The Justice League finally unite to rescue the STAR Labs hostages from Steppenwolf, but decide they’re one member short…
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue
The Plot
- Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Cyborg meet with Jim Gordon, learning of the kidnapped scientists and are able to ascertain they’ve been taken to Stryker’s Island via an abandoned tunnel system.
- The quartet battle Steppenwolf and rescue the hostages, with Aquaman saving them from a flood caused by Steppenwolf’s retreat.
- Steppenwolf realises the Anti-Life Equation is on Earth and reports back to Darkseid, who begins to make travel plans.
- Cyborg shares his ties to the Mother Box with the group, who realise that they could theoretically use the box to resurrect Superman.
The Good
- Again, the Wonder Woman theme playing as she begins fighting Steppenwolf is such a smart call. You REALLY miss it in the theatrical cut. It’s an okay fight. A couple of cool shots, but also some clunky CGI. I’ll hand it to them, I think “I belong to no-one” (in response to “She’s mine!”) is a better line than “You overestimate yourself.”
- Flash running around the walls to tip Diana’s sword back to her as she falls in slow motion is a great little sequence.
- Cyborg hacking Batman’s crawler tank to both fix it and pilot it better is neat.
- Darkseid joining the Zoom call and Steppenwolf instantly cowing himself in deference is excellent. I don’t overly care for his ‘reactive armour’ but seeing him remove it to the shoulders like a dog showing his belly is a good bit. It really hypes Darkseid up.
The Bad
- Cyborg continues to look awful, especially on the Gotham rooftop against the ugly grey & black cityscape. This is really unfortunate because I obviously agree Cyborg being in the movie more is a good thing, but he also appears in ‘costume’ more often, and the model just looks really rough. Maybe it would have looked good in 2017, but it certainly doesn’t in 2024.
- Can The Flash not carry hostages with him and get them to safety rather than just running up and down the stairs to berate them? More on this below.
- Batman continues to talk, think and move a little bit ‘wrong’ to me. Affleck looks notably sluggish, awkward and largely disinterested in the project compared to Batman V Superman. They seem to be trying to split the difference between Batman in his prime and the older Dark Knight Returns version, but it’s worse than both. This is also in the word choices (“There’s no us without him!”) and his decision making. Not so wildly wrong that he’s unrecognisable, but it just doesn’t ring true.
- Martian. Manhunter. It starts out as a solid little scene with ‘Martha Kent’ trying to get Lois back to work and living her life again, but gives way to one of my biggest problems with Snyder’s vision; He hyped up how many comic book characters got cut from the theatrical release in order to weaponise the fandom’s love of cameos. Martian Manhunter’s presence doesn’t really DO anything, as Superman’s resurrection would have snapped Lois out of it anyway. Instead it just illustrates that an exceptionally powerful hero is doing absolutely nothing to help with the central conflict. Seriously, J’onn J’onzz is arguably more powerful than anyone in the League except Superman. If he isn’t here in the first place, you don’t have to question why he sat out of every single fight. As I said last time with the Ryan Choi stuff, including cameos for the sake of it is bad. Debut him at the end if you so wish, but by saying ‘He was that guy in BvS in disguise!’ you’re creating unnecessary problems for yourself.
The Theatrical
- Stryker’s Island was changed to Braxton Island. Confused about that choice to be honest as I figured Whedon would love a comic reference. I suppose it’s possible it was the other way around and Snyder changed it for more fan service, but I don’t think so, as nobody’s face is ever seen when they’re saying Braxton, so I think it was ADR.
- Flash and Cyborg’s roles are greatly reduced, which is bad, but Whedon does attach a new mini-arc to Barry: “Just save one.” It’s a really good beat that’s consistent with Snyder’s version of Barry, as he mostly plays defender for the rest of the team and the hostages. You may prefer that the League are all supreme badasses, but I do think it’s interesting to have someone with incredible power that’s not a natural fighter, and especially to then have Batman be the one to demonstrate how they can still positively contribute. Again, this is Whedon’s screenwriting experience.
- The infamous Flash/Wonder Woman moment. Whedon’s worst contribution to the film by far, and not at all out of character for him. I’ve praised his talent for dialogue throughout these columns, and I do stand by that, but there has also always been a grossness to his treatment of female characters (not to mention even grosser treatment of women on set). It’s there in Buffy, Firefly and basically all of his works. The moment in question – Flash tackling Diana to save her from falling debris, only to accidentally find himself in a compromising position and then looking embarrassed – only lasts for a second. It’s still juvenile and unnecessary, but the way some people talk about it, you’d think it were much longer. I do like Barry evolving his ‘save one person at a time’ role from hostages to one of his teammates, but it sucks that this dumbass joke made it in. We get it, Joss, your take on Diana is that she’s so incidentally sexy that she makes most men look pathetic by simply going about her business. See also his Wonder Woman spec script. More on that next time…
- “Dressed like a Bat… I dig it.” is a fun little payoff of a Terrio/Snyder line, and I enjoy Jim Gordon giving Batman a playful jab about playing with others for the same reasons as I like Alfred gently hazing his boss.
- The new Justice League plotting scene is mostly worse too. From little things like Barry sprinting around the cave and sitting in the Batmobile with a goofy look on his face, to swapping ‘showing’ for ‘telling’ with Vic’s backstory. I DO like Diana objecting to the idea of bringing Superman back due to it getting into forces they shouldn’t be messing with, especially given what happened with Doomsday. It gets a little catty from there, with Bruce making the unnecessary Steve Trevor comment, but then does start playing with the idea of Diana’s reluctance to embrace being a symbol like Supes, which works as she’s been in the shadows for almost a century. Snyder went for romantic tension with these two, while Whedon preferred them arguing. Neither is offensive, but it’s certainly not as good as the big bickering scene in The Avengers.
- Tiny thing, but Whedon changed the Mother Box from being found by Hitler in WW2 to The British in WW1. My only theory here is he felt it was too close to the role of the Tesseract in The Avengers.
- Bruce dwelling on the idea Clark was more human than him is excellent. Batman/Superman 101 stuff and to me a better take on Bruce’s guilt and over the top deference from the Snyder Cut; That it’s about Bruce having self-awareness about his own shortcomings rather than saying they ain’t shit without Superman… even if that’s true.
Overall
This comes really close to being an entirely one-sided win for Snyder. I may prefer the 2017 colour palette (as always), but there’s very little they could do with this prolonged mid-point action sequence; It’s too pivotal to lose, and too elaborate to reshoot. That means a LOT of cutting and shaving, to the point it lets all the air out of the scene. The Theatrical version is just too truncated and floaty, trading things like Wonder Woman’s theme playing mid-fight for Flash falling into Diana’s tits. It may be the most pronounced the choppy editing has felt so far, as the shortened conversations from earlier still broadly got the job done, (but when viewed together it’s clear the extended ones work better,) whereas Part 4 is inescapably worse for being clipped. Even something as small as them crossing the broken bridge one at a time illustrates the chasm between the two versions. Oh hey, accidental wordplay!
That’s not to say I love this section in either version. The main scene is key, but that doesn’t make it compelling. Obviously the ‘set’ is huge and there’s a giant tank at one point, but it still feels underwhelming and mostly inconsequential. It’s more like an ‘end of act one’ scene than the giant midway triumph they’re going for. It’s also where you get the worst impulses of both creatives, with Snyder’s unnecessary Martian Manhunter cameo and Whedon’s little sex joke.
Still, we’re past the halfway point now and have 5 of the 6 members of the team together and a plan in place to resurrect Superman. So that’s progress!
Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Epilogue
The Reel World 