A few months ago, I was planning to write an extensive review. Such a revised and expanded version of the text that I wrote when I was writing even worse than today. Unfortunately, due to the excess of responsibilities, as well as the backlog of texts (which I am slowly catching up on), I had to change the concept a bit. You'll get something similar in style, but in a simplified form. Be warned, there will be more profanity than usual, and I will also not avoid SPOILERS. And I will write it in a loose form as if I was writing to my friends. This movie is so shitty that despite my sincere intentions, I can't take it seriously xD.
However, before I go into details, this is a general opinion. Due to the fact that this is a unique and unusual film (although it may initiate a new trend. May I like to watch a few things in a slightly different narrative), the review will also be unusual. I will not rate him, I will not compare with Joss Whedon's design, the summary will be at the beginning. Why? Because it is a film that was made with great difficulty. The studio made a number of mistakes while developing its own super-heroic universe. They entrusted the project to one person who didn't have the know-how, didn't know how to do it themselves (Disney had at least Kevin Feige, the Marvel people, and DC didn't give a shit about their advisors at the time, and only profit mattered). Their plan was even more shitty than Disney's for the new SW trilogy. And worst of all, when Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah faced a terrible tragedy (the suicide of their only child), it was decided to throw him out of the plan and commission Joss to finish the work. He was given several months during which he was to do what he could. And there was little that could be done - just glue this and that, add a few small scenes to make this product at least try to resemble a movie. For this reason, I will not compare him - because they both made shit movies, each of them for different reasons. It would also be unfair to them, Zack created his version with the burden of his daughter's death, and Whedon was given far too little time and resources.
Shortened version - "Justice League: Snyder Cut", or if you prefer "Zack Snyder's Justice League", is in my opinion a worse movie than "Man of Steel" and "Batman vs Superman". I'm a fan of the former, and I think if some mistakes in the script were to be corrected it would be a solid, good super-hero movie. In the case of BvS, more changes would have to be made and there are fewer successful elements, but still more than the culmination of the entire trilogy. I would say this, if this version of JL came out when I was 10-13 years old, I would probably feel a gigantic nostalgia for him. It's such a good VHS shit, made under the license of a famous brand. I have such associations in many aspects - effects, atmosphere, plot, actors, even if they were popular, they did not play them as well as in their best paintings. It is also better than WW1984, whether to take the movie seriously or not. Fortunately or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, this movie may piss you off or provide a lot of good quality entertainment in terms of guilty pleasure.
I will start the longer version with the fact that at some point I ignored most of the errors and inaccuracies in the plot. At first, I wrote them down, but then I threw a piece of paper in the trash, because there were more and more of them, and I didn't even get to 1/3 of the film. These are not errors that drastically spoil the movie, if you do not pick on low or medium important things + you watch it like most episodes of DBS or other, not very ambitious anime or series, i.e. with one eye closed, then maybe you won't be able to interfere. If there were a lot less of them, say at the "Man of Steel" level, it wouldn't bother me too much. The storyline in MoS only started to piss me off when I got to know the comic book Superman better and watched an overview of a Polish YouTuber. It's fucking bad here, i.e. there are a lot of minor errors and illogicalities, and I probably didn't even notice many of them, because I was watching it when I was tired.
What pissed me off the most was the jumping character's Power Level, depending on how it suited the director and writer. Yes, I know, it always depends on the writer, but this is what makes a shitty writer different from a good one in that he takes all the aspects into account when writing a script. For example, Batman in direct clash has no fucking chance in the fight against Darkseid, ie when they suddenly meet on Earth and fight with what they have at hand. Batman will be run over like a hedgehog on the asphalt by a bulldozer. However, he can win when strict conditions are met - i.e. he prepares for a fight, prepares the battlefield, weakens Darkseid in some way or uses some of his strong weaknesses (such as Clark Kent's vulnerability to magic or krypton). Comics over the years have shown a lot of artifacts to make it possible, precedents or showed such situations, e.g. in one series Batman obtained something (from what I remember, it was some kind of super armor) that allowed him to command Apocalypse and unleash a massacre crap on Darkseid and to many Villians. In Zack Snyder's movie, Batman is sometimes weak and gets a cunt from Random Parademon, otherwise, he beats them as he should - like random cocks. It is similar to Flash, who showed several times that he can fuck someone hard (so that he can fly a few meters with great impetus), but he usually does not use it. However, this is a small bite to Darkseid's first invasion of Earth - the main Villian was defeated by Ares who was destroyed by WonderWoman in her first xD movie. Okay, you will say it was a surprise that Ares used all his power. Cool, let's just compare it to Thanos from "Infinity War", where the situation was identical. Thor was then like a pissed-off Superman - he didn't stick around, he was fucking with all his might, emanating enormous energy. And the god of hammers attacked Thanos in full force, and he did not start to roar like a slaughtered pig, but took it on his chest and was able to deliver a critical blow to the Earthlings. Darkseid, in turn, was scared by someone who had been defeated by the second person from JL in terms of strength.
Speaking of amazons, their thread was full of illogicality. They senselessly tried to stop Steppenwolf as if it was your average cartoon for kids. Not that I think that productions for children can have a silly plot, but you can forgive them more, and from a film aimed at older people - more. In turn, Wonderwoman does not act like her at times. I mean, first of all, her action in the museum, how she used her Kamehameha. She did not have to do this, it would be enough to hit the terrorist and that's it, instead, she used an attack that could injure bystanders. Why am I not picking on her bloody handling of the problem with the rest of the terrorists? Because in such a specific situation, when there is no time for a bloodless solution, and the risk is high, Diana could rather do it and it seems to me that it would not be out of character (at best it would not appear in comics intended for young teenagers). ). Of course, she did not have to do this, because she had such strength that she could solve it without resorting to violence. She could slap them a little or use her speed, but well ... I'm talking about a Zack Snyder movie.
