Zack Snyder's Justice League [2021]
So I watched Zack Snyder's Justice League, which is the original version of what 2017's much-panned Justice League should have been as envisioned by its original creator.
And you know what? I watched the four-hour movie over the past two days, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would -- I thought it'd just be a rerun of a movie I watched a couple of years ago with a bunch of restored deleted scenes, but it's not that at all.
There are little chapter markings as rather convenient stopping points (there were rumours that they were going to package this as a TV miniseries). And a four-hour movie is pretty massive, but... but, huh, against all odds, the Snyder Cut actually did fix essentially all my problems that I have with the original Justice League. It's not anything groundbreaking in terms of superhero cinematography, and by and by a lot of the broad strokes of the movie is the same. But cutting out and rearranging some scenes, and the surprising amount of rewrites and re-dubbings on several characters, and, most importantly, adding a lot of emotional character-driven scenes for the main characters really did end up making this four-hour cut a much, much more complete story.
And honestly, one of the biggest parts of what made this movie so much better is having a consistent tone. I have gone on record many, many times that I prefer my superheroes -- particularly huge bombastic team-up superheroes -- to be more on the light-hearted side. But the 2017 theatrical cut was a mess of tonal shifts that neither the jokes nor the seriousness really worked out and the end result was a bogged-down generic action movie that, while still retaining the plot and certainly had a lot of great acting on the part of the main superhero cast, ended up being... well, 'messy' is a huge understatement. This movie is a lot more consistent in tone. I am happy that not all the jokes were exorcised -- I think it's more of a matter of principle, that Zack Snyder's cutting out all the studio or rewrite-mandated jokes. The movie isn't as mirthless as its two predecessors, which I appreciate.
The other biggest improvements that the ZSJL (which is what I'm going to call this cut) makes are the massive rewrites to Steppenwolf, the main villain of the movie, as well as actually giving the five main JLA members room to breathe and actually develop as characters before we actually care about them joining together and being a superhero team. The first hour and a half is essentially an extended prologue -- a truncated version of the Cyborg, Aquaman and Flash movies that we didn't get before JLA. Also, while the Batman/Flash mentor relationship gets cut out, we get Wonder Woman becoming Cyborg's mentor and get him to accept the world and try and move on from his tragedy. That's nice.
And it works. And it works surprisingly well -- instead of just haphazardly tossing the characters at us, actually devoting a short scene to Flash being a dork and saving Iris, and him visiting his dad at prison, before we finally get to Batman's recruitment of him? Shame that we lost the 'oh man I have no idea what I'm doing' bit on Flash during the hostage rescue scene, but on the other hand he does come off a lot more competent in this one. Extending Aquaman's scenes more and showing his arguments with Mera and Vulko about his backstory and his abandonment issues with Atlantis? Actually showing and giving Cyborg a backstory and putting his conflict with his dad Silas front and center? Cyborg probably gets the biggest glow-up, with his backstory, his drama with his dad and the nice bit showing him exploring his power. Silas actually dies in this version after many, many interactions with Cyborg both in flashbacks and in the actual story, in a pretty dramatic heroic sacrifice, something that's done surprisingly well.
Again, none of these are new to me at all. The plot of this is essentially a rehash of the New 52 version of the JLA's gathering, or the animated movie Justice League: War that was based on that. I've personally seen Cyborg's origin story repeated like three or four different times over the recent half-decade. But actually showing them to us, showing who these people are before they become members of the Justice League? That's definitely appreciated.
Also appreciated is the running scenes sprinkled throughout the movie of Lois Lane and Martha Kent (mostly Lois) mourning Superman's death. There are hints of this in the 2017 cut, too, but Batman's clearly driven primarily by a desire to make good on his promise to his dead rival-turned-friend. This ends up making Superman's eventual revival far, far more emotional since we actually see Lois's story throughout the past two hours, and when Superman and Lois finally get some time and a tearful reunion in Smallville, it's a culmination of the story of Lois as we follow her throughout the movie.
