Justice League review …again

I’ve got a long review befitting a long movie. So let’s dispense with any set up or other pleasantries and get to it.

But if you want to see the theatrical review for comparison’s sake, I’ll leave it right here.

They tried their damndest to lose me in back to back acts of lionizing pretension right from the get go. The description on HBO GO describes this 4-hour movie containing a bunch of material created solely for this version as the original vision.

Immediately when launching the movie, I was greeted by the following disclaimer: “This film is presented in a 4:3 format to preserve the integrity of Zach Snyder’s creative vision.”

So, let’s take a moment to unpack this. There is absolutely nothing objectively wrong with the 4:3 aspect ratio. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Zach Snyder deciding that his shots work better when framed in a particular way. There’s also nothing wrong with that notion that aspect ratios can be used as part of the greater storytelling apparatus by setting tones, controlling field of vision, and even going so far as establishing the physical boundaries of the world within the movie.

The problem here is the masterbratory way the disclaimer is phrased. This isn’t “Hey, guys, we wanted to edit this together in 4:3, so just letting you know before you start watching that this is how it’s going to go.” As soon as it hits the word “preserve” it’s prose more purple than Thanos. It’s the kind of language that will give goosebumps to the Internet people who demanded this even be brought into existence in the first place. So a bit less of a nod and a wink (like the “We live in a society line” that thankfully never escaped the trailer so it can remain a funny aside) so much it is “THE MUSE IS UPON ME!“

It’s a kind of describing itself that would be right at home in a David Cage game.

So as much as the choice in aspect ratio sets a tone (even though several of the included takes were blatantly intended for widescreen and were cropped to hell), the choice of words describing said ratio sets a tone, too. It affects my expectations of what the differences between this and the original will be apart from simply a longer runtime and less Buffyspeak. I was certainly not heartbroken that coming back to life didn’t feel “itchy” anymore. While I haven’t enjoyed much of Snyder’s previous work, he is certainly capable of making improvements to the theatrical version of Justice League.

The runtime is something of an admission to how overstuffed the movie was, debuting three new heroes and an entire villainous mythology. Giving Cyborg, Aquaman and Flash the time and the scenes they needed to have character arcs, backstories, introductory heroic acts, and key parts to the climactic battle is a big reason this cut of the film takes 4 hours.

And I am very surprised to say that all of that gave this overstuffed monstrosity a much better story. Warner Brothers are still impatient, greedy, inept, maroons for trying to fast-forward straight to the big team up movie, as most of this material could have been pushed into Cyborg and Flash solo movies that should have been made and released ahead of Justice League.

And speaking of Cyborg, Ray Fisher shouldn’t just be pissed at Warner Brothers for how things went on set, but how the theatrical release cut a massive amount of important material for his character. Cyborg gets the most attention of all the newcomers, and is downright vital to the whole plot. No wonder so much in the first movie felt thrown together; it was papering over the gaping holes in which Cyborg’s plot was supposed to explain things.

Even Steppenwolf (a rather obscure choice, but serviceable as a disposable stepping stone to Darkseid) has a discernible motivation and takes a more active role in the plot. And the story benefits from it. It’s just too long a story for the format of a theatrical release.

But aside from reintegrating vital scenes, the new cut often takes advantage of having no time limit to give key moments a lot of room to sink in. However, it’s even more often is employed for random acts of post-Matrix action-movie slowdown. Between this and the rather extraneous parts of the epilogue (we’ll get to that), the film probably could have clocked in at 3 hours (an almost releasable length!) without any harm.

Other double-edged swords include how the edit lingers on background elements. Staying a little longer on the scene where Aquaman leaves Batman hanging at the beginning of the story and returns to the sea while the villagers ritualistically sing their gratitude works. It adds some extra flavor to the setting and better establishes Aquaman’s deed as of great importance to the village. Staying on the scene even longer so that one of the singing young woman can slowly approach Aquaman’s discarded sweater, lift it to her face and inhale deeply is far less informative and just gratuitous.

One thing Joss Whedon seemed to want to eviscerate as much as possible from the theatrical cut of Justice League is the rampart religiousness everywhere. Snyder very much aims to deify the heroes, even the team’s butt-monkey, The Flash. Which, I remind Warner Brothers again, is supposed to be Wally West’s characterization, not Barry Allen’s. There is much less humor (or attempts thereof) in Snyder’s script and much fewer human foibles among the heroes. And doing so removes one of Whedon’s best additions: Batman coaching the newbies. I suspect I’m probably not the only reviewer who will say they missed Batman telling the Flash to “Save just one person,” to get him going for what seems to be his first mission against an actual villain.

The other Wheadon addition that I sorely missed was the color. I have a relatively nice TV. Give me some saturation to see on it.

As much improved as the plot’s set up is from restoring all of the characters’ cut material, so to is the payoff in the obligatory third act fight. Every hero has a well-established role in the attack on Steppenwolf’s stronghold that each of them is the clear choice for. Character beats from their arcs land to end the battle. And Cyborg’s story gets to cap it all off as the honest-to-God throughline of the plot.

And then there’s three sequel teases. Including an incredibly pointless elongated cameo by Jared Leto. And the follow up to an extremely clumsy and out of place introduction of a possible seventh member of the League in a way that blows open a couple of big plot holes in an otherwise well-contained story. (The teasing of the eighth member was much cleaner… until his last, clunky line threw it in your face. I guess that’s just his thing.) You can tell these were the entirely new scenes, because they don’t fit the original script.

Verdict: Rental. Despite the parts I like about the original cut and the parts I don’t like about this cut, the improvements outnumber the drawbacks. The overall package isn’t better enough to warrant upgrading its rating an entire category, but I think the Snyder cut could easily get to “Go for it” with a little less wanking and a little more discipline. Unfortunately, the third version that was recently announced does the opposite.