Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a lot of things. It’s the inevitable product of an incredibly passionate movement. It’s the result of the relentless and fervent uproar of fans around the world, fans who know and who’ll stop at nothing to forcefully obtain what they know they deserve. It’s a film of epic, even herculean proportions.
For Snyder fans, it’s rightful catharsis.
For creatives, it’s proof that a persistence of vision can work miracles and bring pipe dreams to life.
It’s not, however, a cinematic masterpiece.
But it’s, at the very least, an enjoyable movie. This is coming from a person who didn’t particularly enjoy Snyder’s Man of Steel and especially Batman vs. Superman for a multitude of reasons.
Foregoing the immensity of the film’s length, and the massive undertaking the movie had to go through in tying so many storylines together in a manner that required it to be as engaging and dynamic as it is informative and explanatory, Zack Snyder succeeds in his goal in bringing this creation of his to life.
But then, given the circumstances, how could he have possibly failed?
Snyder had years to fine-tune his craft, a failed product to steer away from, and a healthy budget to work with. Not to mention the commendable respect and commitment his actors and his team have for him and his vision.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League was destined to succeed, with minimal magnitude and precedence for its eventual quality. Snyder fans will always (or almost always) love whatever he puts out, even if the product was to be absolute horseshit. I thought BvS was the pinnacle of horseshit, as I walked out of the movie theatre feeling dejected, not believing that I just wasted 2 hours and 30 minutes of my life watching a movie I utterly did not enjoy.
I know friends who loved the movie for the same reasons I hated it: Snyder’s fetish for repeated slow-motion sequences, the fabulously unsubtle religious and borderline-pretentious imagery, and the clunky, at best awkward and cringey, writing.
These elements remain in ZSJL, in fact, these elements are astonishingly amplified, which is the result of giving the man behind it all an extensive if not an absolute amount of creative control.
But I guess for some odd reason, ZSJL became far more enjoyable and exponentially more watchable than BvS could ever hope to dream of. On second thought, I know exactly the reason why it’s better than his previous outings.
The writing is sound.
Yes, the 4-hour run-time tremendously helped mitigate the time-bound limitations that most filmmakers wrestle with in capturing the heart and soul of a story. Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s monument of a production, Avengers: Endgame, the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of storytelling, proved an entire hour shorter than Snyder’s magnum opus. Time is critical in doing anything. Time is valuable. One can argue that Snyder uses his 4 hours adequately enough to exorcize his story from his mind to the world.
One can also argue that the Snyder Cut is one long-ass movie, and that argument wouldn’t be false. But this only goes to show that the more creative freedom and capability you give a spirited person to fulfill his mission, the more you get to extract and experience the creative quintessence of an artist. This extraction requires time, skill, and support. Of those three he had much. And with those three he made his move.
And he made his move profoundly. There are no Martha-esque moments. No dubious Jonathan Kent-like sacrifices as a forced appeal to strife and emotion. No action sequences that felt forced and inorganically contrived.
There is backstory. There are reasons for actions taken. There are beautiful action-sequences. There are poetic lines and artistically crafted picturesque shots. There are likable characters. There is emotional attachment to these characters.
However, there are also unnecessary and repetitive motifs in the film’s scoring. There are dragging, boring sequences. There are unlikeable characters. There are moments of action for action’s sake. There are poorly delivered and ineffectively written lines.
There is fan service and a lot of it at that. Most of which weren’t integrally needed to push the story forward but were there simply as a nod to the watching fan. Then again, the movie is fan service incarnate. It’s Snyder’s reassuring nod to his fans that made ZSJL possible. It’s also his middle finger, and as such the lightning rod of all of his fans’ middle fingers, to the establishment.
Nonetheless, it’s astounding that Snyder managed to carve a good film out of the lackluster sculpture Joss Whedon brought.
Now, the quality of said creativity in action is up for debate, but creativity is creativity nonetheless, and it’s wonderful to see it come to light with strings severed. Untethered creativity, most especially in the commercial swamp of the film industry, is rare and priceless.
In a film loaded with charismatic actors who had sparkling resumes, Fisher stole the show whenever he was on the screen. Easily the best part of the movie, I found myself sitting on the couch wishing to see more of Cyborg of all characters. The messy accusations and ongoing investigations surrounding Fisher and the Warner Brothers executives now look even more distasteful with the degree of discourtesy and disrespect Whedon’s theatrical release gave Cyborg outright evident and noticeable.
Yet, even if ZSJL did improve on a lot of things the original Justice League lacked, and even if Snyder course-corrected all (or most) the missteps of Whedon, it still suffers from Snyder’s worst habits.
But, those worst habits are what define Snyder, and those elements, lengthy slow-mos and brutally-delivered expositional narrations included, are exactly the reasons why ZSJL came to be in the first place.
Superheroes are our modern-day myths and legends after all, and their stories are as boundless and as infinite as the imagination can stretch. Surely, the world is big enough for more than one superhero movie franchise.
PS Someone still needs to teach Ezra Miller how to run.
PPS Ezra Miller being taught by Olympic and professional sprinters makes his inability to run properly even worse.
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