Zack Snyder’s Justice League Review: A Complete 180 When Compared to the Original!

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the much-awaited and highly demanded sequel to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, stars the same primary cast and tells an overall narrative that is no different from the now widely criticized and commercially unsuccessful theatrical release. Considering that you’re well aware of the entire drama of the Snyder Cut and the viral hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, let’s begin discussing the positives of the film.

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So, what really improved in Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Considering the theatrical release is a rushed and uneven two-hour movie, the HBO MAX Original, with a gigantic runtime of four hours, made better use of the freedom it received through and through. As a result, the storyline is more ironed out, and most importantly, every lead character had time to breathe from the beginning to the end.

There are backstories of the more unexplored members of the league, character moments that established their emotions perfectly, and the entire culmination of why and how they joined forces was decently narrated on-screen by the Academy-award-winning screenwriter, Chris Terrio.

While every lead hero had a vital role to play in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the one that struck out to me the most is Cyborg. Although we didn’t get to see him more in the theatrical cut, his character had a real impact in this version, accompanied by a backstory that represented his emotional struggle and the love/hate relation with his mom and dad. On the more heroic side of things, he exuded more confidence and charisma and had multiple stand-out moments throughout the runtime.

More on the positive side of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, similar to the theatrical cut, once the League assembled, the story had the opportunity to explore more on the entertainment side of things, especially with the team’s chemistry. Alongside the exciting partnerships between the team, seeing Batman and Wonder Woman play the parental roles while Cyborg and Aquaman act like the big brothers and Flash being more of a fun and Gen Z type character added some appeal and delight to the overall movie.

While the action scenes don’t necessarily leave you with a long-lasting impression, the amount of work that Zack Snyder put in to design every single shot was nothing short of amazing. And you can pause the film on any given frame, screenshot it, and put it on a billboard cause the camera work, production design, and visual effects were on-point and thoroughly planned to perfection.

While the pacing was in the film’s favor, for the most part, there are quite a few moments throughout the runtime where it suffers due to the utterly predictable dialogue, corny slow-mo shots, and mundane Superhero moments that we’ve seen a million times before. Even though this time the character of Steppenwolf had some reasoning for his wrongdoings, he did not feel like a threat who is actually going to challenge the League.

Furthermore, knowing how the film ends by the climax, the excitement level of watching a story unfold in a similar fashion might not be up to an all-time high, and it requires some patience to finish all four hours in one go. However, does that count as a negative for all the obvious reasons?

On the whole, the Snyder Cut opens up more possibilities in the upcoming as I’m interested to see where it goes and especially how the Warner Bros proceeds with the future of the franchise. If they indeed chose to extend the recently unofficially labeled “Snyder Verse,” it will be a tricky situation for the studio executives to not interfere nor question Snyder’s vision, and creativity cause the idea of building a tenable extended universe worked if given the time and complete creative freedom.

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Nevertheless, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a completely different movie when compared to the original that is more enjoyable, digestible, and very much watchable from start to finish. The characters are more fleshed out, and the build-up to the climax was well-paced and executed without any rush or studio involvement. It feels weird to say that I much rather prefer watching a four-hour film when compared to the two-hour version, but the Snyder Cut had a lot going in its favor despite the generic flaws and a predictable plot.

Rating – 3.25/5 | Grade – B

Images via Warner Bros.