Zack Snyder’s Justice League

WARNING: ALL REVIEWS CONTAIN SPOILERS.

The first half of ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE reeks of self-importance.  The basic story is familiar, or should be, because Marvel and D.C. continuously plagiarized one another throughout the 1960s and 70s (Marvel’s Tales of Suspense vs. D.C. Comics’ Fourth World series)—economically uncertain times during which people looked to superheroes to lift their spirits.

The Mother Boxes, like Marvel’s Infinity Stones, when put together form a destructive force called The Unity which can destroy entire worlds.  Why do these types of devices keep getting invented by all-powerful, ancient beings if they have a tendency to keep falling into the wrong hands?  Never mind.

The film begins where BATMAN V. SUPERMAN leaves us.  The Kryptonian Übermensch (Henry Cavill) dies at the hands of Doomsday—the monstrous, gene-spliced creation of Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg).   The shockwaves of Superman’s cries can be heard by the Atlanteans, and somehow awaken the Mother Boxes—a fact that was indiscernible from Warner Bros’ screener copy, presented in some kind of crippled resolution with an unbearably loud stereo mix.   I took a second look at the official HBO Max release in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos sound.  Warner Bros. Publicity seemed determined not to share this widely with critics, many of whom had to request it.  That’s generally a sign that the studio has little confidence in a film’s creative appeal.

Aquaman (Jason Momoa), a.k.a. Arthur Curry, takes up residence in some Scandinavian village.  Gotham’s favored billionaire, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) throws money at him to join him in fighting foes he’d seen in a recurring, nightmarish vision.

“A strong man is strongest alone.  Ever hear that?” says Curry.

“Ever hear of Superman.  He died fighting next to me,” replies the billionaire.

“Exactly,” the king of the seas claps back.

I don’t know if Snyder realizes how self-aware his script is, or that he’d taken a Maori and plopped him onto the coldest peninsula on Earth as opposed to the warmer coast of—oh, I don’t know—New Zealand.

But just as the locals sing hymnals, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) gets back in his helicopter and departs on a military jet.  You’d think Michael Bay directed this movie, and you’d be half-right because Snyder shares his penchant for unintelligible action and illogical shot sequences.

At just over four hours, ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE is an unwieldy collection of poorly reassembled subplots, rather than the sweeping epic it portends, and portends, and portends. A ludicrously and constantly bombastic score, bereft of any kind of buildup and profligate use of slow-motion—footballs, a sesame seed, everything—punctuates (or punctures?) throughout.  The editors could’ve trimmed thirty minutes just running those scenes at regular speed.

So much of the movie emerges from post-production that it resembles the now drab-looking LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, color-graded into visual pea soup.  It feels dated compared to Besson’s dynamic use of color in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, an adventure that, almost 25 years later, still feels ahead of its time—mostly because tentpoles took a giant step backward thanks to another dull franchise from Anaheim.

The villain, Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds wasted by CG proxy), wants to win back favor with the evil lord Darkseid, a creation of Jack Kirby, the comic artist who gave us Captain America—also defiled by a major studio.  How Steppenwolf—his humanoid visage replaced by mashed potatoes with eyes squeezed into armor that looks like it’s made of forks—lost his approval in the first place, I couldn’t tell you.   You can be sure if they didn’t spend one second giving Steppenwolf character development, they blew a few million dollars animating every tine on that suit of forks. Instead, the story spends about five minutes setting up how the Amazons send a warning to Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).

Silas Stone (Joe Morton) leaves the crash site of Superman’s Kryptonian ship.  He’s a Xenoscientist working on a top secret project for the Department of Defense, which he readily shows to a local investigator.  Never mind that the entire city of Metropolis witnesses the craft , but the U.S. Army seemingly took the day off from guarding this classified crash site that occupies several city blocks.

Stone’s son, Victor (Ray Fisher), resents his father’s efforts to use the energy from one of the Mother Boxes to keep him alive after an accident (rewritten here as a car crash versus the original, more horrific backstory given in the 2017 release)—turning him into a cyborg named, well, Cyborg.

