Movie Review: Zack Snyder’s Justice League

I was nicer than most people were when it came to judging the original version of Justice League a few years back. I thought Joss Whedon did an okay job given the mess he had to work with after the disappointing Batman v Superman and truly awful Suicide Squad. 2017’s Justice League was a fun comic book romp. Thus I came to Zack Snyder’s Justice League (ZSJL for short) with mixed expectations. I figured I would see a better plot and more cohesive overall production, but probably more insufferable ‘Snyderisms’ — endless slow-mo, bleak color grading, and characters being super edgy for no reason. Turns out I was right on both points but happily the final product is, on balance, better than its predecessor.

ZSJL is perhaps inferior as a movie because it is just so dang long. Four hours is a bit much to ask and frankly a lot of what was cut in the original really was not needed. Yet taken as a kind of miniseries, ZSJL is pretty good. Even the inconsequential added scenes — the random Icelandic singing for example- add some nice atmosphere. The best thing by far though are the added scenes for Cyborg and Flash. Cyborg gets a full back story that both fleshes out his character and properly sells him as being truly one of the most powerful members of the team. Flash is also thankfully no longer just a wise-cracking goofball, as he gets a great moment near the end to save the team by demonstrating his truly miraculous powers.

The story is much better than the 2017 version. Thanks to the added context with Darkseid and the Mother Boxes we get a narrative that is complex, intriguing, and finally makes sense. It’s still rather hokey at times. There are story beats that still don’t quite gel, such as a surprise superhero cameo near the end. Yet ultimately it’s the best possible realization of a story built on the shaky premises of the DC universe at that time. Furthermore it is a rare opportunity to see, by comparison, just what Hollywood does to the work of visionary directors when they try to reshoot and rework everything based on focus groups in the 11th hour. ZSJL is an unprecedented film in many ways and very worthwhile if you are at all a fan of the genre.

Grade: B-