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It’s been a long, strange trip since Justice League was first released in 2017. Some may say Warner Bros. jumped the gun by introducing the group, Avengers-style, before half of them had even been properly introduced in their own stand-alone movies … like Marvel did before assembling the Avengers for their first group effort. At that point, only Wonder Woman had been in a solo movie while Aquaman’s was coming and The Flash and Cyborg’s solos were stlil far off.
Since then, we’ve seen Aquaman and the unrelated Shazam, but The Flash is still to go into production for a 2022 release, and the future of a Cyborg movie is probably off the table for now because of the issues between lead Ray Fisher and Warner Bros. which essentially fired him for complaining about abuse on the set of Justice League under replacement director Joss Whedon. And when that film was released, it was not met kindly by most movie-goers or critics. I wasn’t as harsh as some, and did find some good things in it but it suffered by its lack of a real villain. Ever since then, fans have lobbied the studio hard to allow Zack Snyder to return and put together the film the way he intended.
And, surprisingly, they listened. It didn’t hurt that WarnerMedia had decided to launch its own streaming service in the meantime, so what better way to launch HBO Max than with something people have actually been asking for? And now, here we are with the legendary ‘Snyder Cut’ of the film, now titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
The storyline is basically the same — Superman is dead, Batman regrets everything that went down between them, there is a force from somewhere out there coming to destroy the planet, Batman needs to gather the known meta-humans to form a team to combat the alien menace, and along the way come up with a plan to resurrect Superman. Where the theatrical release truly stumbled was in its villain, Steppenwolf. Traditionally the character works on behalf of the DC Universe’s Big Bad, Darkseid. In the original film, Steppenwolf was just here to find three ‘Mother Boxes’ to consolidate his own power. It was not interesting and the creature looked cheesy. Now though, even with Steppenwolf’s part in the new version of the film stepped up (with better CGI), he’s actually doing what he’s supposed to be doing — collecting the Mother Boxes to open a portal for Darkseid to come to Earth.
Snyder’s version gives us a lot of backstory on Darkseid, who had come to Earth thousands of years ago, the only planet he was unable to conquer because of the united forces of the Amazons, the Atlanteans and the Humans (apparently the Green Lantern Corps was also involved). The Mother Boxes were left behind as Darkseid and his minions fled the planet with one left in the care of each faction. They have been guarded for thousands of years but now Steppenwolf is back to reclaim them for his lord. There’s also something called Anti-Life that Darkseid has been searching the galaxy for, and Steppenwolf has found that it is also on Earth. This not only sets up Darkseid’s return, but gives Steppenwolf a reason for all of his actions: to serve Darkseid and improve his status with the Dark Lord.
The new version also gives us some much needed backstories for Victor Stone/Cyborg and his father, and Barry Allen/The Flash. Vic’s story in particular gives us much more insight into his always morose mood, including scenes with his mother, while we also get a little more background on Barry trying to be a ‘normal’ person to help his dad get out of prison while still embracing his super speed. There is also a little more background with Arthur Curry/Aquaman, including scenes with Amber Heard and William Dafoe. Superman’s part of the new film is basically what was already filmed for the theatrical version so there is not a lot of significant change there, however there is a scene between Lois Lane and Martha Kent that has a significant addition to the end of the scene that I won’t spoil here.
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And how, you may ask, has Snyder been able to add all of these new plot point? Well, Warner Bros. had enough confidence in him to allow him to create a four-hour-and-two-minute cut of the film. Yeah, that sounds like a lot, but Snyder has ingeniously broken the film into eight parts with an Epilogue:
- Part 1: Don’t Count On It, Batman – 40 minutes
- Part 2: The Age of Heroes – 30 minutes
- Part 3: Beloved Mother, Beloved Son – 40 minutes
- Part 4: Change Machine – 30 minutes
- Part 5: All the King’s Horses – 30 minutes
- Part 6: Something Darker – 50 minutes
- Epilogue: A Father Twice Over – 28 minutes
Each part has a main focus but carries the main storyline through. Part 1 focuses on Bruce Wayne’s attempts to assemble his team. Part 2 shows us the battle with Darkseid from thousands of years ago. Part 3’s focus is Vic Stone, etc. The segments run anywhere from 30 to 50 minute (approximately), so there are natural breaks to allow you to take a breath, get a snack or use the bathroom. Or you can take a break and come back later. It’s a really clever way to tell the story without fatiguing the audience. But, I found myself so engaged with this version that I was ready to sit through the whole four hours in one beat. And while there is a lot that’s familiar from the theatrical release, there are some surprises including the Epilogue which includes some familiar DC characters (including the heavily spoiled appearance of Jared Leto as the Joker … and Snyder has managed to make him a much more frightening and dangerous character than we saw in Suicide Squad). As a whole, Zack Snyder’s Justice League works better than it ever should have, and really is the definitive, preferred version. What sucks now is that Affleck has stepped away from the Batman role, Fisher is probably not going to be asked back, and no one seems to have any idea what Warner Bros. is doing with Superman, at least the theatrical version, so a follow-up to the film seems unlikely and that’s a shame because it does leave the story ripe for a sequel.
One thing that needs to be addressed is how the film is presented because I know that is going to cause a lot of controversy. If you’ve seen the teasers and trailers, you’ve surely noticed the image is square with black bars on the left and right side of the TV screen, like an old TV show. This is Snyder’s preferred format for presentation. It is actually the exact aspect ration of a 35mm film frame and it is the way the film would have looked on an IMAX screen. There is no information lost on the sides. This is how Snyder saw the film through the viewfinder of the camera. You can zoom the image on your TV, but you will lose not only resolution but massive amounts of information on the top and bottom of the image. I did not find it distracting at all (in fact, I found the theatrical version of Justice League felt too tightly cropped on the Blu-ray release that filled the entire 16×9 screen size). SO don’t panic when you see the square image. Embrace it, embrace what Snyder has accomplished (with no pay to retain complete creative control), and hope that the Powers That Be at Warner Bros. will consider diving back into this world with Snyder at the helm.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League has a run time of 4 hours 2 minute and is not rated.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is currently streaming on HBO Max.
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