Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder), the Snyder cut

The absolute saddest part of Justice League: The Encore Edition is the new stuff’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. You almost want to see the movie, which is basically Ben Affleck Batman teaming up the not even A-list for 2021 of DC Comics movies stars and roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But then there’s even more new stuff with Affleck and it’s the best Affleck’s been in the whole four hours. He has a thirty second or so conversation without screenwriter Chris Terrio’s indescribably horrific dialogue and it’s fine. It’s kind of charming even and there’s no other time in all of Justice League: The Uncensored Version Affleck’s ever near charming. He’s obviously miserable in the rest of it, having realized after his last Snyder outing whatever he thought he was doing on set, it wasn’t ending up printed on film. Though Affleck doesn’t even get an arc, which is kind of funny. Like, Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams—all the people who’d already had their solo movies—they don’t get arcs.

And it makes sense, because Justice League: The Commemorative Edition takes its time introducing its new superheroes. There’s Aquaman (before Aquaman) Jason Momoa, Cyborgman Ray Fisher (who got screwed the most in the theatrical version), and Flashman Ezra Miller, who’s done so well since Justice League: The Theatrical Version Warner had to beg him onto the TV shows the movie people all dissed. All three do pretty well with some lousy material. All three get extended introductions, with Momoa doing a cologne commercial set to Nick Cave—if you’re going to sell out, sell out big (and it’s actually the second Nick Cave in fifteen minutes because Adams’s D plot gets a Cave song too, so double up, sir)—Miller doing a lovely slow motion meet cute with Kiersey Clemons, albeit set to very annoying music—while Fisher gets a football success flashback. Snyder really can’t direct sports scenes. Whatever Zack Snyder thinks slow motion accomplishes, it does not. If you ran Justice League: The Special Edition at regular speed, you’d probably lose an hour.

The action in the first half is all very elaborate. None of it involves the superheroes. Snyder really can’t be bothered with the superhero action. He takes his time with the Amazons—led by an atrocious Connie Nielsen, but her level of atrocious doesn’t even get her in the top five—he takes his time with some of the Momoa stuff (Momoa’s stuff figures into the A plot, whereas Miller’s doesn’t at all and Fisher’s sort of figures in but only coincidentally). But there’s Atlantis stuff and there’s a lengthy flashback to ancient battles against a terrible CGI bad guy. Justice League: Untitled does a great job proving Marvel had the right idea all along (minus hiring Joss Whedon); build up the characters in solo projects, hire an actor to motion capture your inter dimensional blue bad guy. Justice League: The Bootleg Cut spends a lot of time on very pointless setup; at least the Fisher stuff gets closed off, but it turns out it’s because he’s the only one who’s not getting to come back after Justice League: Integral Version. The film leverages Joe Morton to get it done.

Joe Morton can get it done. No one in the movie makes the crap dialogue seem as reasonable as Joe Morton.

Even if he and Fisher never really get any good scenes together. Of the new three, Fisher’s the best (and actually good). Momoa survives unscathed. Miller survives… scathed.

So if Affleck’s bad, Gadot’s kind of fine but has no character arc and her characterization is very thin. Actually, more abrupt. Terrio’s scared to write people talking to one another so everyone just spouts declarative statements. Though Gadot does get a lengthy narration scene—when Thamos is fighting against Bronze Age super magic people—and she is terrible. It’s terribly written, but she’s really bad at it too. Like, maybe throw in some John Lennon to make a human connection. Wonder Woman does vaporize a guy in front of school children in her action scene though; Snyder wimps out on CGI’ing blood all over them.

Cavill’s fine. He’s in Justice League: Redux seemingly less than in the other one when he had the silly CGI jaw (they should’ve used all that footage but made it Bizarro). Adams is fine too. She gets the second biggest shit part in the movie though. Her part actually gets worse the more we learn about her, which happens because of the biggest shit part—poor Diane Lane. First they give her a shit part, then they change it Carrie Fisher in Star Wars 9 style and make it even worse. Plus all the Cavill, Adams, and Lane stuff is clearly not meant for the pan and scan. It’s a sad end to their trilogy and it’s kind of obvious Snyder cut more of their stuff than anyone else’s. Except maybe Gadot’s; even though she gets the terrible narration thing, her solo action scene gets trashed through editing. Also the music.

Thomas Holkenborg’s music is occasionally fine. Mostly for the Aquaman stuff, but in general it’s not too terrible. Except for Gadot’s stuff and Cavill’s stuff. With the latter, it’s like Holkenborg’s giving the old Hans Zimmer material the finger. With Gadot’s stuff, Holkenborg’s just got terrible ideas. He also completely avoids giving Affleck any music, which is too bad because it’d be great if there was some sad Affleck music whenever you can just see the dejection on his face. He’s painfully miserable. He can’t even keep pace with Jeremy Irons, who’s doing everything to try to keep their scenes afloat. Irons can save Gadot, but Affleck’s a sunk rock.

He’s terrible to the point he’s annoying to watch.

Oh, and J.K. Simmons. So bad.

Amber Heard’s fine. Willem Dafoe’s terrible but not in an embarrassing way like Simmons or Lane or, you know, Affleck. Meanwhile Billy Crudup seems to be doing an impression of John Wesley Shipp, who plays the same part (The Flash’s wrongly convicted father) on the “Flash” TV show.

Who else… Oh. So the voices for the CGI bad guys, who all look terrible because the visual concepts for Justice League: The Final Cut are all bad. But Ciarán Hinds. Not good work. Ray Porter, terrible. Peter Guinness, terrible.

