OK, 4 hours of my life gone - survived the Snyder Cut. Let’s do this.
Positives
- Yes, it’s a much better version overall. The tone is consistent, there’s better justification for actions and the story does seem less goofy - clearly having more runtime helps as well as not changing directors and forcing a different vision on existing material.
- Excellent visuals and action. As always, Zack Snyder has an eye for a great shot and lighting and everything so it looks phenomenal. The fight scenes have weight to them and have excellent wow moments in them. Most of the action is easy to understand and follow, no quick-cuts.
- Good participation of all JL members - compared to the original cut, even Batman had important things to do despite being underpowered and it felt like everyone was involved. Wonder Woman got the best action that we haven’t seen in her own movies and Cybork with Aquaman also got some nice shots. Yes Stuperman still saved the day but it felt like they could almost do it without him which was nice. It felt like Zach did care for these characters.
Negatives
It is a polished turd is still a turn underneath and despite all the cool stuff that would please certain audiences the core of this movie is rotten.
Not Zach’s fault:
- Clearly not having an establishing movie for each character before doing BvS and Justice League is a terrible idea. Yes, everyone knows who Batman or who Flash is, but when you’re introduced to Batfleck - apart from surface-level knowledge, this is for all intents and purposes a new character. It’s not Nolan Batman, not Burton Batman - we know nothing of him and to boot, this Batman kills people. No wonder the audience is confused. In Justice League we get Cyborg and Barry Allen and despite a lot of characterisation especially for Cyborg - clearly it’s not enough. This movie is 4 hours long and Cyborg literally has to lose mom, dad, get powers to nuke the whole world and immediately decide to team up and use it for good. It’s super -think and studio-mandated.
Zach’s faults:
- Slow-Mo. A lot of scenes in this movie look good because of slow-mo. I get it, it’s how Zach sees things - he likes to shoot a pretty shot and stay on it to wow the audience. It's comic book effect, a single perfect shot. But when you slow-mo everything including some random terrorist reloading a gun or Aquaman going underwater the effect just loses its potency. Moreover it makes great shots but movie is more than just cool imagery - dialogue, scenes, pacing are all important. The fact is - this movie could’ve probably been like 30 minutes shorter if the slow-mo was sped up and most fight scenes would look more visceral if it were toned down. Keep this shit for Flash and for real important showcases or Wonder Woman impact punch effect, the Flash running for the Motherbox to resuscitate Superman doesn’t need to take 5 minutes.
- Story. Zack Snyder is certainly ambitious. In fact his greatest boon and his greatest issue is ambition and lack of restraint. Slow-mo is a very easy way of seeing that but mostly it comes in his story, the art - everything. He has a vision, a big strong vision and he executes it. Some people find it good, but honestly - mostly he cannot write a cohesive good story. His arguably best work is the adaptation of Watchmen - a pre-written story. Like Game of Thrones showrunners the guy can shoot a movie, but he needs better writers or someone to restrain his grander vision. Here we have everything: Darkseid, Steppenwolf, motherboxes. Nothing is properly explained, a lot of things are handwaved and don't get me started on character motivations and plotting. This is a movie where US Army is studying a Ktyptonian ship and a Motherbox yet the body of Superman - an inderstructible superhuman being that nations would wage war for to obtain - is buried in a cemetery where anyone can just dig it up with a shovel. I don't think I need to say more about the consistency of this whole thing.
- Characters: so people say Batfleck is so cool - and he is - visually he looks cool and he fights well and has nifty toys. He gathers the team and is the wise voice of leadership. Oh wait, no, he’s a dumbass and every line of dialogue that he says is so cheesy I can’t believe someone with a brain wrote it. Let’s forget about him doing a 180 on Superman cause of Martha but go watch the movie and pay attention to all the Bat-talk. It’s cringe, full of baseless one-liners, bad pep-talk and terrible plans without any justification on how anything should work out apart from feeling, faith and we have to do it this way. By the end of endless bad lines coming out of poor Affleck's mouth,I laughed when Cyborg fixed the Batplane and said that she wanted to fly (referencing a previous scene where he senses a plane wanting to fly as Cyborg can talk to sentient machines - which is not great writing either) to which Batman turns to him and says with music swelling: so can you. What the fuck is this shit? Cyborg already flown before, there's no context, why are you saying dumb motivational shit right now? How about: "Good Job!"? So Batman is wasted, let’s talk Alfred - his great idea is that Batman is crazy to assemble the team and shouldn’t do it. In fact, Alfred is actively sabotaging Batman for 80% of the movie - what a nice change from Michael Caine, thank God nobody listens to that prick. I guess he makes good weapons though? Oh and Flash is a creep, like I get that he is comic-relief but Goddamn - just no.
Let’s just talk for a bit about father figures in this universe. What kind of father did Zach have to write them this way? They are all giving terrible advice and telling their children to be selfish and just take whatever they can, not help anyone etc. There’s a fine line between saying: you can be whatever you want and “The whole world’s nuclear arsenal is at your command”. The first one is inspiring and empowering, the second one is fucking ominous and makes you think that this is going to bad places. Oh and it is also the first thing that Cyborg - a recently reborn superhuman machine who is angry, brooding and unstable hears from his dad’s recording. The part about restraint and love comes at the end cause it's less important I guess and he doesn't hear it until the end of the movie. Jeez, thank God he decided that he’s going to be the good guy cause I’m not sure whether the Justice League would wanna deal with the whole Cyborg-went-mad nuke crisis. Flash’s dad doesn’t want his son to pursue an education. Superman's dad is a prick as well. Alfred gives shit advice all the time. Fucks’ sake how do these guys actually end up all being good-doers with influences like this?
I mean there are other things we can talk about but the key here is that this movie is clearly what Zach wanted it to be and while it’s suitably epic and evokes at least some emotion, ultimately it is a failed vision - full of bad plots littered with plot holes and contrivances, full of characters who look cool but are not engaging or worthy of support, full of bad cliche dialogue that falls apart once you spend a second thinking about it. Yes, at least it was a vision - single, pointed and cohesive in its own way - and that’s worth celebrating. But I can't help but think that it is unfortunate that such good casting, great visuals and action are wasted on a bad story and characters that will now need to be rebooted or recast. This movie ultimately still upholds my belief that Zach is very competent at shooting a movie and action scenes but he’s terrible at directing the whole thing. He needs a writer, editor - someone with restraint who can focus his ideas. When you have some of that you get Watchmen, if not you get MoS, BvS and SuckerPunch. Let Zach do the visuals - don’t let him do the rest.
Now to watch Half in the Bag.
