‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ may please his fans but no one else
Even before Superman rises from a watery grave, eyes aflame and chest bared, the resurrection metaphors pretty much write themselves in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” By “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” of course, I don’t mean the director-disavowed mess that was released under his name four years ago, but rather the director-approved mess that will soon be whooshing, blasting and mostly meandering its way into an HBO Max queue near you.
Clocking in at a jawdropping, enervating four hours, this maximalist undertaking is a bid for redemption in an industry that rarely bestows second chances. Or second comings, to judge by the nearmessianic fervor that has swirled around the longanticipated “Snyder cut,” which will surely be greeted in some quarters as the reconstituted “Heaven’s Gate” of superhero epics. O come, all ye DC Comics faithful, the logic goes, and watch as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and other franchise stars join forces to save the world (again!) and redeem a filmmaker’s long-stifled vision in the bargain.
The disappointing critical and commercial reception to “Batman v Superman” was enough to make Warner Bros. think twice about keeping Snyder at the helm of “Justice League.” During production in 2017, the studio turned the film over to Joss Whedon, a practiced crowd-pleaser who had already delivered two successful superhero mash-ups in the “Avengers” series; Snyder, who had been hit hard by personal tragedy, stepped away from the picture.
When the heavily reshot, two-hour “Justice League” was released later that year — with Snyder billed as director and Whedon receiving a writing credit alongside original screenwriter Chris Terrio — Snyder loyalists rejected it and others weren’t much more enthused.
Forced to choose between the two, the Snyder cut is probably the one I respect more, which doesn’t mean it’s the one I prefer: The two-hour “Justice League” was, for all its baggage, a watchable exercise in damage control, with welcome moments of levity that cut through the murky torpor of Snyder’s storytelling.
Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead, and the world mourns in unison, this time not to an anguished cover of “Everybody Knows,” but rather to the drawn-out sound of Clark Kent’s dying scream. That scream travels the globe, setting off troubling reverberations within the three Mother Boxes — ancient, indestructible repositories of power tucked away in far-flung hiding places.
As various crooning, undulating female voices flood the soundtrack, the camera whooshes through the Themysciran temples of the Amazons, valiant sisters of the righteous Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). It travels to Iceland and descends into the underwater enclaves of Atlantis, from which that trident-wielding bodybuilder Arthur Curry/ Aquaman ( Jason Momoa) is partially descended. It lingers with unusual intensity on a wandering Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), bent on forming a powerful team of fighters to fill the void left by Superman’s demise and combat the various supervillains ready to take advantage of it.
Snyder wants you to love these characters, individually and in tandem, as intensely as he does. But if this “Justice League” is a fuller, more stylish film than its butchered predecessor, I’m reluctant to call it a richer or deeper one.
What Snyder has contrived here feels less like a vital reenergization of the form than a ponderous guided tour through a museum’s worth of familiar superhero-movie tropes and conventions.