Zack Snyder’s Justice League | Movie Review
A triumph, on-screen and off.
United at Last
When Zack Snyder was announced as the overseer for the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), their cinematic response to the juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I’m sure the seas boiled somewhere and the strata trembled with the fury of beleaguered detractors. I, for one, was terribly excited by the news: Snyder has been one of my favorite directors since 300. And while my initial viewing of Man of Steel (the Snyder-directed 2013 origin-point for the burgeoning DCEU, focused on Superman) bred mixed feelings, I was nonetheless fully invested in a Snyder-style DC film-verse. Though there have been ups and downs with each movie I’ve viewed in the DC slate (including a surprising up I hadn’t expected), I have always been of the mind that Snyder’s vision is an exciting and distinctive departure from his contemporaries working in the MCU, and I was looking forward to his return to the director’s chair in 2017’s Justice League.
I’ll say this about 2017’s version of Justice League: What we got in 2017 was far from Snyder’s vision. Having been replaced by Joss Whedon following his exit from the project in the wake of family tragedy, Snyder’s style was usurped by executive need for something resembling the MCU in tone and style, and Whedon, who’d helmed the first two Avengers films, delivered just that. Now, mileage may vary but I’ll speak generally here — the end result was not good. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen — not even the worst DCEU film (that dubious honor belongs to 2016’s Suicide Squad) — but it was certainly one of the most disappointing and aggravating, with its pandering to Whedon’s style that led to an identity crisis which robbed it of any potential to be anything other than a weak clone of Marvel’s juggernaut hits (never mind the cringe-inducing dialogue foisted upon Batman). And while 2018’s Aquaman proved a confident return-on-enjoyment, it nonetheless felt like Snyder’s vision for the DCEU would be left ultimately unrealized.
Skip ahead several years, a multitude of comic-book film offerings and an industry insider-derided movement to #RestoreTheSnyderCut, imagine my surprise when Zack Snyder announced he was bringing his complete vision of Justice League to HBO Max.
Without delving into a rabbit hole of datum that I can’t and/or don’t care to corroborate, let it be said that despite my love of Snyder’s work, I was trepidatious about what kind of project was coming our way. Long has the track record been that those who shoot for the moon often come crashing back to Earth having missed the mark terribly. Surely it was too big, a film whose improbable genesis would eclipse its ability to actualize its potential. I told myself it would be scattershot, a hodgepodge of old and new footage Frankensteined together in an attempt to finish a project whose time had come and gone; effects would be unfinished, roughly cut and edited to form something approaching serviceable but by no means satisfactory. I wondered how it would mesh with what we’d been handed in the 2017 theatrical cut, and whether this new film would affect a meta-backlash against the detractors of the DCEU and Snyder’s vision in particular.
Suffice to say (and given away by the title of this review), my worries were not only ill-founded, but rendered irrelevant by the film’s conclusion. As of this writing, I’ve seen the movie three times. I absolutely plan on watching it again.
To cut to the chase of my opinion, the film is a masterpiece — not simply by way of its underdog story or its superiority to the 2017 Whedon-directed version, but because it annihilated my fears, then surpassed and elevated my expectations. It is a grandiose epic in every sense of the word, oscillating between equal parts melodrama and hyperreal action in ways only Snyder can achieve. This is a work of vision, one man’s creative endeavor fully realized and it has been an absolute joy to behold with every viewing. The visuals pop and sizzle with pure uncut Snyder-style, bringing to life godlike battles in ways no other superhero films have been able to match. Character redesigns and fully-realized backstories bring a freshness to the more familiar proceedings, and the decision to break the film into seven parts not only gives it an interesting format but also cleverly paces the events and dilutes the runtime. It reminded me of going to see The Hateful Eight in theaters, with its stage-show presentation complete with intermission and behind-the-scenes info booklet, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching something special.
Like 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice before it, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a film of ideas, a sweeping opera concerned less with safe bets and accessibility and more attuned to the experience of art, with practically every scene operating as a microcosm of thematic/dramatic storytelling. However, where the former film felt uncertain at times, Justice League is a confident expression of Snyder’s vision, unfiltered and unfettered by ratings and standard conventions. It crackles with a life all its own and proves that humor is no substitute for character by offering grounded performances from its cast that enable the heavy moments to hit and linger while still finding the time to have some (character-appropriate) fun along the way. For me, it stands with 2017’s Logan as a prime example of what a superhero/comic-book movie can achieve when it worries less about marketability and more about creative initiative… and while Zack Snyder’s Justice League easily sits closer to the last two Avengers movies in scope and plot than director Mangold’s dark, Western-hued character-study, it distinguishes itself through the pure strength of Snyder’s wholly unique presentation, tonally consistent characterizations, and the controlled chaos of his action sequences in which he is, in my opinion, unmatched. He artfully captures the feeling of gods at war with one another without sacrificing the emotional core that drives them.
A lot could have gone wrong in a 4-hour movie — hell, a lot has gone wrong in 2-and-a-half hours or less in other DCEU films — but like its titular heroes, Zack Snyder’s Justice League rises to the occasion, fighting its way through a dark and troubled production and impossible odds to take its place in the sun alongside the other greats of the genre. It is a triumph of creativity, and much like how the Russo Brothers redefined the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and went on to deliver some of the franchise’s most potent works, Zack Snyder solidifies his own definition of what a superhero film can be with this, what I could safely consider to be his magnum opus. In a genre often derided for its risk aversion and design-by-committee approach, here is one man’s vision executed without compromise, a juggernaut of creativity that proves, at least to me, why Snyder was the man for the job all along.
This was originally posted at Whims to Words on April 1st, 2021.
