(It’s been years since I used this headline. Bear with me while I flush these opinions out, and if I sound a little bitter, it’s because.. well, I am. Originally published March 19, 2021)
If you were to ask me five years ago if I wanted to cover comic book movies, I would have said something along the lines of “…Well yeah, of course. Only I can’t do that a whole lot, and mainly because keeping up with all the trade news, rumors and soundbytes takes more of a marathon effort than I can apply right now.”
That is still true for me, albeit stemmed from the conclusive fact that comic book movies nowadays thrive on hype to sell themselves, without much input from voices like my own. And really, the only other thing that can discourage me from truly diving into the genre is the kind of creative malfeasance that can suffer a movie, especially of this genre.
What was once a rising glimmer of hope for a brewing DC film franchise out of Warner Bros. became a crapshoot that would far from reach the peak wonders Marvel reached by Avengers: Endgame. 2016’s Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, following up from Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel, would require an Ultimate Edition cut in the time thereafter, which provenly fleshed out a more detailed, enjoyable feat than its theatrical cut for the masses.
To say the same, though, of Snyder’s gargantuan rework of his 2017 production, Justice League, would be slightly understating it. That the guy who kept up the posterity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the helm for Marvel’s The Avengers would be the one to take the reins as Snyder exited the movie to, in part, tend to his family at the time, was a move that, arguably, should have at least been fruitful for the sake of the franchise as a whole, particularly given how seemingly sold the studio was on being up to par with its competitors at Marvel Studios.
Alas, years would pass by as revelations would arise about the production, as well as WB and DC for that matter, that would bring plenty to question in a way that not a lot of people outside the beltway would have guessed pertaining to Joss Whedon and his reported behavior on the set during reshoots, in addition to allegations signaled by an outspoken Ray Fisher over the past year.
I’m pretty sure can search the internet far and wide for all the dirty details there. It’s ugly, but it’s all very necessary to bear in mind when pondering the work it took for Snyder to revamp the movie to his own liking, thanks to an additional $70 million dollar investment from WB following a stentorian, collective voice of fan fervor in support of a version of the film that could do Justice League…well… justice.
It does.
Some don’t necessarily agree, and that’s fine. It sucks, but I’m personally pleased it’s only a minority of folks who’ve seen the film. In reading, comprehending and pondering the acute nature of the creative damage Whedon’s treatment did to the brand, and the studio’s throwaway strategem due to a lack of faith in their franchise, it’s not hard to realize how personal the fight was for a lot of fans who saw what others didn’t or couldn’t see, read more into the rumors than most, or felt a certain way about the people in charge that resonates with basic understanding of human behavior.
This isn’t to suggest that Snyder’s respawned and revived Zack Snyder’s Justice League doesn’t have its faults – the boyish, awkward, even silly demeanor of Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) gets the best of him more often than not, and Bruce Wayne’s line about being rich as his super power still erks me a little. These are really the only two points I have here on the new film’s flaws and I’m certain there may be other legit areas worth chiming in on for those who gauge movies differently.
Me? I accept it. I don’t have to like these missteps. Then again, this was no ordinary production, and so that’s just part and parcel to the curve that I’m willing to lend to Snyder’s vision, as it is his vision. Most of what he exorcises in this new, titan four-hour epic works to a degree that allows it to share the same space occupied by its predecessors from Snyder, Wonder Woman, and maybe even a piffling exception of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.
Among the most discernible of arcs among the League the story of Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and his rebirth into reluctant heroism while coping with his newly created body stemming from the alien technology of one of the mother boxes, in addition to the static, terse air he often shares with his scientist father, Silas (Joe Morton), long after the death of his mother.
The rest of the film is accompanied by even more footage shot by Snyder that was never used in the commercial two-hour release, layered with tangible, cohesive and more broad explorations of our characters, certain character moments to touch up the intrigue, and dynamic action shots that wholly level up the sequences of this film’s predecessor tenfold, namely with Clark Kent/Superman’s (Henry Cavill) final battle entrance, against a brand new version of Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) that’s been rescripted, redesigned and fully fleshed out for more menacing villany.
The additions of characters like Darkseid, DeSaad and Granny Goodness and cameo appearances by Martian Manhunter (Harry Lennix) to the spotlight this time around bring a more foreboding tone to the film’s overall seriousness and reverence. The exposition stemming from Hippolyta’s (Connie Nielsen) battle with the Amazons against Steppenwolf at Themyscira to Diana/Wonder Woman’s (Gal Gadot) discovery of Darkseid provides the much-needed basis for attention as the story progresses, and The Flash finally gets his just dues between several moments of the film, right down to the moment Cyborg fights to merge with the Motherboxes and part them.
In all this and more, that literally no footage shot by Whedon and the cronies that aided and abetted him was included in Snyder’s comeback kid-born labor of love adds extra reward for those fans that, regardless of how they weighed Whedonleague 2017, knew, somehow, that there was more to the story than what the execs at the top floor and the editing room were letting people on to believe – this, on top of the gargantuan process of rendering all the special effects needed for a film of this size and scale. And on IMAX, no less.
The past decade has been an interesting era for comic book movies. Between Fox’s pre-Disney acquiescence to an R-rated Deadpool and its subsequent releases of Deadpool 2 and Hugh Jackman’s canonical franchise X-it in Logan, and Sony’s Spider-Man getting more second chances than I care to count, it’s not exactly reaching to suggest WB might switch gears from its earlier allusions and decide to officially solidify Zack Snyder’s Justice League as canon to its franchise.
Alas, we can only go by the facts that have been reported, and in my view, it’s disappointing that Whedonleague 2017 is the hill the studio would rather die on instead, even after all that’s been journalized about the studio and production goings-on at all the trades like Deadline, Variety and Vanity Fair. If that’s the case, it should tell you everything you need to know about the studio and its future treatment of DC movies, especially if Zack Snyder’s Justice League, given its scintillating ending, is all that they’re gonna leave the fans off with.
That’s not to say that every movie from hereon is going to be terrible, perhaps quite the opposite. That said, it’ll be interesting to see how the studio plays things out further down the line in defense of its shared, controversial legacy with DC Films. For all the evidence we don’t have and the alleged things we never saw apart from what we can go by with its hackeneyed studio-driven, misconception years prior, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, if nothing else, is not only one of the best comic book movies ever made in the history of comic book movies, it’s also infallible proof of the blockbuster movie franchise that could have been, and to the studio’s own detriment, never was.
Snyder may have lost the battle a time or several, but not for nothing. The concentrated effort, love and devotion to a vision of comic book movie fan service from Snyder and his equally diligent and magnanimous wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, amplified by their heartfelt affection and caring, and attribution to the undying spirit and memory of their late daughter, Autumn, excises on all of us an obligation to take heed to the recipts this film hands to us. Whether you love this movie or not, it demands the respect the studio failed to provide in Snyder’s wake, and rightly earns it.
Now give this man his goddamn sequel.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now available on HBO Max.