From the more technical, geeky-plot side of matters? Steppenwolf gets revamped from the ground up. And I don't mean changing him from 'dude in a suit' to 'dude in a rippling CGI metal suit'. New Steppenwolf looks beastly. But both Steppenwolf and the Apokolips/New Gods segment of the movie got a gigantic rewrite that fixes another big problem I had with the 2017 cut -- the 2017 cut was pretty... vague about things. Yes, I've been a DC comics fan since my age was in the single digits. I knew about Darkseid and Apokolips and Kalibak and Desaad and Granny Goodness since I saw them on Superman: TAS. But the way that the movie portrays Steppenwolf, how it's coy about his backstory and his master and the true nature of the Mother Boxes while simultaneously seems to require a fair bit of comprehension about them to understand the movie? Yeah.
Here, Steppenwolf gets retooled from a generic alien conqueror lunatic who keeps purring over 'Mother' into a disgraced exiled pariah of Apokolips, who arrived on this planet and is just so desperate to return home. Several times throughout this movie as Steppenwolf goes on his cube-collecting quest, he gets to speak to Desaad, Darkseid's majordomo, and we learn his backstory from here. Steppenwolf was banished from Apokolips for defying Darkseid, and after hundreds or thousands of years, he's just desperate to go home. It's a simple scene, but it's one that adds some depth to this otherwise cookie-cutter villain. I appreciate that a lot!
And the backstory between Apokolips and Earth? Sure, they swapped out Steppenwolf in the backstory with Darkseid. Darkseid fought Zeus, Ares, Hippolyta, the ancient Atlanteans, a random Green Lantern, and a bunch of ancient humans. It's essentially the same flashback that we saw in the 2017 cut, just with the big scary CGI monster swapped with a different big scary CGI monster. But the fact that there's actually some exposition on what made Earth so special -- it's the location of the Anti-Life Equation. And this simple addition suddenly makes the Apokolips invasion of Earth and why Darkseid would be so invested in this specific mudball so much more believable.
Tying the Mother Boxes' activation in the first scenes of the movie with the death of Superman is also an interesting way to actually make the plot of the movie make some sense. It was only vaguely implied in the original cut, but ZSJL makes it explicitly clear that it's Superman's death at the end of BvS that sent shockwaves rippling through the Mother Boxes that finally summoned Steppenwolf to Earth. And, okay, Luthor fucking with one of them and contacting Steppenwolf definitely has something to do with it. But it really ends up making the desperation that Batman and Wonder Woman took to defend Earth so much more palpable. Speaking of better exposition, the movie also makes a lot of the talk on why the Mother Box can bring Superman back to life (in the 'house turns into smoke' speech) a lot more believable.
The biggest actual plot changes, I think, happens around the time that Superman gets resurrected. Sure, we still get the fight with the JLA and him getting restored to sanity when he sees Lois (no 'do you bleed' one-liner here, which, as much as I found it funny in the 2017 cut, makes a lot more sense)... but instead of Steppenwolf just picking up the Mother Box that was left on top of a random car, we get the aforementioned Silas heroic sacrifice.
And then we get to the final battle in the dreary red-skies land in Steppenwolf's abandoned nuclear plant base, and all the scenes with the distracting family trying to escape gets completely cut out. The climax itself actually moves a lot quickly than it did in the 2017 version, although that might just be me mis-remembering things. Gone is the plot of Superman and Flash racing as they get the one civilian car out of the location, and gone is the much-derided 'Superman does all the hard work'. No random flowers after the battle ended too, for that matter. The final battle against Steppenwolf in this version felt more like a collaborative effort between Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman beating and tossing him around.
More importantly, both Flash and Cyborg contribute a surprisingly large amount to the climax. Cyborg's hacking is shown in greater detail in the earlier parts of the movie, which culminates in him being shown a vision by the Mother Boxes offering to 'fix' him and make him whole, but he rejects the temptation and screams about how he has friends. The Flash, meanwhile, after a moment of weakness after being shot and wounded, gets to witness the Mother Boxes actually turn into the Unity and transform Earth into Apokolips... before running back in time to reverse the past minute. Again, the climax is paced a fair bit better.
