A return, for me and for Zack
The Albertinho Letter Issue #5
A quick update: Hello! I’m back. I will spare you the details but it has certainly been a time and I’m glad you’ve opened up my email despite my sudden hiatus. In any case, enjoy my very long review of a four-hour movie released on streaming services.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is such a bizarre thing. A four-hour movie brought to life through $40 million in post-production, and it only exists thanks to a relentless campaign set up by one of the world’s most noxious fanbases this side of Mos Eisley.
Yet, I’d give this film the exact same score I gave its predecessor, the Joss Whedon-directed Justice League, a 5/10. However, both achieve a score of cinematic mediocrity through very different metrics and reasons. And in case you were wondering: if you wondering which one was better, I’d say it was the more recent release, by far: While the 2017 Justice League doesn’t waste as much of your time, Snyder’s Justice League is more tonally consistent (more on that later).
What works in both iterations has stayed, thankfully. The fight scene choreography is excellent, and the film does a good job of pulling the camera out during the more elaborate and crowded moments to allow us to take in the scene. And the films works best when it focuses on the interactions between these god-like figures; the rare moments when the facade cracks and we see the people behind these heroes, and how their motives to not only exist but to take up their mantles are alike.
It’s also worth noting what has been removed. A select few of the more egregious sins of the 2017 Justice League film are gone. The most notable is the awkward, sexist scene where The Flash (Ezra Miller) lands on top of Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), but other redactions of note include an incredibly unsubtle Save The Cat moment involving a Russian family, the Flash vs Superman (Henry Cavill) race, and the moment where the League used the same method to defeat Steppenwolf that Patrick Swayze used to defeat the antagonist in Ghost.
But, what astounded me was what was left in. So many baffling decisions that I personally thought (or, more realistically, hoped) were the work of someone who most now agree should probably not be let near a director’s chair anytime soon, was actually Zack Snyder’s “original vision”. Aquaman chugging a whole bottle of whiskey. Unnecessary upskirt shots of Wonder Woman. The spider-like Nightcrawler that harkens back to Kevin Smith’s iconic story about Superman movies and giant spiders. Superman’s awkward shirtless fight against the rest of the League. Batman (Ben Affleck) wearing his worst costume since the Schumacher films. And many more that were added in later.
On a broader note, the general plot of this movie still feels so one-note and plain. Steppenwolf is still an unremarkable villain, possibly more so now that the film insists that he’s not even the major antagonistic force. The parademons are still a ridiculously generic lot of foot soldiers. The Mother Boxes are a smorgasbord of MacGuffin tropes. Unfortunately, this movie proves that you can’t post-production your way out of a bad initial story.
Meanwhile, so much of the film is monologued, either via characters delivering reams of exposition or through voiceover flashbacks. Cyborg (Ray Fisher), someone who both fans and early viewers insist is the star of this new cut, is the worst done by, here. His story is almost entirely told through dreary monologues, of which only one - a tape recording by his father Silas Stone, set to the film’s denouement - is actually interesting.
What’s frustrating is that beneath the surface of all of this something approaching an interesting case study of these heroes. There are select scenes where the League interact without having to shout plot points immediately at each other. They stand out as the best moments of the film. While he definitely does not bring his A-game, Ben Affleck’s Batman is strongest when he can simply talk about the troubles facing him as a person. Affleck also sells the difference between him talking to Aquaman, someone he probably fears, and The Flash, someone who, personality-wise, he’s probably dealt with countless times within Gotham. Likewise, Cyborg and Wonder Woman finding common ground in their shared grief works perfectly. But the standout here is Ezra Miller’s Flash. He is the most improved from the original cut to here: Not only is his Barry Allen exuberant and affable when he originally came off as churlish, he honestly seems like the only actor on set having any fun.
But the moments of greatness are few and far between and get quickly bogged down by more exposition for a world that feels half-established at best. The film spends so much time on the details of world-building, but none on the atmosphere. We learn so much about the history of the world but none on how this relates to the rest of the world and why it matters. By the end of the film we know the hierarchy of Darkseid’s forces, but not why we should care. It doesn’t help that the film creates about five different story threads, including a world of characters, without properly editing or scripting them together coherently. A more cynical person would call such a more deliberate sequel-baiting.
There are fixes for all of this: a lot of it is basic, high-concept filmmaking 101 shit. On the topic of basic film shit: the editing and sound mixing in this film are atrocious. For a film that spent $70 million in post-production, it should not be this horribly cut or sound this bad. Tom Holkenborg’s incredible score is indecipherable, there are audible changes in sound quality between scenes, and hilariously, there is a tightly-edited scene of Wonder Woman lighting a torch that’s reminiscent of Liam Neeson jumping a fence.
And this isn’t even going into some of the more absolutely bonkers moments of this film, including a CGI Sesame Seed flying at the screen, having the Joker imply that he gives Batman handjobs, flying CGI hot dog weiners, the consistent use of Nick Cave’s discography to soundtrack montages, and so so so many more.
Yet, for a large part of its near-four-hour runtime and despite all my complaints, it works, thanks entirely to one reason and the biggest benefit it has over its 2017 predecessor: its tonally consistent throughout. It’s the same fact that makes similarly mediocre movies (including Venom, most Twilight films, the first two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy) not only watchable but enjoyable despite themselves.
The film is shot and directed consistently, including having the whole film shot under a muted colour palette that feels way more fitting here than in the genuinely atrocious Batman v Superman. Everyone, even side characters, acts with this endearing thespian vigour. There’s this level of absurdly heightened tension that exudes from each scene. I like to imagine that, prior to shooting any scene, Zack Snyder would paraphrase the late Joel Schumacher and shout out “Remember, everyone, we’re in a decade-spanning epic!”
Comparisons have been made between Zack Snyder’s filmmaking and the 90s heyday of comic book creators, including Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Kelley Jones, and J Scott Campbell. I’d go further and say the entire film has the feel of 90s crossover comic book special, complete with splash-page-level scenes, dialogue that captions a scene rather than being incorporated into it, choreographed movements that create tableaux as they’re filmed in slow motion, and story threads that pop in and out with no rhyme or reason.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is overlong, frustrating, and a logical mess. There’s about 90 minutes of this that could land on the cutting room floor without question. There’s somehow less emotional stakes in this, a movie about saving the entire planet and possibly the universe, then in the Fast and Furious franchise, a series about how driving cars well makes you qualified to handle national security.
But, it works.
It’s at times incredibly beautiful, and it’s so rare to see someone’s unfiltered vision in this incredibly focus-grouped genre, to begin with, that we should value it when it comes around. And let’s face it: with a slightly gentler touch during and after production, we could have had something truly great on our hands. But, as it stands, I’m just glad it exists.
Thanks for reading, if you got this far! If you want to read my much-less-serious review of the first iteration of the Justice League, check it out here. In other news, I hope to return to weekly publication of this letter, so see you all again soon!