Justice League (Snyder Cut)
- Seb Shaw
- Mar 19, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 4, 2024
SnarkAI Score: 41/100 tldr:
If you've got a spare eon and enjoy seeing superheroes in a midlife crisis, this film's for you. ‘Justice League: Snyder Cut’ redefines 'epic' in length, if not in substance. A cinematic equivalent of a marathon with scenic detours – plenty of them. Snyder stitches together a patchwork quilt of origin stories, slow-mo shots, and brooding heroes with enough firepower to start a small war. The plot? As focused as a cat in a laser pointer factory. Flash stumbles around like he's learning to walk, Batman's your gun-toting uncle at a BBQ, and Superman's as cheerful as a Monday morning. Darkseid saunters in, giving a masterclass in 'how to be a cosmic killjoy'. And if you're into watching superheroes take mud baths, this film's got you covered. Just don't expect coherence or brevity - it's Snyder, after all.
Our Scores are generated by SnarkAI's analysis of our reviewer's writing. The tldr sumary is drafted by SnarkAI based on that review. All Images are AI generated based on the reviewers descriptions of scenes.
As Gail Simone was positive about it, I'm giving the Snyder Cut a chance...
See you in 4 hours.…
OK, turns out, it's still a terrible film.
Amazons: "Seal the chamber to stop this flying menace!" Also, Amazons: "Ignore the massive hole in the roof we installed to make sure our guards got plenty of Vitamin D while on duty…"
Watching on an Oculus, so it's pretty immersive.
1h 15m in, and it feels like I've been watching for a thousand years... We've had maybe 15m of plot progression and a lot of self-indulgent explanatory scenes... Tonally more consistent though, the cinematography is nice, and the score is good…
Why do we always get the name Barry Allen, but the character of Wally West?
2h in.
We've seen the origin story of a random waitress, multiple basically identical bars on Nordic Islands (which, speaking from experience, don't exist), a brief glimpse of a way more interesting story with Darkseid's first visit.
It's weird. DC does massive-scale action way better on film than Marvel. The Darkseid interlude looks significantly better than the Ultron swarm, but the minute the action gets close for some single hero work, it looks cheesier than the CW shows. Flash runs like the actor never actually used their legs before. Wonder Woman lacks any sense of mass. Batman fights like someone's dad in a Halloween costume... Aquaman's OK.
Note to Hollywood, starting a villain's intro by telling us what a failure he is, and how he is considered a complete loser by the people who sent him to be an antagonist, doesn't make him that threatening... Making him grovel and beg in almost his first scene…
If they'd skipped that grovelling and being told he was a loser and had the league struggle to defeat him, really struggle, even with Superman, then as they are about to win, have Steppenwolf be casually and easily crushed by Darkseid, saying "You were ever a disappointment Uncle" and then just turn around, ignore the heroes and walk off (to find a comfy chair. Darkseid loves other people's comfy chairs), it would have made the point more strongly.
We could probs have skipped the scene with the shovels... But it wouldn't be a Snyder film if it wasn't needlessly grim but with discordant jokes…
WW and Aquaman taking a bath in brown water with Superman's corpse is pretty effing weird as a visual…
Christ, there's still 1.5h left of this film…
That's an entire film left of this film…
Amazon's taking a collective break in the middle of a war of extinction to conduct an elaborate funeral service is so on-brand that I think Snyder may have read some comics to come up with the idea…
Gotta suck for Jason, when Henry turns up shirtless. Being the second most ruggedly handsome guy in a film is a new experience for Mamoa.
The glowing eyes are on-point. Very Lex Luthor: Man of Steel.
The Superman/JL fight is much the same and reinforces DC's problem with the cinematic JL (that they addressed in DEAU by just making Superman job a lot) that Superman outclasses the rest of the league combined. Marvel kinda has that problem with Thor in the early films and Captain Marvel in the later ones, but in both cases, they give in-story reasons why they're not around most of the time.
I've still got 1h20 left... This should have been two 1h40m films and 40 mins on the cutting room floor..
