uuuuuuugggghhhh!
I can remember when all this “Snyder Cut” business first started, it wasn’t long after the Joss Whedon’s version had hit theatres that phrases like “Release the Snyder Cut” began echoing within forums across the internet. And all I can remember thinking was “Why the fuck would anybody want that?”, it was as if the whole world collectively forgot how badly he had fucked up “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”. His writing was infantile and his characters were some of the most morose, miserable bastards to ever appear on screen, so when Whedon swooped in to save the franchise with his nerd magic I let out a sigh of relief (in 2017 before how big an asshole he was came to light).
Whedon made the characters a little more lighted hearted and charming, he “humanised” them, if you will, which in turn allowed the audience to forge a connection with them, which was one of the main things Snyder’s characters failed to achieve. So much so in fact when I learned that Batman would attempt to take on Superman, one of the most iconic story lines in comic history, I simply didn’t care. I didn’t care if Snyder’s psychotic version of Batman wanted to kill his miserable incarnation of Superman, because to me they were little more than action figures being bashed together in atrocious lighting.
So when I learned that Whedon would take over I was hopeful, hopeful that we may actually get a decent Justice League movie. And given the time and budget constraints that Whedon had to work with, I think we got a pretty good movie. But it appears I was the only one who thought so, which brings us to the Sny-(suppress urge to vomit) -der cut.
The overall plot hasn’t changed much, the big bad Steppenwolf is still trying to unite the three plot sensitive McGuffins known as “The Mother Boxes” in order to do a badness. However, this time around his motivation has completely changed for the better (my opinion). No longer is he spurred on by Oedipal issues so bizarre it made the “Martha” situation appear run-of-the-mill, this time around he is an exiled warrior desperate to redeem himself in his master’s eyes. While it may seem like a small change, it completely reinvents the villain, adding another layer to the character and making him all the more intriguing, taking him from creepy momma’s boy to dangerous exile.
But like I said, other than that the plot is still the same. Batman wants to create a team of superheroes to protect the world because apparently the world’s greatest detective couldn’t figure out that having a God like superhero around would make the whole “saving the world” thing a little easier.
While the plot has managed to escape unscathed, the same cannot be said for the characters, the writing, the sound, the pacing or the lighting…In fact, beyond the plot there isn’t much from first cut that hasn’t been altered and with the exception of “Cyborg” all of it was for the worse. It’s as if Snyder went through the first cut of the movie and changed as much as he could, regardless of whether it would benefit the scene or not, just as long as if differed from the original.
Take for example the addition of the Martian Manhunter, while it was cool that we got to see this awesome character appear on the big screen, it felt completely tacked on. He showed up in one scene half-way through the movie and then disappeared until the end. And this is just one example of dozens of superfluous scenes that not only don’t add anything to the story, but actively hurt both the pacing and the structure of a movie that already has problems in both areas.
I mentioned that the new “Cyborg” scenes were good, so I’ll get them out of the way, so I can descend into the rant madness. I mentioned in my original review that “Cyborg didn’t get enough fleshing out” (which now seems sketchy given what later came out about Whedon), luckily this time around we get much more Cyborg. We get a more detailed look at his past, what led to his accident, how he became what he is and how that has affect his relationship with his father. And while it is all awesome stuff that really gives the character a lot of depth, we didn’t need half of it. I think we can all agree that, the rather brief explanation of “My father played mad scientist and made me a cyborg with alien tech” is a sufficient explanation to the “why are you metal?” question.
I’m not saying these extra scenes weren’t good or interesting, and they certainly give us a better understanding of the character but with a film that is pushing over four hours there was stuff that we just didn’t need. And if these scenes are so important why not do what was done with Aquaman, introduce him with a brief synopsis and save the backstory for a standalone movie or TV show. But let’s face it, if WB had good judgement we wouldn’t be stuck with this “My chemical Romance” version of the DCEU.
And while we’re on the subject of poor judgement, let’s talk about the fucking inexcusable shit that Zack Snyder still “STILL” gets away with putting in films, no matter how many times people, even his fans, till him they don’t fucking want it. The dumb-assed, fuck-awful slow motion scenes, WHY? Why in the name of all that is nerdly does he still insist on putting scenes in slow motion? What could it possibly add to this film other than 24 minutes of extra runtime? That’s right; I actually did the maths, THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE REDUCED ME TO SNYDER!
And it’s not like he even adds them to scenes were it would make sense, no! This cock-trumpet adds them to completely irrelevant scenes, such as the incredible “Aquaman walking down a pier while strange women sing and sniff his clothes”……Yeah, that’s what will help you compete with Marvel isn’t Zacy boy, appealing to the Olfactophilia crowd.
And if you thought the characters would get away untarnished by Snyder’s particular brand of bleakness then I envy you your optimism. The “Justice League” that you see in this version are complete different from the ones that we saw in the previous version (with the exception of The Flash) and in the worst possible way. They are devoid of any of the humour that they possessed in the first version, gone is the Aquaman-lasso of truth scene, which did a wonderful job of laying out Aquaman’s fears and goals in comedic way. Absent is the Superman-Flash Saving people scene, robbing both characters of the virtues (historically) they are meant to embody, and say bye-bye to anything that would make you like this Superman, cause it’s all gone.
He even went so far as to make the films colour darker, he has grayscaled all the colourful scenes to make everything more fucking morose. In fact, I’m willing to put money on the belief that the only reason he included the “Black Superman suit” was because it’s black, not because of its comic roots.
Okay, I’m being unfair, to his credit he edited the colour in certain scenes involving Wonder Woman because Whedon (the creep) used every opportunity he had to point the camera directly at Gal Gadot’s backside. And by darkening these scenes Diana’s Wonderoos are no longer as visible making it far less gross, but there had to be, HAD to be a better way to achieve this.
Opinion
It’s not like I wanted to hate this movie , I really tried to like it, the “Justice League” are among my favourite superheroes and Superman holds a special place in my heart. But the “Snyder Cut” just left me feeling exhausted. The only good thing to come out of this atrocious pile of shite is that we now have empirical proof that “Zack Snyder” doesn’t have a fucking clue about what he’s doing, and he should in no way be allowed to create any more superhero movies. His child like understanding of cinema is present throughout this 4 hour waste of time and only speeds up the decline of the DCEU.
