Director’s cuts are not an uncommon occurrence in the movie industry. We’ve seen classics like Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now improve upon the already iconic finished products and some not as successful attempts (sorry George Lucas). Zack Snyder’s Justice League may be the most deserving of all for its director to be given a second chance, with the original 2017 film caught in a storm of personal grievances and restrictive studio mandates which eventually led to his replacement by Avengers director Joss Whedon. The resulting product was a surface level fight-fest, with nary a full character arc in sight, that attempted to please studio executives rather than the fan base rampant to see out Snyder’s vision, which began with 2013’s excellent Man of Steel. Finally, after years of vehement online support, Warner Bros acquiesced, allowing Snyder to present his full, gigantic 4 hour vision of the ultimate DC super-hero team-up on streaming services around the world. Does it live up to the hype? Yes and no. Let’s get into it.
For the uninitiated, the broad strokes of Justice League centre around Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) attempting to recruit a team of super-powered individuals to fight against the oncoming threat of Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), an intergalactic being hell-bent on destroying the Earth and cultivating it into an apocalyptic wasteland for big bad Darkseid (Ray Porter). In order to do this, he must collect the DC equivalent of the Infinity Stones, the Mother Boxes; three cubes scattered across the globe which, when combined, create an unstoppable force to change the planet to the user’s will. As the newly formed Justice League – now including Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Flash (Ezra Miller) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) – clash with Steppenwolf, they begin to realise that their only way to achieve victory may be through some less than ethical means and a recently deceased Kryptonian.
Simply put, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the vastly superior version of the film, feeling like far more of a thematically and tonally consistent sequel to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman than Whedon’s cut. Narratively it is a very similar beast, with majority of the big action set-pieces remaining intact, but where Whedon’s version threw away character development and story in favour of quippy one-liners and mindless filler scuffles, Snyder restores these aspects, with a particular focus placed on the characters of Cyborg and Steppenwolf, two of the most underserved and generic characters from the 2017 film. Cyborg’s origin and relationship with his father is the emotional centre of the film, leaving the baffling question as to why Whedon chose to remove the only fully fledged character arc from his movie. Fisher is wonderful as the troubled half-man half-machine, conflicted over his feelings towards his father’s work that left him alive but cost him his mother and any semblance of a normal life. No longer does Cyborg simply become a hero after a pep-talk from Wonder Woman, but from some serious soul-searching and forgiveness, a theme Ben Affleck’s caped crusader learnt the hard way in Batman v Superman.
Ciarán Hinds’ incompetent villain Steppenwolf is also reworked into a more sympathetic character this time around, less concerned with collecting macguffins to destroy the world than he is to serve out a debt owed to Darkseid and win back his place as the right-hand man of DC’s answer to Thanos. Sure this may be shown in something of a clumsy and eerily relatable way, with Steppenwolf communicating with his boss via a series of magical Zoom calls, but using redemption as a motivator following an implied betrayal of Darkseid makes for a much more interesting character. Steppenwolf’s revamp extends to the visual side as well, marking a significant upgrade for the creature who has gone from a poorly rendered, gladiator armour wearing alien to a ferocious, spike clad minion of death, worthy of the threat Snyder insistently reminds us he is to the newly formed league of heroes. The scenes involving Steppenwolf also showcase a new feature of the Snyder Cut: the R rating. Gore features heavily as Steppenwolf slices and dices his way through scores of Amazonian and Atlantean soldiers, who explode in puffs of viscera at the blade of his lethal axe. It’s an unneeded touch for sure, likely to alienate the ever-present audience of young children who come to these films to see Superman and Wonder-Woman kick butt without any evidence of actual harm, but it certainly fits in with Snyders MO of throwing everything at his likely last outing in the DC universe.
That’s right, all the quirks that come with Zack Snyder’s style are present here on a scale larger than anything we have seen before. That includes some truly cringe inducing dialogue, a return to the gritty, grounded characters of before (gone is the giddily childish humour of Whedon) and as much slow-motion action that the human mind can physically endure before exploding. Seriously, at times it feels like a quarter of the film is just slow-motion shots of our heroes narrowly avoiding a bullet or pushing something out of the way of harm. The lack of a restriction on runtime allows for all sorts of overindulgence on Snyder’s part, from an extended scene of hymns to Aquaman sung by an Icelandic village to an almost Return of the King number of endings, including the much hyped “Knightmare” sequence, which serves as an intriguing, if unfulfilling look at where Snyder’s proposed trilogy of films would have gone. Jared Leto’s singular scene as the Joker here is better than the entirety of Suicide Squad, even if it is about a fraction of the length of that mess, but doesn’t elevate the film significantly or warrant a complete viewing on its own merits.
The continued narrative of Superman continues to be Snyder’s greatest contribution to this iteration of the DC universe, even if he doesn’t lean into the character’s moral compass as much as in Man of Steel, with his endlessly positive message of hope ringing louder now than ever. It is genuinely exciting to see him return to save the day, and the touches of Hans Zimmer’s Man of Steel score in Thomas Holkenborg’s completely re-recorded and otherwise rather generic score are goosebump inducing during the climactic fight scenes. Cavill’s performance is one for the ages and the fact that this may very well be the last time we see him don the blue and red (or black this time around) suit can’t help but feel bittersweet, especially given this film’s lack of importance to the overarching DC story going forward, with Warner Bros declaring Whedon’s cut the canonical entry in the franchise. There is some retribution in knowing that Cavill’s last appearance as the Man of Steel isn’t marred by a digitally removed moustache (Google it) but here’s hoping it isn’t the last time we see him on-screen.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a fascinating experiment of a film. Whilst it is an undoubtedly good thing that Snyder was allowed to see out his full creative vision, the fact remains that this version of the superhero epic – whilst superior to Whedon’s – is at times a bloated, directionless cluster bomb of a movie, with the director let loose to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the viewer’s eyeballs: the good, the bad and the godawful slow-motion (seriously stop doing that). As a continuation of his previous DC work, this feels like a satisfactory, suitably epic conclusion, even if the epilogue scene doesn’t convey that sense of finality. While it is easy to look at the Snyder Cut as a win, it also represents something of the toxic side of fandom, where “fan ownership” of characters leads to the bullying of studios and individuals into getting what they want. I’m more than curious to see what Zack Snyder would do with the sequels to this film and I genuinely hope they get made, but only if the creative team has genuine interest and supports the project, not as a result of a bunch of bullish, entitled fans. When part of the fandom turns as dark as Darkseid’s minions, no one wins.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League stars Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds, Amber Heard, Joe Morton and Henry Cavill – Streaming on HBO Max in the US and on Binge in Australia now.