Zack Snyder's Justice League Review!

 Alright! Today I'm reviewing Zack Snyder's Justice League, which is finally here in its glorious, 4 hour-long, 4:3 glory. Why is this review coming out two months after the movie? Guys, it's four hours long and I have a life. Finding the right time is hard. And you know what? 

Against all odds, against the fact that I hated Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, against my preconceived biases, the fact that I already knew the plot, the R-Rating, every factor going against it - I really, really liked this movie. 

I liked it a lot. 

Justice is gray? 

In fact, I only had two criticisms, and neither are plot-related. 

The first is that every. single. time. wonder. woman. did. anything. this. stupid. theme. played. It was cool the first time, but after four hours it just got... annoying. It became a running joke between me and my viewing mate (My pops). By the time you reach the three-hour mark and the theme starts playing, everything became hilarious, regardless of plot intensity. Even more annoying was how often it interrupted the excellent soundtrack courtesy Junkie XL. 

The second complaint is that it's four hours long. Luckily, the movie is paced competently and contains frequent enough action to not drag, but man. It feels so long, like every single frame of footage they shot was kept in. Especially in the first two hours. Tighter editing easily could have trimmed off 15 minutes, and the movie would've been much better for it. There were far too many establishing shots and slow-motion shots of people walking. It needed... less. 

Let's just not speak of this one again. 
Justice is orange.

I could spend a lot of time talking about how this movie compares to the 2017 "Josstice League," but that's honestly not fair to this movie. Comparing it to that is insulting. We get the point, that's a bad movie. Saying that Zack Snyder's Justice League has better characterizations or CGI really doesn't mean anything - it's like saying Hamilton is a better movie than Cats. That's the lowest possible threshold for something this good, and the mere comparison drags it down. 

It's like saying Teddy Roosevelt is a better president than James Buchanan, that Lord of the Rings is a better movie than The Last Airbender. It's like clearing the lowest possible bar. It doesn't mean anything. 

Justice is 100% more spikey.

But here were my general notes on the differences: 

• Steppenwolf was much less generic. Here he was a big, intimidating, spikey man, not the secretary hung up on his mother. Sure, he's thinly developed, but at least he's not poorly digitized. 
• The special effects are much, much better. I'm not sure how much they reshot for the theatrical cut, but it must have been a lot. 
• The gray color scheme is much better than the oversaturated orange. Sure, it means every single bright and sunny day looks like a really cloudy, downtrodden day, but it's an improvement. 
• All of the cringey jokes about brunch and Flash falling on Wonder Woman are gone. That's a major upgrade. 
• All the shots of Gal Gadot's butt in tight leather pants are gone.
• Cyborg is much cooler here. 
• Flash is much, much cooler here.
• Aquaman's the same, more or less. 
• Batman was much, much cooler here. 
• Superman was much, much cooler here. Everyone was better! 
• Darkseid showed up, alongside the Joker and Martian Manhunter. That was fun. 
• This one has more Icelandic songs.
• The Russian family who gets scared is completely cut, thank goodness.
• Cyborg wasn't really the "heart" of this movie. He just happened to be the center of all the emotion. The main character is actually unclear, unlike the theatrical's, which obviously focused on Batman.

Justice is super long and slow.

Yeah, that's more or less everything I'd want to say between the two. Muting the color scheme instead of oversaturating it helped so much. The graphics look incredible, and the lighting has been improved tenfold. 

Also, this movie is R-Rated. The official reason is "language and violence," but, in all honesty, this movie has three f-bombs and was shot as a PG-13 action movie. This is basically a PG-13 movie with blood (And minimal blood at that). The one scene they added on, the Knightmare sequence, has the third f-bomb, and I'm not entirely sure that wasn't just thrown in there to ensure the R-Rating. So, yeah, an R-Rated Justice League movie is stupid, but this one is basically PG-13, the MPAA's just weird. 

