Zack Snyder's Justice League

Admittedly, I don’t know as much about DC as I do about Marvel. However, I’m fairly well versed in them and the Justice League is my favorite DC team. When it was announced that DC would come out with a Justice League movie after the Avengers, I had hope...that is until I learned that they’d be doing a team movie first and individual movies afterward. This is the exact opposite of what Marvel did. During the production of the first movie, Zack Snyder had the incredibly unfortunate disposition of learning that his daughter had committed suicide. Understandably, he took a break from the movie. Because Warner executives don’t understand anything, they went on with the production. Hiring Joss Whedon to finish the production, the final product was lackluster at best. In typical Zack Snyder style, it was more flash than substance. After it came out, Zack went public and said that the movie was nowhere near his final vision. Not long after this, the hashtag #releasethesnydercut was trending on Twitter. Four years later, the director’s cut was completed and we got a monstrosity of a movie. Now the true question is “Was this movie worth the hype?” Honestly...not really. Now I write this from the point of view of one who’s been a comic book fan for 32 years. Also realize that there are MANY stories that I haven’t read and equally as many storylines that I’m ignorant to. However, I understand the characters. I’m a firm believer that character develops story. George Lucas said: “A Special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.” This is a lesson that Zack Snyder has never learned. Now, Joss Whedon gave us an amazing movie with The Avengers - and that’s the only comparison that I’ll make - so it’s possible that WB wanted some of that lightning in a bottle for JL and that’s why they brought him on. When Ray Fisher went public and said that Joss created a hostile work environment (as well as one of the producers), the way it was presented was that he didn’t get things that he wanted, so he’d complain. I’m glad to admit that I was wrong in that assumption. Ray actually opened the floodgates against Joss and it turns out that he’s not a good person - he’s a great writer and filmmaker, but that doesn’t make up for his behavior. This is relevant (and the last time I’ll mention it) because a good portion of this movie has Cyborg in it. The majority of his scenes were heavily cut from the first movie. Like 90% majority. I appreciate Zack wanting his vision to get out - every director has the right to tell a story the way they want to - but I wish that he’d step away from the writing process. He’s a great filmmaker but not a great storyteller. He needs a writer that has synergy with him. That being said, the special effects are very well done, although I REALLY wish the comics would have been honored better. Simple things like the way the Boom Tubes were portrayed would have been great fan service. Also, the boxes are FATHER Boxes. A Mother Box is a little bit larger than a cellphone. Father Boxes are used for evil on Apokolips and the Mother Box is used for good on New Genesis. If a feministic agenda caused that change, then I disagree with the studio’s decision and a quick 15-second explanation (like what I just did) would have solved that problem and added more to the plot (all the while giving a nod to the New Gods). Yes, I’m critical but it’s important. My favorite of the cast is Gal Gadot. She captures the essence of Wonder Woman perfectly. I also like Ben Affleck as Batman - I’ve always supported him in the role and he does a really good job with it. In fact, he’s second only to MIchael Keaton. Now this is where I’m probably going to get a lot of hate, so if if happens...bring it on… EVERYONE else in the cast I hate. EVERYONE. Ezra Miller is easily the worst Barry Allen ever. He’s supposed to be Barry, but he acts like an immature Wally. Absolutely terrible. I HATE Henry Cavill as Superman. He’s bottom of the list for me. I think Man Of Steel sealed that opinion for me, but he’s just terrible. His suit in this was sharp, so I’ll give credit where it’s due. Ray Fisher actually didn’t do a terrible job as Cyborg, but I’d never put Cyborg in the Justice League. If they wanted a robot-type character, they could have easily used Red Tornado. Jason Momoa is just awful. He’s not Aquaman. I don’t care that he doesn’t have blond hair. He doesn’t fit the role. It would have been much better if he was cast as Lobo. He’s a much better fit there. We also get a brief cameo by another Justice Leaguer that was a wasted opportunity but sets up a sequel that will probably never happen. I understand that Zack likes big spectacular shots in his movies. I understand that he wants these heroes to be larger than life. However, his style is very arthouse - there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. There’s quite a few superheroes that would benefit from that style of filmmaking. These aren’t those superheroes. Zack needs to understand that many times less is more. Ultimately, this movie is an anomaly. It’s an improvement on the first movie, but it’s not better. It tried to do so much, but had the individual hero movies come out first, there would have been so much more to the story. Instead, everything is crammed into this four hour long beast that doesn’t accomplish as much as it wanted. Because of the improvements, and only because of the improvements I can only give this a 3 out of 5.