Oh boy… why did I decide to critique this film. I mean, I watched it… all four hours of it, so I guess the sunk cost fallacy that I wanted to review it, when I started watching it, that hooked me. Now two watches later, a full eight hours of bladder torture, I feel like I have to talk about my experience because I’m sure you all will experience some similar feelings. Firstly, this is a different cut of a film that has already been out for some time, but since a lot of the footage ended up on the cutting room floor, well it’s important to note that there is going to be some Spoilers. I make no apology for that.
As always we break down the critiques of the three categories: Story, Acting, and Overall.
STORY: 5/10
Fucking hell. First off, I want to say that I think I have a deeper understanding of the story of what happened with regards to the explosion which was the theatric cut. Who the hell at DC and Warner Bros gave a camera and a crew to Zack Snyder, and let him record over 4 hours of footage like he was making a whole day experience in theaters. I’m not taking any sides. I’ve been a fan of both Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon in the past, and frankly, the theatrical cut is a failure, but I don’t think fault belongs to one party. It’s hard to know all the background dealings that lead to the shunting of Snyder off the project. While it’s a very clear reason that Snyder had family issues to tend to, there have also been rumblings that Warner Bros was not happy with the product that they were seeing out of Snyder. For those reasons, maybe it was a mixture of both, and Snyder just wasn’t in any place to fight them and just walked away. I would understand that, and my heart goes out to him and his family.
That being said, more and more facts have existed and returned to light about how much of an asshole Whedon can be on set to actors and writers. I make no question that there are facts of misbehavior that deserves penalty or punishment. However, being given all that footage from Snyder, being told by Warner Bros that he has to tell a coherent story with all that content, and a lot of it bleak as hell would be very difficult.
A lot of cuts would have to be made to all the content, no matter who was in the director’s seat. To be honest, Warner Bros rushed this team-up film. There were talks about Batman and Superman, and the Justice League movies, long before Marvel crafted the MCU, but it was the slow action of Warner Bros that caused them to have to play catch up. There is no question that they pushed hard to create a team-up film without flushing out the characters.
But the Snyder Cut has a lot going for it, that it had the time to tell more fully the story of Cyborg. While we got a little more of Aquaman’s story, due to the fact that his stand-alone film came out between the theatrical cut and the Snyder Cut, it honestly wasn’t really needed for casual moviegoers and DC fans. Cyborg’s story was awesome and impressive. I can really understand why Ray Fisher would be so upset. Having a scene cut in a film can be devastating, especially when you did an amazing job in the scene and believed you were playing a specific role. However, the theatrical cut had more than just a scene. Almost all of the Cyborg scenes were cut drastically short because… well.. there wasn’t ANY TIME!
That being said, the Snyder Cut has no business being four hours long. I bet if they cut out the 80 pointless scenes that don’t drive character development and remove the trademark super-slow-mo footage, they could have gotten the film down to three, or three and a half hours.
The film is a better story, but not because the director presented a vision in the given format, but because the director cheated and had the ability to force two movies’ worth of stories and development into a four-hour mini-series.
ACTING: 8/10
Man, Ray Fisher brings his A-game in this role and Joe Morton is always a treasure. The arcs and acting of the two throughout the movie, while a bit whiney on Cyborg’s side, is passionate, and powerful. To be honest, they should have given him a stand-alone film before Justice League if Snyder wanted to rely so heavily on his character carrying the story. And yeah, he carries the story, and well. It’s crazy because with the theatrical cut it’s so disjointed that we lose the understanding of his motivations, and therefore it feels out of place and makes it seem like there is worse acting in this film than there actually is. A bad cut of a story can make every part of it bad. I’m not giving Snyder credit though for this cut’s acting being better, just that the scenes with Ray Fisher really shine when not trimmed.
The additional time for Ezra Miller’s Flash didn’t really help the character, what actually helped the character was the original dialog and behavior in the Snyder scenes. The better understanding, worries about, and playing with his powers felt more like the Flash, being the Flash, as opposed to his sidelining in the theatrical cut.
I’m not really going to go into any of the other actor’s performances, because it’s not really that different than the theatrical cut, just a little more flushed out. There is one scene I need to address though, and it’s the flash-forward scene. The inclusion of the Joker at the end of the world was so exciting to see, but frankly, when I was watching it, it was so horrible. The dialog was horrible. The performance was wooden. It had no place being in the film. We already know the story of Jason Todd, it was actually perfectly showcased with a simple prop in the Batcave for Batman V Superman. With all the exchanges between the two titans of comics, so many storylines to grab barbs from, the whole scene came off as a mistake.
Just a complete disappointment.
OVERALL: 6/10
I would love to give this film more credit, and a higher score, but that being said, I just can’t. This wasn’t an edited film. This was just an organized one. There was no need for Zack Snyder to use every single scene he shot and more. We didn’t need to see the barista pouring the foam pattern in Lois Lanes coffee, handing it to her, her walking it to an officer, and giving it to him. We could have just picked up at Lois Lane handing the officer coffee. We would have believed that she bought the coffee, it’s not a groundbreaking fact that she got coffee and it’s no character development. There are tons of these scenes still in this cut.
It’s a little unfair to call this the Snyder Cut, when nothing ended up on the editing room floor.
That being said, if you like DC Comic characters, have four hours to spend, and don’t mind rolling your eyes as you wait for scenes that actually matter to grace your screen, then you should check out this film. It is a good ride in a lot of parts of it, just not all!
Conner’s Final Thought(s):
There is no way this movie could have existed if it was not for the Pandemic and the creation of HBO Max. The streaming service needed a stunt to bring up subscribers, and the long-form mini-series style format of this movie fits well in its home, but we couldn’t imagine watching this in the theaters, and it would have never been what you got if Warner Bros didn’t replace Snyder with Whedon.
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