100th Review: Zack Snyder's Justice League

 

        I never thought I would ever make it to 100 movies. Honestly, it feels rewarding since I’ve started to slowly grow my brand, despite its small reach, and to really become educated about movies. Anyways, with all that, Justice League is possibly one of the only films to have so much behind the scenes drama. From directors switching, on set abuse, studio interference, a hashtag rallying cry that I swear would probably not go anywhere. Through corporate interests to boost subscription numbers, fans finally got their wish to see Zack Snyder’s Justice League. 

1. Upgrade

        So yeah, this version of Justice League is the updated version to the one that was released in 2017. With scenes that were supposed to be in, with the caveat of additional scenes which I’ll talk about. Plot wise, it’s the same thing. Better yet, the whole film is like Marvel’s The Avengers. A group of heroes form up to stop a guy with horns from getting a cube to activate a portal to bring a horde of aliens for an overlord to conquer the universe. 

        Having the unfortunate luxury to watch the studio cut of Justice League (2017) and this one. It’s clear that some of Snyder’s scenes were used in the cut that was released theatrically. Here, it is Snyder’s film, with the desaturated color to give his movie a unique vision of his own. When watching it be vibrant, the costumes just looked weird since they are shot in a specific way. 

        The entire soundtrack even got revamped for the film. Originally, composer Thomas Holkenborg was going to score the film but left. Which explains why when Danny Elfman did the score, he used the themes for Batman and Superman when they appeared. Here, Holkenborg returns and has that guitar riff in the soundtrack. It got annoying having to hear Wonder Woman’s theme, I’m not making this up when I had the captions on, it had “Ancient Lamentation Music” whenever Wonder Woman is fighting. 

        Obviously, the movie had to acknowledge that Superman is dead and how exactly to bring him back. The film acts as a sequel to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice since we start this film by seeing Superman scream while letting go booms of sound activate the objects that drive the plot. It is refreshing to have the moments when the team is together actually be together in the room discussing their plans. When watching the studio cut of four years ago, most of them felt like they weren’t in the room. Here, the camera does a slow 360 degree shot of the heroes discussing if it’s possible to bring back the man of steel.

        If there is one or a couple of things that I want to say that is a problem for the film is the slow motion. It’s a staple for Zack Snyder to use slo-mo for the action scenes. And lord does it get grating. Those moments get annoying since I feel that it just pads the movie further in its 4 hour runtime. Like this one moment, where we see Barry Allen/The Flash applying for a job at a doggy daycare. Just moments ago, he was being awkward to a girl who left the daycare. Her name is Iris, the film doesn’t bring that up. Anyways, a car crash happens involving her, Barry rescues her. The weird part is him rubbing her cheek, I’m here like, dude you don’t even know her.

        Now, sometimes it works, but I feel that the slow motion is already an outdated way of making something like woah. What doesn't work is just how drawn out some of the scenes feel. Again, I think it's padding but, the film didn't really need to be four hours long. For instance, when the Amazons were invaded by the villain. They prepare a special arrow to alert Diana of the oncoming danger. We see the Amazons take out the arrow, light it up, and shoot it across their island to an abandoned temple. Like, c'mon, do we really need to have a procedural moment of it being opened and lit, we honestly get what's going on.   

2. Director’s Cut

        When the hashtag movement started just as soon as the studio cut was released, it made me think of other director’s cuts that exist. Now, director cut’s have been going on as far as when home video has existed. The overall idea is that the director’s cut is supposed to be a complimentary thing for a fan of the movie who wants to have more content like extra scenes in the film that were cut. Ridley Scott is probably the most famous since his movie Blade Runner was butchered when it was released in theaters. From there, there have been numerous versions of that film to come out. 

        Here, this is probably the only film that has a lot of publicity for fans advocating for a director’s cut of the film he made to be released. Before it was butchered by the studio, the “Snyder Cut” is the one where the studio was so afraid of marketing it. Perhaps they probably assumed that no one wanted to sit for a comic book epic spanning four hours. It’s just astonishing seeing the 2017 version and this one and seeing what was cut and put in for the film to be released in theaters. 

        Like, Snyder’s version has everything fleshed out, even the villain. The other version of Steppenwolf just wanted to use the Motherboxes to conquer the world. Here, it’s the same thing but it serves a bigger purpose. Steppenwolf wants to get the boxes to get in the good graces of the real baddie. The film gives him moments where he asks to be brought back in Darkseid’s graces. The problem with that is just we are told about his problems. It would be one thing where we see him being exiled and then having that relatability to where we care. 

