Source: Warner Bros. Pictures / HBO Max
After years of screaming #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, the day DCEU fans have been waiting for is almost here, and the reviews of
Zack Snyder’s Justice League are mainly on the positive side.
Unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has more hits than misses, the DCEU has been an absolute mess.
Zack Snyder was supposed to be the man to bring finally bring the iconic Justice League to the big screen, but the road to DC superhero team-up film was a rocky one.
The films leading up to
Justice League were polarizing, saying the least.
Man of Steel was aight but was criticized for its glum portrayal of Superman. Then the highly anticipated
Batman V Superman film was critically panned for not living up to the hype. Then came
Justice League, and that movie was awful. To be fair, it wasn’t Snyder’s fault because he had to step away from the film to deal with the
tragic passing of his 20-year-old daughter.
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To fill the directorial void, Warner Bros. enlisted Joss Whedon (
The Avengers and
Age of Ultron) in hopes he could pick up where Snyder left off. Instead, he delivered a mess of a movie that is now embroidered in a scandal with Ray Fisher leading the charge in calling out Whedon for his
onset abuse, subsequently leading to him being
axed from the DCEU altogether.
DC, fans loyal to a fault, hung on to hope, calling for the release of the “Snyder Cut” of the
Justice League that Warner Bros. at the time claimed did not exist. After many years of pushing for its release, the film’s stars finally got on board with the movement, with Snyder dropping breadcrumbs here and there, slowly confirming its existence. Finally, the news arrived that HBO backed up the Brink’s truck giving Snyder the money he needed to bring his vision of the superhero film exclusively to its streaming service.
After numerous stills, teaser videos, and trailers, the film is here. The consensus is that it is better than Whedon’s film. However, it’s still a polarizing piece of art. The 4-hour long film (which can be viewed in chapters) currently holds a favorable
76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, if you checked Metacritic, the film is
stuck at 55, with most critics having mixed feelings.
Robbie Collin of
The Telegraph gave Snyder’s doover a perfect 100 score saying that “it lands differently: characters that were previously empty or ludicrous now have real grit and depth, while action sequences that were once incoherent, lightweight, and garnish now number among the most thunderously spectacular in the genre.
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast writes, “Everything the Snyder faithful hoped it would be, and a vast improvement over its 2017 theatrical iteration.”
The negative reviews were not so nice, basically calling the film fan service that could have been deleted scenes.
Mason Downey described the film as “relentlessly boring and endlessly long,” comparing it to watching paint dry
in his review for GameSpot.
Ouch.
Darren Franwrite wasn’t any nicer in his review for Entertainment Weekly, saying, “
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is just as bad and twice as long.”
“Steppenwolf gets a glow-up; imagine thinking the problem was his clothes!” Franwrite hilariously wrote. “His new armor comprises countless moving sharp points. At first, I thought he looked like a walking Pin Art toy getting tickled by invisible fingers.”
His description of Fisher’s Cyborg (who is considered the heart and soul of the film) was scathing, writing, “Cyborg (Ray Fisher) has a longer origin story, but his CGI body still looks like leftover
Lawnmower Man footage.”
Wow.
Well, regardless, what matters, in the end, is how YOU feel about it after you commit to watching Snyder’s 4-hour love letter to fans of the “Snyderverse,” which hinges on the likely success of this film.
You can peep some Twitter reactions to
Zack Snyder’s Justice League in the gallery below.
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Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures / HBO Max
