The Snyder Cut shows nice guys can finish first

It’s nice to see the good guys win one for a change.

I speak, of course, of Zack Snyder, whose four-hour cut of “Justice League” debuted on HBO Max last week to praise from critics and audiences alike. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is the culmination of a years-long grassroots effort to convince the executives at Warner Bros. that his iteration of the film was worth finishing and releasing after Joss Whedon was brought in to co-write and partially direct the film.

The acclaim for the movie is a bit surprising. But perhaps critics are relieved to be able to celebrate something big and good and idiosyncratic that was created by someone who is, by all accounts, a decent guy forced to overcome serious personal tragedies over the past few years. Snyder’s behavior in an impossible situation is a wonderful example of dignity that’s worth celebrating no matter how you feel about superhero movies.

Following the critical drubbing of the theatrical cut of “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and underwhelming box office, WB execs were nervous about what Snyder was doing on “Justice League.” When they saw an early cut of the movie, they panicked, bringing in Whedon to rework the script. Following the death of Zack and Deborah Snyder’s daughter Autumn by suicide, Snyder stepped away from the project entirely.

Throughout the film’s postproduction struggles and initial release, Snyder kept up a brave face. He didn’t demand his name be taken off the movie, despite the fact that, according to him, he had nothing to do with roughly 75 percent of what appeared on-screen. He didn’t trash the movie or tell audiences to stay home.

Instead, over the years, he released dribs and drabs of information to his committed fan base via a small social media network called Vero. These nuggets kept the grassroots energized and active, but not at the expense of Snyder’s employer or his replacement.

And there’s a sadness to the story that makes your heart break for the director, his producing partner and wife, Deborah, and their family. “It’s such a lightning strike in the center of this whole saga,” Snyder told Vanity Fair. “And in a lot of ways it has informed everything we’ve done since.” As a father myself, it’s impossible to imagine the pain that the death of a child would cause.

But it’s the happy warrior sensibility that is Snyder’s most attractive trait, his winking ability to poke a little fun at himself and his work even while taking it totally seriously. That shines through in his chat with the critic Dave Itzkoff, where Snyder suggests his film would make a fine double feature with the mellow indie flick “First Cow” thanks to their shared aspect ratio or puckishly compares the Snyder Cut to Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.”

For once we get to celebrate a win by a Hollywood director around whom there’s never been a whiff of impropriety or cruelty. As “dark” as his films are and as frequently as some, like the underrated “Sucker Punch,” have been slapped with the sexist tag, Snyder himself has never been accused of being anything other than a professional. His stars love him. “I can’t speak highly enough about him,” Gerard Butler, star of Snyder’s “300,” told the Hollywood Reporter recently. “As a director, as a creative, as a kind, excited, passionate guy.”

That’s in stark contrast to Whedon. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” co-star Charisma Carpenter last month accused him of years of on-set abuse. Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman herself, told the Los Angeles Times that her experience with Whedon “wasn’t the best one” and that she “took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it.” Whedon was also accused of racial bias by “Justice League” star Ray Fisher for systematically stripping Black characters from the film or reducing their impact.

Snyder is a modern nice guy, the sort who bros out at the gym while going to work every day with his wife. We want a guy who makes moody movies yet is a pleasure to be around on set, a guy who can make demonstrating how to snap a neck a goofy, feel-good meme. It is, perhaps, the same reason that “Ted Lasso” has emerged as one of the most beloved shows of the post-antihero era: Finally, nice guys are finishing first.