        An unfair comparison is comparing Steppenwolf to Loki. What made Loki work in The Avengers is that we saw him in Thor. We know who he is, and where he is coming from. He’s not just invading Earth with his army. He’s doing it as a favor for Thanos, since he was going to be killed if he failed, which he did in the sequels, but that’s not the point. I think the overall problem is that they went too big in the Justice League villain wise. As much as I hated Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman, he could’ve introduced the Legion of Doom to face off against the team. Something small since if in the hypothetical sequel, they couldn’t top facing off against Darkseid. 

3. A Thing About Aspect Ratios

        This part I’m going to break down. I hope that this better explains why the film looks like it does whenever you guys view it on HBO Max. Just off the bat, Snyder probably didn’t film with this format in mind. It wasn’t until his cut was announced to be released, he formatted the film to be on IMAX. Since viewing it on a High-Def TV, it looks like you’re watching an old tv show that wasn’t formatted to HD.

        So, as you look in the picture attached to this part, you can see just how it looks different. When viewing something on IMAX is like watching a film be an event. The whole footage of the film is shown since the screen is so massive. Watching it on the tv just looks weird, since you have a left and right black block that is supposed to be filled. Zooming in the film won’t do it justice since you’re going to get an extreme zoomed look of the film. 

4. The Two Worst Scenes in The Movie

        Thinking about the film more, there are two scenes that I really didn’t like. So, let’s start with the first one. It’s when we see Lois being visited by Superman’s mother Martha. Martha comforts her since Lois is depressed that Clark is gone. Martha gives her words of encouragement to pep her up. When she leaves, Martha changes into the superhero Martian Manhunter, who was disguising himself as Martha. It ruined a good moment between two characters to what amounted to nothing. What didn’t work is that Lois was basically lied to. More so that, the hero was seen in Man of Steel as General Swanick, the military character Clark meets. 

        It wasn’t until rumors began circulating that the General is the Martian Manhunter in disguise to live among humans. I have no idea why he even disguised himself as Martha to begin with. That’s the thing with Snyder, he could take something impactful, and just mess it up. I understand that it’s supposed to be for the fans, but it doesn’t cut it when he pulls the carpet out of the floor with that move. 

        Although this scene is even worse. It’s in the end of the movie. This is the continuation from the Knightmare sequence from Batman v. Superman. Where Batman is wearing a Mad Max get up, this time he is joined with other heroes and villains. One of them being the Joker. He has a monologue towards Batman saying how he messed up and having people close to him die. It’s such an unnecessary scene to put in the movie since it wrapped up as it did, with the heroes going their separate ways.

        Jared Leto returns from Suicide Squad, and it’s supposed to be a huge moment when these two finally meet, since that opportunity was wasted. You want to know how exactly it was reshot? Everyone is shot with close ups. Meaning that, the frame has one character in the shot or splicing them in since the pandemic is still going on. This scene was teased in the trailers since it has the Joker to get people to watch it. The scene doesn’t amount to anything and it’s a dream sequence.

5. It Doesn’t Matter

        With all that, the entire DC Film universe is such a dumpster fire. The original intent of this series was to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since they beat them with The Avengers, it only made sense for Warner Bros. to make their own universe. It was supposed to be director driven, meaning that they had total control of the films they made. As an opposite with Marvel’s approach which had a path to where the overall story is going. With the directors just shooting what they are supposed to be shooting. 

        With Snyder’s first two DC films, Warner Bros. immediately panicked. It didn’t help that they butchered Suicide Squad when it came out in theaters. I think the big problem is that they relied on a director who has a controversial view of the heroes. There’s no humanity to them or moments where we can relate to them. To Snyder, the heroes are Gods, which explains the shot of the team after they defeated Steppenwolf. 

        So, the whole ending with the Knightmare sequence and Lex Luthor meeting another villain doesn’t matter. The whole film universe is going to be rebooted with a Flash movie. There’s even a Batman movie coming out with Robert Pattinson being the caped crusader. It’s obvious to anyone paying attention to this that Warner Bros. messed up big time and really didn’t understand why Marvel is so successful. They do, but they obviously chased after the money since they wanted to leapfrog character moments to get a team up of their own. 

6. Overall

        Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a massive improvement of what was released back in 2017. No one, not even a director should lose a daughter and be booted off a passion project because of studio bureaucracy that wanted money. I’m glad he finally had a chance to release his cut, but his way of making films and portraying these classic characters just rubbed me the wrong way. It’s clearly meant for his fans that wanted the film to come out. I’m glad that they got their wish, since they’ve been shafted for too long. 

        Zack Snyder’s Justice League gets a three out of five.