Steppenwolf also gets straight-up killed by a combo move between the three JLA heavy hitters in this version, instead of the rather anti-climactic 'oh no my bug minions are turning on me because I'm afraid' handwave we had in the original cut. Steppenwolf gets beheaded and tossed back into the Apokolips portal, while Darkseid, Desaad and Granny Goodness stare down and promise retribution. Unlike what many people hoped, Darkseid doesn't actually fight the JLA personally, but this is Zack Snyder's version of the Justice League movie, not a continuation of the original.
There are two additions that are definitely a bit weird, though. For one... Martian Manhunter shows up here! Wait, what? Yeah, that's my reaction. (I didn't realize it until writing this review that his human form, Calvin Swanwick, is the military general from Man of Steel) Martian Manhunter is like, one of my favourite DC superheroes ever, so the fanboy in me is squeeing in glee, but the short scene he had posing as Martha really felt bizarrely tacked-on. With how much care this movie puts into exposition, a simple 'Steppenwolf destroyed Mars before coming to Earth' or something would probably have worked well. As it is, it kind of felt rather tacked-on as fanservice that felt removed from the rest of the movie.
In addition to J'onn J'onzz showing up, we also get Ryan Choi as Silas Stone's sidekick. He doesn't really do much other than share some jokes and dialogue with Silas, but he's not too distracting. Actually, I think a lot of the secondary characters like Lois, Alfred, Gordon, Mera and Vulko all get a more substantial supporting role in this movie, where they actually feel like secondary characters instead of just cameos.
And while Cyborg's flash-forward nightmares of a future where Darkseid wins when they were about to resurrect Superman is pretty neat, we get a random Knightmare epilogue that really felt like it should've taken place somewhere else in the movie. After all the resolution... we randomly get a shot of a post-apocalyptic Earth with Batman, Cyborg, Deathstroke, Flash in a knight armour, Mera and the Joker fighting against a Darkseid-controlled Superman? It's honestly kind of bizarre, and the conversation with the Joker felt rather tacked-on -- again, it's fanservice that felt removed from the rest of the movie.
There is, of course, a lot of changes in general to the action scenes, but I'd be pedantic if I went through it one by one. My favourites, though, probably included Mera ripping blood out of Steppenwolf's face and Superman casually freeze-punching Steppenwolf's axe. Plus, while the scenes themselves have been changed and re-edited, Wonder Woman vs. the terrorists; Steppenwolf vs. the Amazons; Psycho Superman vs. the JLA; the JLA vs. the Parademons; the JLA vs. Steppenwolf... all still pretty fun.
Still... still, for all of my complaints about the tone of the DC expanded universe movies in general, I actually do like Zack Snyder's Justice League a fair bit. For one, it actually has a decent climax and ending that certainly fits the tone of the movie a lot better. And while BvS was pretty dark-and-gritty-and-dreary, while this movie is mostly serious (many of the 2017 jokes were scrubbed out) there were a fair amount of points where the movie is very, very optimistic -- particularly when Superman reunites with his family, or Wonder Woman/Cyborg's interactions.
Ultimately, though, this is inarguably a far more solid movie in terms of pacing and plotting in general. Sure, the ultimate product is a typical alien-invasion-thwarted-by-superheroes story. Sure, the pacing could easily be fixed to cut this movie down from 4 hours to maybe 3. Sure, I've seen this literal story like several dozen times over several dozen different retellings of the Justice League story. Sure, I really wished they had gone for a different kind of tone for the DCEU movies in general. But you know what? I definitely enjoyed this movie a lot more than I did the 2017 version, and if nothing else, knowing that this got made adds a nice feeling in my heart. It's no masterpiece, but it's a extremely solid superhero movie nonetheless. Pretty good job, I must say.
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