--Steppenwolf, Zack Snyder's Justice League
The Joss Whedon theatrical version of Justice League is nowhere near the worst superhero movie--it is not even the worst one in the DCEU. Suicide Squad and Aquaman take that status from even the most controversial fellow DCEU films. The original tampered cut of Justice League had some scenes of promising action and showed a lot of worldbuilding potential at the cost of utter thematic shallowness, one of the most bland, pathetic villains in all of superhero film history, and attempts at humor that sometimes wholly contradicted the tone that earlier DCEU entries had set up. It is with great relief and satisfaction that I realized Zack Snyder's Justice League is a vastly superior film. It does not matter which aspect one focuses on--the characterization for both protagonists and antagonists, the urgency of the stakes, the worldbuilding, the comedy, the action, and the buildup to a very excellent finale all tower above the 2017 theatrical version. Also, just for the sake of confirmation, yes, I will be publishing a spoiler review very soon!
Production Values
With the exception of a handful of scenes, the effects are largely better than those of Whedon's film. Steppenwolf is a prime example. Almost every detail of his appearance has been altered to make him more physically imposing, to let him show Akopolips technology in his armor, and to have him express far more emotion. Orange electricity even arcs from his massive battle axe now. The pathetic rendition of him in 2017 is left behind in full! Other visual effects improvements affect things like the look of the parademon blood. The soundtrack, crafted by Tom Holkenborg of Terminator: Dark Fate's own soundtrack, also has been enhanced with tracks that actually stand out from the more bland, generic scores of recent Marvel films. However, by far the most important differences between this version of the movie and the last pertain to the characters.
Practically every major character and even some who were missing from the 2017 cut get at least one or two scenes that establish or portray something very personal about their character. Aquaman's Vulko and Man of Steel's disguised Martian Manhunter are just two key examples. Gone are the kinds of jokes that conflicted with the tone of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and the first Wonder Woman, replaced with new jokes that do not clash with the genuine gravity of the film's events. Even the primary villain fares far better. Not only is Steppenwolf animated much more competently to the point of not looking like a half-rendered PlayStation 3 era character model, but his face also shows conflict and hurt when he talks to DeSaad for the first time. His true motivations surface and give his actions greater weight. He does not even fight for ideological reasons like recent depictions of Thanos, Killmonger, and Ares; he wants something far less important but still quite personal.
How about the heroes themselves? From Cyborg to Flash to the Amazons, the protagonists are all given more screen time, depth, eloquence, and significance regarding their place in the DCEU. Zack Snyder understands the true power of Cyborg and the warrior nature of Wonder Woman. The R-rated violence provides a much better context to showcase just how mighty the members of the League truly can be, and it does the same for other protagonists. The very extended stand of the Amazons against Steppenwolf at times echoes Snyder's own 300--what is often rightly recognized as the best of his previous work for its grand spectacle and blend of fantasy and history, but his Justice League surpasses even this. Even better than the action, though, is the genuine heart of the characters like Cyborg and Flash that comes across so clearly throughout the four hour runtime.
Story
Some general spoilers are below--but not more than I would normally spoil in an ordinary review of this kind.
The broad plot points of Zack Snyder's Justice League are the same as those of the Joss Whedon theatrical version. When the death of Superman leaves Earth far more vulnerable to an extraterrestrial invasion, Steppenwolf of Apokolips begins finding the planet's three Mother Boxes so he can terraform the world by creating the Unity, a force created by combining all three artifacts to make a replica of the homeworld Apokolips. Darkseid, the tyrant who exiled Steppenwolf for some act of betrayal, demands that he conquer numerous planets in his name before he can return. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne desperately tries to form a group of metahumans and other powerful beings to repel the impending attack of Darkseid's representatives. One thing this cut does so much better is actually show things like how Steppenwolf locates the Mother Box held by the Atlanteans and how other things happen so much more smoothly than before.
Intellectual Content
Zack Snyder's Justice League is actually less philosophically oriented than Batman v Superman, which had many obvious and subtle themes about the morality of power and even touched on the comparison of Superman to Jesus in very explicit. What it does instead is focus on characters that seem very realistic in their griefs, trials, hopes, and fears. Even Steppenwolf has a scene that conveys his genuine pain because of his exile. It is this kind of characterization that grants a film true depth even with little to no intentional, major emphasis on philosophical issues. Still, there are hints at explicitly theological themes like the way that the world (as a whole or in more limited locations) has a reverence for Superman and another member of the League that is comparable to religious respect. Not all of this more theological bent is philosophically valid, as is the case when Bruce Wayne and Alfred have a brief discussion about faith and reason that misunderstands the nature of both. Knowing something is hypothetically possible and hoping to accomplish it is not the same as having faith, which would be believing that one knows the outcome--that is what faith would mean in the specific context in which Bruce claims to have faith. Furthermore, Alfred talks about Bruce's intellect as if it is synonymous with "his" reason, as if the laws of logic are subjective to each individual's level of personal comprehension and not laws that objectively govern all aspects of reality no matter how much they are misunderstood or ignored.
Conclusion
Never before have I seen a director's cut that restores the original vision for such an epic film before. Zack Snyder has accomplished with his long cut of the movie--a cut that is probably even much longer than what would have been in his own version of the 2017 theatrical cut had it been released instead--what the DCEU needed and deserves: a weighty, character-driven tale that dives into the expansive lore of DC while at least building on the philosophical themes of earlier films. Even if it never leads to the "Knightmare"-type sequels where Darkseid's forces occupy Earth, Zack Snyder's Justice League would be a grand sendoff to the best storyline the DCEU has at this point. Because of the lack of unified storytelling as desired by current Warner Bros. leadership, it would be asinine, a sign of further thoughtlessness and randomness on the part of company figures, if Snyder's ideas were completely disregarded.
Content:
1. Violence: This truly is the melding of Zack Snyder's style of action from 300 and Batman v Superman. Limbs are severed, blood spurts out of bodies, and, in one scene, a parademon is impaled on debris. Many characters are hurled at walls or stones in expressions of great strength.
2. Profanity: The multiple uses of "fuck" or "fucking" alone would earn the film its R rating, but "shit," "bitch," and "bastard" all get used at least once.
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