Zack Snyder's Justice League

Basic Introduction: 

I want to take a different approach to reviewing this movie, and it's something I want to apply to the reviews I write going forward. There will be a lot of comparison to the theatrical cut of Justice League from 2017. It's just kind of hard to avoid.  

What I Liked: 

First off, Zack Snyder's Justice League feels so much more fleshed out than the theatrical cut. The core cast gets a lot more to do. Looking back at the theatrical cut of the movie from 2017, I have to wonder why they cut all but the bare bones of Cyborg's backstory. Here, he doesn't feel like an afterthought. He feels like a character. The same can also be said of the movie's main villain, Steppenwolf. In the theatrical cut, he was just a generic villain who just wanted to rule the world. In this version, he has a clear master in Darkseid, and is working to get himself back in Darkseid's good graces. Already, the movie's main heavy has a backstory. He has a motivation. While he won't go down as one of my all time favorite villains, this movie offers him a much needed redemption. This movie's also pretty well paced. It was four hours long, and I was glued to all four hours of it. It moved at a pretty solid pace. There were plenty of moments I remembered liking from the theatrical cut, that just feel like they are improved upon here. I should also say that a lot of the fan service worked for me as well. It didn't reach a point for me where it felt too distracting, especially when it easily could have. Finally, the Snyder cut had something I feel was sorely missing from the 2017 version, a soul. This felt like a director's creative vision and a story he wanted to tell from the beginning, especially when compared to the theatrical cut (which I think can best be described as the cliff notes version of this movie). 

What I Didn't Like: 

So, my complaints are pretty minor, all things considered. But, I do still have some issues with this version of the movie. First off, there were a couple of lines here and there that I would have bet money Joss Whedon wrote when trying to give the film more humor, but they exist Zack Snyder's version, namely the line: "I am a black hole of snacks. I am a snack hole." Some of the CGI can look a little janky, though I can't harp on that too much because I think it's kind of amazing we even got this director's cut at all. Finally, let's address the elephant in the room: Amber Heard. Yes, I have my thoughts on her whole situation, and I am not a fan of who she is as a person. That is not why I'm talking about her in this section. I am talking about her in this section of my review because she was just bad in the movie. Fortunately, she's not in it very much. 

Final Thoughts: 

So yeah, I really liked Zack Snyder's Justice League. It got a much more emotional response out of me than the theatrical cut did. This version is on HBO Max, and is broken up into parts. If you have HBO Max, and you haven't already watched this, then just know I do have to recommend it.   

My Rating: 

Awesome