‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Has Arrived

READ THE REST OF THIS REVIEW ON OUR WEBSITE: https://moviebabble.com/2021/03/24/zack-snyders-justice-league-has-arrived/

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Prologue

One of the grandest moments in film history came to a head last week, shifting the cinematic landscape forever. Careers were ended. Lives were changed. In short, the most significant event in the medium of film since the Lumiere Brothers first put moving images into a light projector.

The Snyder Cut was released on the 18th of March, the Year of Our Lord, 2021.

Part One: No Way Jose, Batman

The opening shots of this movie were when I knew that Snyder would be holding literally nothing back. Zack Snyder starts this movie by ratcheting the Snyder-ness up to 11. A *ahem* FULL SEVEN-MINUTE-LONG slow-motion scene of gory violence takes place as Superman is killed by Doomsday, his death screams awakening the Mother Boxes, fully establishing all our super-characters and MacGuffins all in one go.

The next hour-and-a-half consists of a full “assembling the team” movie in its own right (one of the all-time great sub-genres, in the same family but distinct from the “getting the band back together” and the “one last job” subgenres). Bruce Wayne begins his recruitment of the team by hunting down Aquaman in a small Icelandic town, where he walks into the sea, leaving behind some very strange villagers singing a weirdly horny song while sniffing his sweater.

Meanwhile, the Earth is already under attack. Steppenwolf is still the main villain, but his motivation is a bit more fleshed out this time around. He’s now a servant of Darkseid who has fallen out of favor and is on Earth to recover the MacGuffin Boxes and destroy the world to regain Darkseid’s approval.

Wonder Woman recruits Cyborg to the team, although he is a tough sell at first, and after a charming introduction to The Flash, Barry Allen (played by a caffeine-addled Ezra Miller) joins the team as well.

Once the team is assembled and the threat is fully realized, Batman determines they have no choice but to resurrect Superman. The trouble is, they have to use one of the MacGuffin Boxes to bring him back to life, and that will tell Steppenwolf where they are. They place him in a vat of Kryptonian goo, and despite Aquaman, Cyborg, and the literal living spaceship they’re in telling them not to, they go for it anyway.

Surprise! Here comes evil Superman.

Snyder’s obsession with “what if Superman but evil” is something I’ve never felt like he quite pulled off. This time, though, I totally see what makes him revisit the idea all the time.

Henry Cavill looked legitimately frightening here, and if these are the clips he sent to the Mission: Impossible team to convince them he can play a villain, I totally see how he got that gig.

Eventually, he recognizes Lois Lane and flies off back to Kansas, but the damage is done. Steppenwolf knows where the last box is.

The climax of the film comes in the DCEU’s version of Chernobyl, where Steppenwolf decided to set up shop. The final battle kicks so much ass that I decided to give it its own small section of this review, down in Part Five. Be forewarned: it does contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Part Two: The Age of Memes

This film was meme-d into existence over the last five years. Since the Josstice League movie was originally released to a dismal critical and commercial reception back in 2017, the online campaign was non-stop. When Zack Snyder had to step down after the death of his daughter, Joss Whedon filled in to finish the job. Although this move was celebrated at the time, it left the film a muddled mix of tone and confusing character decisions. Especially given the context of Whedon’s past behavior while filming Buffy and Ray Fisher’s (Cyborg) recent allegations regarding Whedon’s composure on set, it’s safe to say that not many people are sad to see that version of the film replaced.

Let’s be clear though; memes aside, the mere existence of this thing is an actual marvel. Something of this scale, with an original budget of $300 million and an additional $70 million for Snyder to stitch together his “vision” is a staggering amount of money. In fact, it’s the second most amount of money ever spent on the production of a single film, falling only a handful of million short of the record, which is currently held by *squints* Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides…? (If you’re currently saying something like “Jesus Christ, really?!”, don’t worry, so was I.)

The fact that the fans could demand such a massive project and actually get it is seriously something that I’m not entirely sure we’ve seen the end of. Whether this represents a watershed moment in pop cinema or is simply a flash in the pan is yet to be seen.

Never before on a scale like this have we been able to so clearly see the two distinct visions of filmmakers held up side-by-side. An argument can even be made that this case study could be legitimately studied for film students. You just don’t get to have a shot-by-shot comparison like this very often, if ever!

Speaking of comparison…