Zack Snyder’s Justice League: The #SnyderCut Slow-Mos Its Way To A Coherent Story

After what feels like an eternity, the DC fanboys and girls have finally got what they’ve wanted: the cut of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (#SnyderCut). Whoever was to blame for the original version, the 2017 was a bit of a mess – so Snyder’s cut could only really go one way. Well, with two more hours chucked in and a whole bunch of changes, this version is, better… but probably not the masterpiece many were hoping for.

An issue with the original theatrical cut was it was a tonal crap-show with an incoherent story line. Was it supposed to be dark? Funny? A mixture of both?! Who was the villain? Why was he ther? Why did it look like a 5-year-old rendered the CGI on him? No one truly knew the answers and what came together was a naff mess.

Now, with two extra hours you’d hope that the plot and character archs would be more coherent and just generally a lot less rubbish – and that’s what has happened. Steppenwolf looks a lot less embarrassing and you actually understand his motives, whilst the backstories for other characters – in particularly Cyborg – become a lot clearer. Flash – who was one of the only bright sparks (pun firmly intended) from the original – still managed to be the comedic lynchpin, with Jeremy Irons chipping in with a few decent lines as an enjoyable Alfred.

Going back to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, Snyder has always been associated with a darker tone. Moving away from the fact this film is literally darker (watch the colour ratio), you’d describe the tone of the film as ‘mildly brooding’ rather than anything else. A massive over-reliance on eye-rolling slow-mo sequences dubbed with catchy tunes with the objective of ramping up the emotion really didn’t do it for me.

Then you get the film’s epilogue which feels very much like a ‘here’s what you could have won’ collection of sequences, involving characters we’re vaguely aware of and a actor whose performance has taken a complete 360 since his last critically panned outing as a certain clown.

Look, it’s fine. It makes more sense, characters are better served and it has a few decent stand alone moments. However, I wanted it me to hit me in the gut and after four long hours, it never did: the emotional body punch just isn’t there.

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