Another misunderstanding I had about the theatrical version and Justice League: Extended Collector's Edition… I thought the lousy CGI backdrops, like when people are out on the street—I thought all those scenes were post-Snyder. Nope, there’s a bunch of shot in front of green screen instead of on exciting nondescript city street. It looks terrible. Worse, when they do the Kansas corn fields with the CGI backgrounds? It’s like a museum diorama where just a little further away it’s the wall with the painted horizon. Ruins the scenes.

Again, Justice League: The Reconstruction does no favors for the Man of Steel gang.

Fabian Wagner’s exterior photography is all exquisite. It’s just the composites. They’re all crappy. Every single one. If Snyder leaned into it more, the artificial, exaggerated distance between foreground and back, he might have something. But he never has something with Justice League: The R-Rated Director’s Cut because there’s just nothing to see here.

Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder)

Justice League exists, whether intentionally or not, outside a certain kind of critical examination. Director Snyder didn’t finish post-production. Or, at least, when the studio demanded lots of reshoots, Snyder wasn’t involved in a creative capacity. The job went to Joss Whedon, who gets a co-writer credit. Are the terrible scenes Whedon’s fault or Snyder’s fault? The generic, impersonal Danny Elfman score? Seems like Whedon’s fault. The terrible part for top-billed Ben Affleck? Probably Snyder’s fault. The crappy CGI?

Well, crappy CGI in DC Comics adaptations is definitely Warner Bros.’s fault. And it gets bad in Justice League. The lack of detail on the giant, personality-free adversary (boringly voiced by Ciarán Hinds) is stunning. Again, it’s not clear if Snyder supervising post would’ve led to better action scenes. The ones in Justice League are all pretty awful. Fabian Wagner’s photography is bland, David Brenner, Richard Pearson, and Martin Walsh’s editing is at best bland. It’s much often much worse. The action sequences lack imagination on every level, whether scale or just the idea of the superheroes working together.

Justice League has no scale. Someone–Snyder, Whedon, the producers, the studio, the twenty-third test audience–decided there shouldn’t be any establishing shots if they don’t have exposition. Justice League cuts from expository scene to expository scene, except Whedon and Chris Terrio’s Frankenstein script doesn’t have any texture to it. Not when it’s the main cast, not when it’s the supporting cast. Especially not when it’s poor Diane Lane and Amy Adams. Jeremy Irons gets terribly mistreated, but it’s nothing compared to Lane and Adams.

Adams is literally reduced to broken woman. While the whole world is ceasing to function because of what happened with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, instead of being a strong character who perceivers in the aftermath, she just breaks down. Not on screen, she just tells everyone about it. Well, she tells Lane and Henry Cavill about it because she has nothing else going on.

But Lane. Poor Lane. It appears Lane’s scenes are entirely, with one exception, Whedon’s. Cavill had a mustache while doing reshoots and there’s some bad (though apparently exceptionally expensive–read rushed) CG to mask out the mustache. The result is his mouth not moving right and his teeth being scrunched. So you can kind of tell. You can kind of tell who to blame.

And it’s Whedon who reduces Lane and Adams to broken women. At least Terrio and Snyder–apparently–made Affleck a broken man. He just can’t get on after what he’s done. Except he’s not haunted about it. He’s just bad, actually. He’s really, really bad. He’s supposed to be the straight man to a team of misfit superheroes, only they’re not misfit superheroes.

Misfits need personality and the Justice League has none. Ezra Miller’s got the most as the Flash and all he does is tell wisecracks. Then there’s Ray Fisher; he gives the film’s best performance in a thankless part. Even though he’s got a lot to do in the script, Fisher gets the least story of anyone. More offensively, it wastes Joe Morton as his dad.

Jason Momoa’s Aquaman. He’s got no personality, doesn’t really do anything in the action sequences except save people occasionally–by people, I mean the other superheroes. Like all DC Comics movies, no regular people are in danger in Justice League. Well, except one family; but they’re actually trapped in a Russian version of Tremors. Otherwise, no one’s in danger. Ever.

Anyway. Momoa. It’s not his fault. More than anyone else, it’s not his fault. His part’s terribly written and the editing on his introduction scenes is atrocious.

Gal Gadot’s supposedly the real straight person on the team, because she can see through Affleck’s guff. Only Affleck wants Gadot to lead the team. Or something. They get some painful scenes together. Again, it’s unclear if it’s Whedon or Snyder, but their scenes are awful. There’s negative chemistry coming from Affleck, even when the script has him mooning over Gadot. Though he does attack her personally when he needs to make a point. Affleck’s writing is so bad. Just. Beyond bad.

Gadot’s fine. She gets the most to do in action scenes, which is either because she’s had the most successful solo movie or just because no one else’s superpowers are good for the fight scenes. Snyder’s direction of the Flash action is terrible, for example.

Amber Heard’s got one scene and makes more impression than practically anyone else.

Cavill’s performance is hard to gauge. Whedon doesn’t write him good scenes. And he’s got a giant unmoving mouth. He and Adams exhibit their usual wondrous chemistry when it’s not a Whedon shot or line. Even still, Elfman’s music ruins even the non-Whedon material. Elfman’s score doesn’t fit. It’s frantic and rushed and usually clashes with the editing.

The only thing saving Justice League from being a disaster is the film disqualifying itself from being serious enough proposition to be a disaster. You open a movie, any movie, with the single worst cover of Everybody Knows–and there have been some terrible Everybody Knows covers–but an offensively bad Everybody Knows cover… well, it’s just too stupid to take seriously enough for it to be a disaster.

Instead, Justice League is intriguingly terrible. Was Snyder’s intention worse? Maybe. I doubt it, because even with all that material’s problems, it doesn’t have Cavill with the silly CG face. But the things Whedon clearly contributed are godawful.

What a mess.