Zack Synder's Justice League. (15.)
Directed by Zach Synder.
Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Amy Adams, Joe Morton and Jeremy Irons. Out on 4K UHD/ Limited Edition Steelbook/ Blu-ray/ DVD and Digital download on May 24th. 242 mins.
Life has a funny way of helping you out, as the great sage once observed. Right after completing principal photography on Justice League director Zack Synder, and his producer wife Deborah, quit post-production because their daughter had committed suicide. At that time his reputation was in the toilet, known as the man who was making a po-faced pig's ear of Warner's DC universe. Four years later, he's the top dog, a director again spoken of as a visionary. A funny way of helping out.
His path to redemption was laid out by the cackhanded way Warners dealt with the situation, which I believe is analogous with how Wimbledon FC dealt with their highly successful manager Joe Kinnear after he'd suffered a heart attack towards the end of another successful season in the Premiership. The new Norwegian owner decided that the best way to aid his recovery would be to present him with the sack and replace him with former Norwegian national coach, Egil Olsen. Olsen's scrappy, against-the-odds persona seemed on the face of it to be the perfect synergy with the club's underdog identity.
His appointment was a disaster. The team was relegated a year later
Warners drafted in Joss Whedon to finish the film, seemingly a perfect choice. He had written and directed the first Avengers film, the one that lifted the Marvel operation to the level of market dominance. His ability to write witty dialogue which lightened the tone without undermining the dramatic weight of comic book characters was exactly what was required for a series that had consistently been criticised for being too dark, too grim and no fun. Brought in to oversee postproduction, he then went out to do two months of reshoots, which would replace much of what Synder had shot.
And his film was a disaster. At the box office, it did worst than the two previous instalments, Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman and lost a heap of money.
(It has to be said the Brothers Warner did not take kindly to this; since then Whedon's reputation has been double coated in dirt. The creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer has now been revealed to be a sex pest, philander and workplace bully.)
Almost immediately fans started a campaign to have The Synder Cut, as it became known as, released. The studio was slow to warm to this, seeing as it would be a public admission of failure, even incompetence. The pandemic and the struggles of their US-based streaming service HBO Max finally twisted their arm. Another $70 million was poured into the Justice League money pit to complete special effects and pay for yet more reshoots.
Which is great, until a disc of the thing, all four bloody hours of it, drops through my letterbox and I'm wondering what the hell I've got myself into it. Synder is a man who mostly makes overblown empty films. And they're the good ones. His Dawn of the Dead remake was pretty nifty and his Watchmen was, if nothing else, a faithful transcribing of Alan Moore's graphic novel to the big screen. But Sucker Punch was an abomination and his other DCEU films were at best underwhelming, (Man of Steel) or diabolically bad, BvS. What kind of insanity is it to expect this to be any different? Or to put yourself through four hours of it?
But, bizarrely, insanely, illogically, the Synder Cut is a tremendous film; twice as long but at least four or five times as good. I think the main reason for this is that it is, what it is. The theatrically released version was such a pushmi-pullyu creation, second-guessed to an inch of its life, that it was precisely no things to no people.
This is what Zach Synder does best, done to the best of his abilities. What he can do is make a po-faced saga about straightforward, simple themes that provoke basic responses in an audience. There isn't a great deal of guile or subtlety to it but there is craft and love. He approaches it with a childlike wonder and no condescension. He takes his comic book heroes at face value.
It's almost a completely different film – only with the same story and characters and many of the same scenes but still entirely different from the one seen in cinemas. It's not much like BvS either. Even the aspect ratio is also different. It's shot in the boxy 1:33 to 1 ratio.
The first thing to address is the running time which really doesn't feel bloated at all. The story has been divided up into 6 parts plus an epilogue, spread over two discs. I will confess that having sat down on a Friday afternoon to watch Cruella only to find the link wasn't watching, I watched the first two parts of this, about an hour, while I was waiting for the link to be fixed. And I regret that because I think you can sail through the whole thing in one go with no problem. Obviously, the film isn't exactly in a rush, but it doesn't dawdle either.
