In the wake of Superman’s death, Batman tries to put together a team to defend against an impending alien invasion, unaware it has already arrived.
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue (and Final Thoughts)
But Like… Why?!?
#ReleaseTheSnyderCut was one of the grossest non-sex crime things to happen in Hollywood in the last decade. The movement went to extreme lengths to demand Warner Bros. release Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League, as the theatrical version ended up a mess after extensive reshoots and editing led by Joss Whedon (hired before Snyder departed).
We don’t have time to re-litigate the degree to which Snyder was fibbing when he said all he needed was to “tweak” the VFX. The bottom line is those behind the movement got their wish and set a dangerous precedent as Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released (twice) in 2021 and most agree it’s a better movie, including myself when reviewing it with Mike Thomas for a podcast.
Netflix apparently saw something in the drama behind all this, inviting Snyder to come spend a bunch of their money making his own version of Star Wars in Rebel Moon… and then a few months later pretending that director’s cuts were necessary when he had full creative control from the jump (see Community Note below!)
Anyway, those release this Friday, August 2nd. so to ‘celebrate’ this cursed milestone I decided to spend this week returning to ZSJL one chapter at a time, somewhat mirroring his original pitch to make it a miniseries on HBOMax.
The Plot
- The energy wave released by the deaths of Superman and Doomsday is felt around the world, awakening three ‘Mother Boxes’
- Fearing an impending alien invasion, Batman tries and fails to recruit Aquaman to a team of protectors.
- Wonder Woman thwarts a bank robbery in London
- Steppenwolf attacks Themyscira and steals the Mother Box guarded by the Amazons
The Good
- As a sweeping statement that applies to almost the entire film everything has more time to breathe and never feels like it cuts away too quickly. None of the editing is awkward or choppy. I still have issues with the overall creative direction, but it is without a doubt a complete work, and basically every scene that’s in both versions is better in The Snyder Cut.
- I think the big sonic wave scene outstays its welcome, but Atlantis definitely looks great. Amber Heard may just be floating and looking broadly concerned for a few moments, but she is captured stunningly on film, taking on an otherworldly quality fitting of her role. Slow motion footage is Snyder’s bread and butter after all.
- Alfred. In a story where Batman is trying to recruit a group of Super Friends, you absolutely need Alfred there to gently razz him over his lack of social skills. Jeremy Irons was a great casting and while every version of the material is beneath him, he seemed game. I loved him dryly yearning for warmer climates in their hunt for metahumans. It’s a slightly more serious version of the character, while still being fun enough. Though I think the better lighting and the joke about The Penguin is good in the 2017 version.
- If you’ve got 4 hours to play with, you absolutely have room for slightly longer scenes of Martha Kent and Lois Lane in mourning. Also, great find of a melancholy song that features the lyrics “They told us our gods would outlive us…”
- One of the biggest failings of the MCU has been in the inability to establish multiple recurring musical stingers. Thor and Guardians have used needle drops, but really the only pieces of original score people recognise are from The Avengers and Black Panther. Snyder has always been a music video director masquerading as a filmmaker, and his instincts are in the right place with the Amazonian wailing when Diana appears in the first ‘superhero in action’ scene. Transitioning into either a re-used piece from Wonder Woman or a new interpolation of it when she springs into action works really well, too.
- “Daughters of Themyscira, show him your fear!” “We have no fear!” Goes extremely hard. Likewise the Amazons standing guard around the box before anything even happened and all drawing their weapons in unison the moment it lights up. There are some great, dramatic little action moments in their battle with Steppenwolf, from the muscle mommies collapsing the heavy support beams with sledgehammers, to the improvised rope-arrow launching the Mother Box farther away from the villain. Both are in the theatrical version, but all the extra slow motion and the longer run-time make these more impactful. However, also see below…
The Bad
- It’s a real rough looking movie, especially given visuals are Snyder’s whole deal. The ugly CGI, the shoddy compositing, the complete lack of colour, and the production design all work together to present more DCEU brown and orange sludge. I think it’s really funny he chose to open the movie with new angles of the absolute disaster that was the finale of Batman V Superman to really double down on that whole vibe. There are definitely some cool shots too, such as Diana standing high above the London museum, but even that is criminally lacking in vibrancy; Dull red and blue against a grey sky. I know it’s England, but come on! DC is defined by big, bold, bright colours, and even if they wanted a grittier tone, Diana is not the character I’d force a drab aesthetic on. Likewise, Themyscira is also known as Paradise Island, a place of perpetual sunshine and endless beauty… and yet Patty Jenkins’ warm tones are replaced with the same muddy overcast conditions as the rest of the world. Way to make it not feel at all special!
