Film: Zack Snyder's Justice League

GENRE: Action
RATING: R for language and violence
RUNTIME: 4 hours and 2 minutes (yes, you read that right)
PLATFORM: HBO Max
STARRING: Ben Affleck (Daredevil, Good Will Hunting, Argo)
Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman); Ray Fisher (True Detective)
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300, Man of Steel)
WRITER: Chris Terrio (Argo, Batman v Superman)
PLOT: Bruce Wayne tries to recruit a team of heroes to take on an approaching threat.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Love Marvel over DC at this point.    

STORY STUFF: I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon’s work (his recent accusations of on-set behaviour notwithstanding) and it seems almost sacrilege to say but I preferred Snyder’s cut better. I do think the four hour running time is preposterous and unnecessary but the story makes a lot more sense. The villain’s endgame is a lot clearer this time around although he still comes across as a Thanos wannabe with his big chin. Snyder also thankfully takes out the random family that needed to be rescued from the ‘abandoned’ site of the final battle. The Whedon –penned quips are deleted making for a much more somber pic. But at least this looked a lot less messy than the DC 2017 hack job. Oh, and I think the thirty-minute epilogue was testing my patience despite having Joker in it.

ACTING STUFF: The chemistry of the heroes is just okay this time around. I liked the quippy banter last time, though the hitting on Wonder Woman stuff is thankfully gone. Gadot is awesome. Affleck’s okay. Miller is still fun. I know a lot has been said about Whedon side-lining Ray Fisher’s Cyborg story for a variety of reasons. While his storyline made the plot make more sense, I didn’t find Fisher to be that great of an actor. He was pretty blah. Maybe, just maybe, Whedon saw this too and left some of his scenes on the cutting room floor because he just wasn’t as good an actor as the rest of the cast. Just a theory.   

ARTISTIC STUFF: A bunch of the four hours consists of overly-long establishing shots. The cinematography is nice and all but trim it down. I liked a bunch of the action sequences and again it made more sense this time around. I liked the rockin’ soundtrack of the last film, this one has been recut with an all new orchestral score. It was just okay.  

VERDICT: Three and half stars out of five
SEE IT IF: You have a lot of time to kill and want to compare films
UPCOMING REVIEW: Oscar films