Zack Snyder’s Justice League Review

Rejoice internet, for the fabled Snyder Cut is upon us!

As you might recall, Warner Bros. big-screen Justice League had a bit of a rocky road to release. I won’t get into too much detail here about its troubled production history, but as a brief refresher: Director Zack Snyder stepped down from directing his third DC comics film in the middle of production; the studio then brought on Avengers director Joss Whedon to finish the job, and the movie’s eventual release failed miserably in a multitude of ways. Now, nearly four years later, Snyder’s initial vision has been recreated for HBO Max. The big questions now are “Did it work?” and “Is Zack Snyder’s Justice League good?” 

To that I say… “good” is a relative term.

This is undeniably more solid than the original theatrical cut. 2017’s Justice League was noticeably tone-deaf, with the two directors’ styles constantly in conflict with each other. One minute it would be bleak and somber, the next peppey and full of jokes. Because of that, it’s pretty difficult to sit through. Snyder’s Justice League is certainly a better watch than Whedon’s, since (aside from a confusing epilogue sequence which I’ll get to in a minute) Snyder keeps a consistent tone and visual style throughout. That being said, the original is only two hours long, a pretty acceptable runtime for a conventional narrative, whereas this new film moves at a snail’s pace of over four hours. Add in Snyder’s penchant for clunky dialogue, and his version often starts to feel like a neverending story.  

What’s most interesting about its size, though, is that it still feels incomplete. There are huge plot threads that simply don’t get resolved by the end of this whale of a movie, which is bizarre to me. There is so much time spent with these characters that could have been better spent tidying up the narrative. When you factor in Snyder’s frequent insistence that he’s done with this franchise, you realize that this movie is filled with teasers for future movies that will never exist. At least a quarter of the footage in the movie is made up of reshoots shot this year. Why were none of these new scenes designed to wrap up a story he knew he was finishing? 

On the topic of the reshoots, I’m actually amazed by how well they fit into the movie on an aesthetic and continuity level. In the Joss Whedon cut, you could tell shot-by-shot which director was responsible for which moment. Then there was the whole mess surrounding Henry Cavill’s poor digitally removed mustache. You could see the reshoots across the board. In 2021’s Justice League, the visuals all fit together pretty well, which is especially incredible considering it was created during the pandemic. 

For three and a half out of the film’s four hours, I was mostly on its side. Then it ends. And ends. And ends. And ends. The film has at least four complete ending sequences, each more jarring and bizarre than the last. I won’t get into any spoilers, but the film concludes the way most modern action movies do, with our heroes finally teaming up to fight the CGI drone army and stop the bad guy’s skybeam. Then, after what one would expect to be the movie’s closing monologue, we smash cut to the post-apocalyptic “Knightmare” setting from Batman v Superman. We’re then treated to the much-hyped return of Jared Leto’s Joker, who Batman finally confronts to discuss their past. This scene is simultaneously the most interesting part of the movie, and the part I would have cut out the fastest. It truly has nothing to do with the four hours that preceded it and takes place in an alternate timeline set long after the events of the movie proper. It is an entirely separate short film just attached to the end of the movie for seemingly no reason. I would say it serves to set up future installments in the franchise, but we know it won’t. Zack Snyder says he’s done. Why did he tack this on to an otherwise solid story? It truly boggles the mind and leaves a sour taste in your mouth as you exit the SnyderVerse. 

All in all, this is mostly an improvement. Say what you will about its creation (we did kinda cyber-bully a studio into releasing it in the first place), but Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the strongest installment of the filmmaker’s DC trilogy. That isn’t a terribly high bar to clear, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. If only it were half the length…