- Bruce’s character feels off to me. From his choice of wording (“There are enemies coming from far away. I need warriors”) to how laissez-faire he is protecting his identity. There is a 0% chance an equivalent scene in comics or animation wouldn’t have featured him in costume as Batman – probably in some kind of cold-weather variant of the suit – but I guess you paid Ben Affleck a lot of money so you want him to show his face. I don’t object to Bruce adopting the unlikely role of recruiter after his reluctance to work with Superman partially led to Clark’s death, but personally I would have had Batman be the last to reveal his secret identity to the others as an act of trust ahead of the final fight. It may be a remote fishing village, but the idea he’d openly admit he’s Batman not just to Aquaman, but all the bystanders, seems wrong.
- Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder have absolutely no handle on the voice of normal people. In a story about gods and monsters, none of the peripheral characters talk like real humans. Part 1 may be the worst offender for this, from the Icelandic women bursting into song and one of them sniffing Aquaman’s discarded shirt, to a Brit saying “four city blocks,” there’s just no interest in making any of them anything but props to gawp at the heroes in awe. The best superhero, action and sci-fi films are much better at this aspect.
- Oh, Steppenwolf. I know I’m completely on an island, but you’ll simply never convince me this redesign is better than the theatrical (which was also really bad!) They’re both misguided given Steppenwolf has almost exclusively been depicted as just a dude in armour throughout comic and cartoon history, so why go to a giant CGI monstrosity in an era where it’s already over-used? I suppose this version is more detailed? But the original was slightly closer to human. Neither are Thanos, and deploying a CGI villain should be done sparingly if at all. They were going to have to do it for Darkseid when they got to him, so why do it this early too when you could just cast a real actor and buck an unpopular trend? I guess just to really emphasise the alien nature of The New Gods, but as I say, about half of them just look like humans in weird outfits.
- Design aside, I detest the decision to have Steppenwolf’s first scene in the movie (just before the half hour mark!) be him absolutely stomping the Amazons. Wonder Woman was the most popular movie leading up to Justice League, and we all got a kick out of these powerful women being so hyper-capable. They obviously shouldn’t defeat the villain in the first act, and they do manage to hobble him a couple of times, but I’ve always felt the manner in which he steamrolls them is… icky; Misguidedly overlooking what worked before at best, dismissive anti-feminism at worst. What if their Mother Box had been the second to be lost and he had to work a lot harder for it, rather than shrugging off everybody off like an adult fighting children? Sure, reinforcements arrive and he peaces out before they can reach him, but it still doesn’t sit right with me for him to utterly wash them.
The Theatrical
- Obviously Cavill’s digitally removed moustache looks bad. But Batman taking down a Parademon in Gotham is one of the best scenes in the Theatrical Cut. I prefer these kinds of movies to begin with either a cold open, or establish the premise/threat as early as possible. A Parademon is not Steppenwolf, but it’s better than not seeing the villains for almost thirty minutes, and it gives Bruce something to actually be paranoid about when trying to recruit Aquaman, rather than his vague talk of… ‘enemies.’ In under 5 minutes you have the most popular superhero in the world doing his thing, tease the Mother Boxes (with Alfred confirming Luthor had notes on them for even more connectivity) and explicitly show who Bruce is going to try and recruit. Is it a little heavy handed? Perhaps. But it’s also clean and cohesive.
- You can really feel the awkward editing in the theatrical version of the Aquaman recruitment scene, which has less flow and adds a slightly ridiculous mural to visually tie back to the Mother Boxes. I actually think “I hear you can talk to fish” is a good line and wouldn’t have been out of place in The Snyder Cut, as Batman often mocks the rest of The League to compensate for being one of the only ones with no superpowers. Like he HATES Green Lanterns. Conversely, “That’s not a saying, that’s the opposite of the saying” is pure Whedon however, and while I want to like it because “The strong man is strongest alone” is extremely dumb, Bruce just isn’t your guy for that kind of line.
- We’ll talk about it properly in Part 3, but Whedon brings The Flash’s first scene forward to ensure you meet the entire (living) team in the first 30-40 minutes, which is far more sane and rational.
- The Themyscira footage is seemingly identical but brightened up, which makes it look better to me, at least once they get outside. Steppenwolf’s name is given aloud immediately, and he has a “mother” thing going on with the box. It’s creepy, I suppose, but I know most think ‘crazy cartoon villain’ is worse than his treatment in the Snyder Cut, which I find funny because ‘Welcome to the dark age’ is a far more generic villain line. I agree there’s better material to come for Step next time though…
Overall
As an opening to the movie, I think both versions work reasonably well, with Snyder’s benefitting from less janky editing, and the theatrical version giving more focus to the story by using Alfred as a quasi-narrator, firmly establishing the Mother Boxes and recruitment of The League. It tries to keep that narrative momentum to mixed results, while Snyder luxuriates in his handful of scenes, arguably for like… 20% too long.
We’ve gotten our first failed pitch by Batman, a demonstration of one of the core members of the team doing their thing, and the villain has established himself as extremely powerful. I have my issues with how each was done in both versions, but broadly, it’s a sensible set of choices given the overall story.
So far, so Very Okay.
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue (and Final Thoughts)
The Reel World 