Side note: Marvel/Disney is so confident that Snyder's JL won't make a dent in their bottom line they launched Falcon and Winter Soldier the same week. Give a few years back the two companies played release date chicken, it's a dramatic change…
Hmm, weird choice to add a cape to the 80's resurrection suit. Or was Snyder inspired by CW's Crisis and the current Superman....?
Why is Batman wearing what are clearly Oakley wraparound sunglasses on top of his mask? Is he a BBQing dad from a flyover state?
Batman's still using a lot of guns for a character who (aside from when he was just a Shadow rip-off for a few issues in the 40's) is defined by his refusal to use them.…
So, at some point, Steppenwolf stopped to do some genealogy research and map out a family tree as there's no other way he'd know Queen Hippolyta was WW's mum…
Good use of multiple Superman powers. Speed, strength, heat-vision in a single sequence. But once again, Snyder makes Superman cruel and brutal in his combat.…
There's still half an hour left. I feel like Bill Murray. (Side note, I could have watched Groundhog Day twice in the film's current running time... )
Ah yes, there we go. Not a Snyder film about the paragons of virtue without some casual murder of your enemy.…
You can't have a 28-minute act and call it an epilogue, Snyder. That's more than 10% of the film. You hack. You absolute hack. Also, 7 acts? 7?!
Bruce: "I'm renovating this mansion and Clark, I bought the bank that owned the debt on your mother's farm. Barry, your innocent dad can rot in jail for all I care. Also, enjoy your job doing scut-work in a crime-lab so you can work long hours to pay for your university course. Now excuse me while I throw razor-sharp batarangs that each cost enough to pay for a month of your tuition at a jaywalker.”
Jesus Kryptonian Christ, the epilogue has an epilogue... like 30% of this film has been origin stories or reveals of other DC stuff…
Nice to see post-apocalyptic rules apply. Slade's going all in on maintaining the mohawk.
The epilogue's epilogue has a fucking epilogue!
OK, it's finally over.
The Good:
The film is consistent in its storytelling, not the Frankenstein's monster that was Whedon's patch job on the base footage. Tonally consistent rather than swinging wildly between Whedon's quips and Snyder's 2edgy4me 14-year-old style.
It is not as bad a character assassination as Man of Steel or BvS.
The piano version of Hallelujah (his late daughter's favourite song) runs over the credits and is better than it has any right to be given how overused it is now. Generally, the score is really good, less cheesy than Elfman's work on the original.
Some great cinematography, really strong large battle scenes, and Superman's powers are worked together really well. Also, some good specific visuals around his eyes and the way he holds himself in the air (but honestly that's 100% Cavill and his mastery of all things nerdy)
The Bad:
It's still a terrible film. Honestly, it's not a good film.
It's much. much. much too long. (It's an entire hour longer than Warhol's experimental film Chelsea Girls for Christ's sake.)
It is the most unfocused, meandering plot I've encountered in a long time.
Snyder once again shows he really dislikes the characters or doesn't understand them. Batman's a gun nut. Flash is an awkward clumsy failure. Superman's not even a character in the film. He's a plot device at best. You could remove him entirely, and it would make almost no difference. (Snyder does make sure to make Superman do some cruelty after he becomes good again because Snyder confuses edgy and gritty with realistic.) There is zero reason for the impersonation MM does. Given the person he impersonates would do exactly that anyway.
We get way, way, way too many tangential origin stories, intros, side stories, epilogues, winks to the camera... Keep Cyborg's expanded origin as it connects to the motherboxes (and was done much better in the animated film AND in Young Justice) but kill the Flash scenes, he's been on TV for years, and anyone who cares knows his backstory. Kill the extra Aquaman scenes they don't add anything new now that the Aquaman film is already out. Cut the really really long scene with the waitress to like 10 seconds.
Kill all the future shit. Show us the hall of justice, not an empty room with people talking about a round table.
It's SO long.
The slow lingering shot on the massive suicide prevention poster is a little discordant and maybe not ideally placed just after Flash says something about having no friends, but I can understand Snyder's desire to include it.