The most notable change is the special effects. Possibly the worst thing about the theatrical version (Joshtice League as I believe it is now called) was the rushed, mushy-looking CGI. I have never been a fan of Synder's desire to film everything like it's a thermo-nuclear winter but it is at least clear and defined. There's still way too much ceegeeye for my tastes and some of it isn't of the highest quality but this still looks like it's actual people doing things in actual places.
(That said, there's a scene early on where Ben Affleck's Batman walks past the same Icelandic glacier that Bale's Dark Knight visited in Batman Begins and this moment of visual overlap is a mark of how far DC films have diverged from Nolan's vision.)
Every character and performance is improved but the biggest difference is that Cyborg (Fisher) is actually in this. Before he was an unnecessary addition, contributing little; here he is integral to the plot and we get a whole back story about his creation and a lot more of his father, played by the always excellent Joe Morton. Ezra Miller's Flash is similarly expanded but the difference isn't as marked because most of his best bits and funniest lines made it into the original version.
This version brings out the best in Affleck's Batman. In the first version, he seemed disinterested, convinced that the gig was up. Here though he a thoroughly convincing older Dark Knight and the dynamic with Irons's Alfred is much stronger. This Batman is a one-man Thunderbirds team, flying an unlimited number of vehicles into battle.
The Synder Cut, in some additional scenes shot last year, even does right by Jared Leto's Joker. He only gets one scene, but he makes an impact. Enough for you to want more.
And there's the thing. The Synder Cut is such an amazing rescue act, a 180-degree opinion reviser you could almost suspect that the fans' campaign for it to be released was orchestrated by Warners themselves to try and rescue the reputation of their most valuable post-Potter property. The film sets us up for a sequel but apparently, as it stands, there are to be no more Synderverse DC films. And the most amazing thing about the film is that this now seems like a shame.
Directed by Zach Synder.
Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Amy Adams, Joe Morton and Jeremy Irons. Out on 4K UHD/ Limited Edition Steelbook/ Blu-ray/ DVD and Digital download on May 24th. 242 mins.
Life has a funny way of helping you out, as the great sage once observed. Right after completing principal photography on Justice League director Zack Synder, and his producer wife Deborah, quit post-production because their daughter had committed suicide. At that time his reputation was in the toilet, known as the man who was making a po-faced pig's ear of Warner's DC universe. Four years later, he's the top dog, a director again spoken of as a visionary. A funny way of helping out.
His path to redemption was laid out by the cackhanded way Warners dealt with the situation, which I believe is analogous with how Wimbledon FC dealt with their highly successful manager Joe Kinnear after he'd suffered a heart attack towards the end of another successful season in the Premiership. The new Norwegian owner decided that the best way to aid his recovery would be to present him with the sack and replace him with former Norwegian national coach, Egil Olsen. Olsen's scrappy, against-the-odds persona seemed on the face of it to be the perfect synergy with the club's underdog identity.
His appointment was a disaster. The team was relegated a year later
Warners drafted in Joss Whedon to finish the film, seemingly a perfect choice. He had written and directed the first Avengers film, the one that lifted the Marvel operation to the level of market dominance. His ability to write witty dialogue which lightened the tone without undermining the dramatic weight of comic book characters was exactly what was required for a series that had consistently been criticised for being too dark, too grim and no fun. Brought in to oversee postproduction, he then went out to do two months of reshoots, which would replace much of what Synder had shot.
And his film was a disaster. At the box office, it did worst than the two previous instalments, Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman and lost a heap of money.
(It has to be said the Brothers Warner did not take kindly to this; since then Whedon's reputation has been double coated in dirt. The creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer has now been revealed to be a sex pest, philander and workplace bully.)