Justice is R-Rated, because how else can I take my superhero movie seriously? These aren't for kids!

And while the movie is very slow, it is paced much more competently than BvS or Man of Steel, both of which had minimal action followed by an overblown finale. This one keeps the action consistent throughout, and having humorous moments from Flash and Aquaman helps balance the tone. It's not that Man of Steel needed to be a comedy, it just needed to have occasional breathers from an otherwise gloomy story. 

And even though it's very slow, ZSJL is epic, not just because of its four-hour runtime (Which is a requirement, by the way). It's a long and mythological dive into what makes DC characters great, all while offering new interpretations of them. At some point, all my many, many grievances against the director and the previous movies were swallowed up by pure enjoyment. I was geeking out over some stuff (Anti-Life Equation! Yeah!).

Justice is review bombing Godzilla vs. Kong and sending death threats to critics.

The movie has a lot of new faces, most of which were likely shoved in for marketing purposes (Darkseid certainly wasn't in the 2017 cut! That generates interest!). I liked a lot of them. Martian Manhunter showing up made my day as a long-term DCAU fan, Jared Leto's Joker was actually pretty awesome here (Albeit with a seagull laugh), and Darkseid was incredible. Darkseid here was everything he needed to be and more. Absolute perfection. My one complaint is that he's not in the movie all that much. 

Something I really, really loved about this movie was how great Flash and Cyborg were. I've never been a big Cyborg fan (Teen Titans Go! is... irritating) but the backstory offered here was actually really touching. He gets moments to do stuff! Cool stuff! He has a great scene where he helps out a struggling woman! While watching, I was honestly thinking "Man. Where is my Cyborg movie?" I need my Cyborg movie!

Justice would be making a Cyborg movie.

And Flash is the highlight of this movie in general. Without the layer of Joss Whedon's humor and oversaturation, he actually gets a chance to be funny! It's incredible how much humor he has, especially in comparison to Man of Steel and BvS, both of which were strictly solemn! It's a major improvement! 

There were two sequences of this movie I really, really liked. Two sequences that brought tears to my eyes. The first was black suit Superman floating above the Earth. That wasn't because I'm particularly attached to Henry Cavill's Superman (Love the casting, hate the character), it was purely the combination of the All-Star Superman monologue and the Flight theme from Man of Steel. That one-minute scene gave me goosebumps, I was actually excited. Superman is back! 

Justice is a 4:3 ratio, because formatting a streaming movie for Imax isn't pretentious at all.

The second was Flash going back in time. Flash going back in time here is just about the coolest part of the entire movie, and Junkie XL's score for the scene is incredible. I'm vibing to it on the daily. It's actually astounding that this footage existed, that it was locked in a vault somewhere, and they chose not to use it. It boggles the mind. 

Zack Snyder's Justice League is an absolute conundrum of a movie. I absolutely hated, hated Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, and I hate the overly toxic fanbase even more, and I hate the fact that this movie exists in part due to their toxicity, but man. I really enjoyed the final product. 

After seeing the "Ultimate Edition" of Batman v Superman, I was expecting a much longer but not much better cut of the 2017 Justice League, with the biggest difference being it would be gray instead of oversaturated. I was wrong. This movie is superb. 

Justice is, after a four-year-long battle, finally having the movie come out and be amazing.

It's a triumph for everyone involved, specifically Zack Snyder, to have something that's been passionately wanted for so long finally be released to this reception. And actually be good! Really good! In fact, I don't even mind the hashtag #RestoretheSnyderVerse. I would love to see a second and third Justice League movie. 

This is a big deal for me. I wasn't expecting much. What I got was actually incredible. Would I recommend it though? In all honesty, probably not. It's very long, and definitely for DC fans (And even more so for Snyder fans). It's not for everyone.

Overall, I give Zack Snyder's Justice League a 9/10. "Against all odds, Zack Snyder's Justice League is actually incredible, albeit much longer than it should be."

Justice League is surprisingly good.