Friday, March 25, 2022

Reb00t 1t - Zack Snyder's Justice League Part 2

And we’re back with another dose of the Snyder Cut and a likely rather scattershot set of viewpoints around the changes made here. Unlike with previous reboots discussed here, a lot of material was in the original, the original I have already reviewed and the plot in this film is pretty much the same. It’s hard to determine exactly how successful the Snyder Cut has actually been. It’s certainly created a lot of buzz, and the more positive reception certainly helped but because it’s been released on a streaming service the value it creates will be dependant on how many subscribers it brings on and retains. And 2021 has been a big year for HBO Max with all of its big cinematic releases being placed on the service for free for a few weeks at time of release. This was an attempt to reclaim something as Covid has drawn audiences away from traditional theatres.


I’m losing track, let’s take a look at the rest of the Snyder Cut.

I’ll say off the bat that of the two halves I watched, this is the one I enjoyed the most but then how many films can you really say have a better opening that climax? Especially in this genre. But I do have a few things to say, and let’s start off with some positives because I’m occasionally capable of giving those.

I really like JK Simmons as Commissioner Gordon. Not much to say as he has little to do but I like him. Clark’s scene with his mother and Lois is good and doesn’t have quite as much cringey dialogue, the energy absorbing gauntlets were a fantastic idea, not sure why those were omitted in the Whedon version, the climax looks better without the red filter, despite the usual muted colours.

And Cyborg is massively improved over the original, not to say he was flawlessly done but without a solo movie to properly flesh everything out, I’m happy with what we got here. Silas Stone gets a bit more to do and the complicated relationship between the two is explored at least on a surface level. I like that when Cyborg hacks into the labs systems to evacuate the lab, Silas is instantly suspicious and is about to report it but when he sees Victor with the League, he backs his son’s play.

His death in a later scene was unnecessary in my opinion. They established in an earlier scene that the mother-box could be super-heated with a special light-ray or something and he sacrificed himself so he could mark the box so the heroes could track it. It does lead to a badass line from Victor when he’s the key to stopping the unity.

I think that’s the end of my positives

Their interpretation of Darkseid is pretty pathetic. I’m not really fond of anything bar his look. His voice is your generic gravelly voice his dialogue is exceptionally generic. Apparently, the anti-life equation is written on Earth which makes no sense really but whatever.

Steppenwolf continues to be a fairly underwhelming villain in his own right. He suffers from a generic voice and dialogue and a backstory that felt in need of elaboration, this film is nearly 4 hours long. As for the redesign, it’s unnecessarily overdesigned, occasionally they do something clever with it but I have to feel for the animators who had to deal with the 100,000 spikes on that thing.

The other minor gripe I have is that they make Superman too powerful. Steppenwolf’s axe thing was dealing powerful blows to Aquaman and Wonder Woman but it does absolutely nothing to Superman, doesn’t even make him sweat. Superman then easily beats up Steppenwolf allowing Cyborg and the Flash to do their thing. The other disconcerting thing in the climax is just how many guns Batman uses. If this Batman is okay with killing, why is the Joker still alive?

So the film ends with some minor changes, first off the scene with Luthor on the boat is changed and in my opinion for the worse. Deathstroke having a grudge against Batman and agreeing to kill him for free is…

And then there’s the “Restore the Snyderverse” fan-wank garbage that followed. Yes, we get another "Knightmare" section like the one in Batman v Superman. The Joker is there for some reason and it’s an even weaker performance from Jared Leto than the one in Suicide Squad. And going off interviews, this whole bit is about a time where Bruce loved Lois but she chose or something and Batman hesitated at a critical juncture which got her killed, which for some reason meant that Superman joined with the forces of Apokolips and is hunting down our heroes. 

I’m really sick of evil Superman, it’s been done to death. Snyderverse isn’t going to happen, this scene should have been cut, it’s only there to get another twitter hashtag trending. Count me out!

And no, it’s not because I dislike this film, to the contrary I do think the Snyder cut, despite its gargantuan 4-hour length, is a vast improvement over the Whedon version, at least we’re rid of Superman’s CGI Mouth. There is some element of him maybe listening as the tone is a little brighter, and Superman a little more hopeful, bar that stupid ending. Oh and Martian Manhunter shows up, he was too busy telling Lois to get back to work to stop the world-ending threat and somehow looks worse than he does on Supergirl.

Zack Snyder’s vision for this movie is an uncompromising vision, you can tell for better or worse that there wasn’t much creative oversight here. The film improves on the Whedon version by not having some of the cringier humour and putting more character focus on Cyborg especially. That being said it is bloated and padded, particularly in the first half. And despite all the fan-teasing on the Apokolips stuff that got a lot of people, including myself, somewhat excited, I ended up enjoying almost none of it.

Though I owe Zack Snyder an apology for one thing, there were a few times in that old review I credited Whedon for certain scenes I enjoyed but since they also showed up here, that credit goes back to Zack.

R E B 6 5 T

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