To be fair, Snyder’s version actually gives Fisher considerable screen time and agency, versus Joss Whedon’s original cut in which he served at the whim of the white superheroes.

Somewhere in the middle of all this lies an interesting story wanting to be told, of the epic battle against Darkseid, in which the Atlanteans, Amazons, and humans join forces.   Granted, like the Infinity War saga, it borrows so obviously from Tolkien—stones or boxes in place of rings—with at least the spectacle if not the metaphor or meaning.

And like the elves, dwarves, and men in Tolkien’s War of the Last Alliance, the ancients of this story split up and hid the boxes.  But what I can’t work out is why in the hell Darkseid cares about one of “trillions” of planets simply because it’s the only one he couldn’t conquer.  At one point, Steppenwolf even advises Darkseid that the people of Earth remain too divided to fight as one.  I don’t know about you but if I had a trillion things on my to-do list, I could probably drop one or two of them without getting torn up about it.

This necessitates the invention of yet another MacGuffin—the Anti-Life Equation. It gets worse.  There’s a Life Equation and an Anti-Death Equation but no Death Equation.  Why not just call the Anti-Life Equation the Death Equation?  Wouldn’t it be simpler to just ha– Never mind.  There should be an anti-plot device equation.  I feel like Marty DiBergi right now.

Clearly a set-up for another movie of unbearable proportion, Darkseid seeks out the anti-whatever formula so he can control free will.   Honestly, it looks like crop circles which makes you wonder … did he really need that equation to turn people into slaves when they’ll readily believe anything?

In Central City, which I take to be somewhere like Minneapolis or Denver, Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) rescues a girl he has a crush on just before she’s flattened by a distracted semi driver.  One of the funniest scenes in this largely humorless movie involves him pocketing a hot dog and that’s not even a euphemism.  We never see the girl again.  Barry’s wiener does, however, make a brief encore.

Part 5, titled “All The King’s Horses” implies their attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together fails.  It’s the wrong metaphor.  This resurrection story, albeit better than Whedon’s version, still strays from who Superman is.  Clad in all black, rising to the sounds of Hans Zimmer’s derivative score—borrowing both from Vangelis and himself (Zimmer’s score for DUNKIRK), the moment makes you long for Williams’ serene notes hanging in the air of “The Planet Krypton.”

The meaningful contributions of the so-called Snyder Cut over its predecessor include Cyborg’s arc—the fact that he has one—and the relationships between the members of the would-be Justice League.  We care about these characters to a greater extent.  Barry’s arc culminates in one of those transcendent instances where you completely suspend disbelief—explanations and logic be damned—and accept it as mythological.  Dialogues peppered throughout the film establish a sense of connection between these characters who themselves feel alone in the world.  But it’s all couched in a movie that is, at least, two hours longer than it needs to be.

We get it.  It’s fanwankery—grimdark, swearing, murdering, blood-spilling, superhero fanwankery.  Instead of bringing back the Superman we have known and loved for generations, Snyder doubles down on D.C.’s worst mistakes and makes him, literally, the man in black.  The only times D.C. scored with this latest attempt at a superhero film franchise, they stayed true to the incorruptible spirit of the characters—and had some fun doing it.

Superman’s greatest strength wasn’t physical, but emotional.  His power came not from the sun, but from his love of the people.  As I’ve noted in past reviews, there’s a scene in SUPERMAN II in which the people of Metropolis take to the streets against General Zod (Terence Stamp) to avenge their fallen hero.  Save for the rescue sequence involving The Flash, in which The Girl is used like a stunt prop, I kept wondering throughout the film, “Where are the people that make this planet worth saving?”

Earlier in the story, noting how the superheroes seem to want little to do with one another, Alfred refers to the Justice League as “The Team of People You Can’t Even Find.”   He had it backwards.

My original review of the 2017 theatrical release can be read here.