Almost immediately fans started a campaign to have The Synder Cut, as it became known as, released. The studio was slow to warm to this, seeing as it would be a public admission of failure, even incompetence. The pandemic and the struggles of their US-based streaming service HBO Max finally twisted their arm. Another $70 million was poured into the Justice League money pit to complete special effects and pay for yet more reshoots.
Which is great, until a disc of the thing, all four bloody hours of it, drops through my letterbox and I'm wondering what the hell I've got myself into it. Synder is a man who mostly makes overblown empty films. And they're the good ones. His Dawn of the Dead remake was pretty nifty and his Watchmen was, if nothing else, a faithful transcribing of Alan Moore's graphic novel to the big screen. But Sucker Punch was an abomination and his other DCEU films were at best underwhelming, (Man of Steel) or diabolically bad, BvS. What kind of insanity is it to expect this to be any different? Or to put yourself through four hours of it?
But, bizarrely, insanely, illogically, the Synder Cut is a tremendous film; twice as long but at least four or five times as good. I think the main reason for this is that it is, what it is. The theatrically released version was such a pushmi-pullyu creation, second-guessed to an inch of its life, that it was precisely no things to no people.
This is what Zach Synder does best, done to the best of his abilities. What he can do is make a po-faced saga about straightforward, simple themes that provoke basic responses in an audience. There isn't a great deal of guile or subtlety to it but there is craft and love. He approaches it with a childlike wonder and no condescension. He takes his comic book heroes at face value.
It's almost a completely different film – only with the same story and characters and many of the same scenes but still entirely different from the one seen in cinemas. It's not much like BvS either. Even the aspect ratio is also different. It's shot in the boxy 1:33 to 1 ratio.
The first thing to address is the running time which really doesn't feel bloated at all. The story has been divided up into 6 parts plus an epilogue, spread over two discs. I will confess that having sat down on a Friday afternoon to watch Cruella only to find the link wasn't watching, I watched the first two parts of this, about an hour, while I was waiting for the link to be fixed. And I regret that because I think you can sail through the whole thing in one go with no problem. Obviously, the film isn't exactly in a rush, but it doesn't dawdle either.
The most notable change is the special effects. Possibly the worst thing about the theatrical version (Joshtice League as I believe it is now called) was the rushed, mushy-looking CGI. I have never been a fan of Synder's desire to film everything like it's a thermo-nuclear winter but it is at least clear and defined. There's still way too much ceegeeye for my tastes and some of it isn't of the highest quality but this still looks like it's actual people doing things in actual places.
(That said, there's a scene early on where Ben Affleck's Batman walks past the same Icelandic glacier that Bale's Dark Knight visited in Batman Begins and this moment of visual overlap is a mark of how far DC films have diverged from Nolan's vision.)
Every character and performance is improved but the biggest difference is that Cyborg (Fisher) is actually in this. Before he was an unnecessary addition, contributing little; here he is integral to the plot and we get a whole back story about his creation and a lot more of his father, played by the always excellent Joe Morton. Ezra Miller's Flash is similarly expanded but the difference isn't as marked because most of his best bits and funniest lines made it into the original version.
This version brings out the best in Affleck's Batman. In the first version, he seemed disinterested, convinced that the gig was up. Here though he a thoroughly convincing older Dark Knight and the dynamic with Irons's Alfred is much stronger. This Batman is a one-man Thunderbirds team, flying an unlimited number of vehicles into battle.
The Synder Cut, in some additional scenes shot last year, even does right by Jared Leto's Joker. He only gets one scene, but he makes an impact. Enough for you to want more.
And there's the thing. The Synder Cut is such an amazing rescue act, a 180-degree opinion reviser you could almost suspect that the fans' campaign for it to be released was orchestrated by Warners themselves to try and rescue the reputation of their most valuable post-Potter property. The film sets us up for a sequel but apparently, as it stands, there are to be no more Synderverse DC films. And the most amazing thing about the film is that this now seems like a shame.
