year and a half away, and planned Flash and Cyborg films still haven't happened.  A Ben Affleck Batman movie went through multiple iterations and directors before being scrapped altogether and there's not been any serious talk of another Henry Cavill Superman movie.  But this film acts like you know all these characters, and know who their peripheral supporting players are and what they might mean to them.  Alfred, Martha and Lois we met in BvS but have very little to do here.  Lois particularly is just a moping void waiting for Superman to return...and when he does...she gives him a hug.  That's what they paid Amy Adams to do...hug Superman (hey, I'd take that job too, but I'm not an Academy Award-winning actress). Commissioner Gordon is iconic enough, but he's not a character here (even with J.K. Simmon's adept mugging).  Martian Manhunter, played by Harry Lennox, is just a head scratcher... does anyone but the die hard fans remember him as the General from Man of Steel?  We don't even see a human face.  Aquaman's supporting cast make no impression unless you've seen the Aquaman film, same with Wonder Woman's cast.  It's putting the cart before the horse, and it does.not.work.  Even in hindsight, Justice League is at odds with what comes after it.

The problem with Justice League wasn't that Snyder was removed from it before it was completed.  The problem with Justice League is Snyder himself.  He's a great visual stylist, but a poor storyteller and a bad editor.  He should be taking photos, maybe shooting music videos, not being given hundreds of millions of dollars to make movies about characters he neither cares for nor understands (Zack, if you want to continue this story, buy some Hot Toys action figures and make photo comics).  Seriously, tell me what the purpose of Zack Snyder's Justice League is (besides an ego trip)?  Story wise, very little happens to advance any of the characters here.  Steppenwolf has no arc, but is at least given a bit more motivation than from JL'17.  Batman has no arc, he ended BvS promising to form a team, so he forms a team.  What did he learn? To be part of a team? Wonder Woman has no arc except she's reminded of a home she can't return to.  And to be part of a team?  Aquaman I guess learned...to go talk to his dad...and be part of a team?  Flash learned to ... be responsible maybe, and be part of a team?  Superman learned to...come back to life and not be a rage monster?  He didn't even learn to be part of a team.  Cyborg has the ONLY character arc here (and I'll admit, it's okay).  

As a film, it nudges forward Snyder's overall "grand arc" story only a smidge.  There's one brief reference to Bruce's Knightmare sequence (from BvS where Superman's gone bad and Darkseid has taken over the world) midway through the movie, and then an extended 10 minute sequence in the very long coda to the film.  The Knightmare sequences indicate a major threat coming but we're now 6 1/2 hours into Snyder's story and we've advanced that plot almost not at all.  The whole Mother Box chase in this film was ultimately irrelevant.  This film's Knightmare sequence (as out of the blue as it is) gives the team and its members (consisting of Batman, Cyborg, Flash, Mera, Deathstroke and Joker) a very specific motivation, and even some unique character motivations.  But in terms of where this film ends, it seem light years away... not even close to the horizon.  And Batman's conversation with the Joker (Jared Leto, in better form here than in Suicide Squad) in that sequence seems like a fan-made youtube video and not something a major studio would produce with it's most valuable intellectual property.

I've waited nearly a lifetime for a big budget Justice League movie.  This is not what I've been waiting for.  I haven't watched JL'17 since seeing it in theatres and will probably never watch it again.  Likewise I don't see any situation where I'll watch this again.  This... is not for me. 
It's the opposite situation as The Last Jedi. An exceptionally well told movie certain fans don't like because it contains scenes and situations that they don't like.  This is a very poorly told movie that certain fans will like because it contains scenes and situations they think are just really cool.
If you're down with it, more power to you, have at it all you want.

[---RANDOM THOUGHTS---]
- My favourite scene - Diana with Alfred.

- "What's your superpower?"  "I'm rich."  Still the funniest line of both cuts.

- Cyborg, looks like a Michael Bay transformer, moves like a Ray Harryhousen skeleton.

- Every time Wonder Woman performs an action the same damn chanting music sting is played.  It gets especially annoying in the final battle

- Martian Manhunter looks awful.  He's a main character on Supergirl and he looks far better there. On a CW show.

- Steppenwolf, supposed to be an intimidating, scary figure, has the most adorable little monkey face. I just "awweed" every time they did a close up. His armor gets a serious upgrade from JL'17, and looks nifty.

- The coda to the film is about 25 minutes, the first third sort of tees up where the heroes might be going to next in their solo features (...but obviously not really...) as well as insinuating Ryan Choi, Cyborg's dad's colleague, has a larger part to play.  Snyder's so bad at storytelling he couldn't even work in a good easter egg about him becoming the Atom.

- One final note on how Snyder just doesn't understand these characters. Superman beats Steppenwolf to a pulp and heat visions off one of his horn-things... you know how Snyder's Superman just loves to maim and disfigure.  Then when Superman punches Steppenwolf so hard he's sent soaring back towards a Boom Tube to Apocalypse, Wonder Woman leaps and severs his head in midair...apparently because Steppenwolf taunted Wonder Woman and said he killed her mother.  Ugh.