Speaking of which, it was even more of a shock when Superman severely wounded Steppenwolf, robbing him of his horn. When MoS came out and defended Clark Kent that he could break Zodd's neck in this situation, I heard many times that the comic book Clark would never do that. In my opinion, however, it is acceptable due to the fact that he was only at the beginning of his superhero path + it was a logical solution at that point. Steppenwolf, however, was no longer a threat. Superman didn't really need Aquaman and Wonderwoman's help, because he was fucking Darkseid's messenger himself, just like Ultimate Gohan did with Buu in DBZ. I could list other mistakes like that, but I don't feel like it. The movie is even internally inconsistent, Zack Snyder has done pseudo-serious work, pretending to bring up important matters, etc., but most of the dialogue and plots only pretend to do so. And it is in an extremely bad way. Once we have overly bloated, edgy action, and a moment later we get comedy scenes, like this truck accident - flying sausages, which in this context are involuntarily associated with porn movies, a sesame seed from a burger, which we can see exactly from all angles, not to mention it that the one with a truck that was bizarre in itself. Or turning off the electricity in the WHOLE DISTRICT, because Cyborg wanted to talk to Diana xD for about 2 minutes. And once again he confirmed that he has no clue who these heroes are and that he does not understand this universe. He has beautiful scenes that could kick Marvel's ass in terms of special effects and intensity of the action, but that's where his ability to portray superheroes ends. I felt as if I saw a movie directed by a young kid who, admittedly, can read, but still has little imagination and knows only one comic book. Its characters visually resemble prototypes from comic books, but the longer I see them on the screen, the more they stand out from them.
Since I mentioned the slow-motion effect, there is definitely too much of it. Just as for many years I have defended and still defend some scenes where Zack Snyder added them, here it is impossible to defend it. We have too many of them and in the case of 90% of them, you could easily throw away this special effect. So is the amazon theme, which appears almost every time Diana draws her sword or just does something. On a few occasions, Zack Snyder applied it brilliantly, but it was literally 3 to 4 times at most - for the rest, it should go trash. I will not evaluate most of the effects, because Zack got a limited budget for them, so for obvious reasons they are far from being of satisfactory quality. The scene at the end of the movie was great, when we see the full power of Flash, I immediately associated it with the finale of "Tenet". And that's the only moment I've had an authentic WOW effect. A bit weak for 4-hour material.
The text is already long, so I will finish slowly. Before I go to the conclusion, a few words from me about Darkseid and his servant. I'm probably in the minority, but I like the visual idea of Darkseid. You can laugh, but IMO looks good, and its dimensions and voice evoke respect (it's a pity that it only looks like this, but let's skip this detail). I was a bit amused that he had an Anti-Life equation formula that he had forgotten. I was even more amused by how reverently he spoke about how many words he had already conquered and how many planets Steppenwolf had to get for him in order for him to finally come home. 50 thousand worlds. Fuck, he said it to him, I croaked loudly, straight out of a cartoon for 11-year-old kids xD. What was he counting? I didn't expect anything positive from Steppenwolf, and yet I was surprised. He looks like a kind, kind gentleman who works for his ruler with reverence and dedication, and I was genuinely sad when Aquaman, Superman, and WonderWoman hit him like a ball and brutally wounded him. Even though its creation is at the level of cartoons for children from 30 years ago. Again, a serious movie, etc. blah, and Villian just needs to twist his mustache. As for the rest of the characters, Diana was better guided than in WonderWoman 1984, and sometimes for a brief moment, it felt like this was the Diana I know from the animated films. She also had nice chemistry with Ben Affleck. Batman ... Well, it came out tragic, but if I'm not mistaken, this actor had a hard time in his life at the time, so I'm not judging. Jason Momoa came out poorly in my opinion, but I think it's the director's fault because in "Aquaman", which I don't like and I think is a poor production, he already played really well. Flash ... I hope they replace it. Cyborg was cool, he had a nice plot that had the potential for something good, but it turned out poorly and schematically. Nevertheless, it is still one of the better elements of the "Justice League".
Summing up - is this movie worth watching? In my opinion no. It is too long, too weak, there is nothing in it that would justify sitting on the ass for 4 hours (selected scenes can be viewed, for example, on YouTube). Just as I criticize MCU movies in recent years, at least there are better-written characters there, there is a fairly consistent plot. And at the first screening, you can watch them quite well (the second, in the case of most works, IMO is poor and boring). It is entertainment on the level of fast food, but contrary to the criticism of some people, such productions are also needed. I don't see any reason for this movie except that it's a media event like "Endgame", "Infinity War" or "Avatar" in its prime-time, where it made a huge impression with special effects and 3D quality. If it wasn't for JL Zack Snyder's halo, this movie would be worthless to me. Contrary to the overtone of this review, I enjoyed watching it relatively pleasant and if it had been shortened to 2, a maximum of 2.5 hours, I might recommend it, but 4 hours is too long. It's not "The Irishman" so it's worth the time. It's good shit to like and has fun, but I watched it mainly because I like pop culture and I make some money writing about it. Finally, I can only add that it is better than the sequel to WonderWoman, but it is an achievement on the level of being stronger than a student with autism and years of anorexia. It doesn't make any fucking effort, just slap her on the shoulder and we win by breaking her shoulder. How did you like it?