Review: Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut on HBO Max will leave you wanting more

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At the very least, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a director’s cut of a movie that’s four years old, has a lot of heavy lifting to do.

It has to flip critics who panned the original version, and many of whom will press play on this reboot not expecting much. It also must play to an audience much wider and larger than Snyder’s admittedly massive following. And Snyder, as polarizing a modern director as any, has long had as many staunch critics as fans.

But what Snyder has delivered here is a four-hour film, cut into seven parts, that almost plays like a Netflix binge-watch you can’t stop: character driven, tremendous CGI action, dark and somber.

It’s one of the best superhero films of the past 10 years.

The original version of the film, which came out in 2017, was critically panned and fell well short of the studio’s financial dreams. In many ways, it all but ended what the Snyder-Verse had built around Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Flash.

Ever since the original film debuted in 2017, a movie Synder didn’t finish, disappointed fans have wanted to see his vision in full.

And this version of the Justice League — with an extra $70 million budget to add a compelling scene with Jared Leto’s Joker and finish the special effects — proves that with Snyder, context is important.

Critics were split over Snyder’s Justice League set up film, “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

The director’s cut of that movie is 10 times better and helps explain the characters actions and fills in some plot holes. The theatrical cut of “B vs. S” was 2 hours, 31 minutes; the director’s cut adds more than 30 important minutes.

The theatrical Justice League was two hours. What Snyder delivers now, at more than two times of extra runtime, allows him to explore each character’s back story, including the villain. By the time the League has the world-saving fight with Steppenwolf, you feel much more invested. I found myself cheering for a climactic scene I knew was coming.

This movie is shot in a format designed for IMAX movie theaters and has black bars on the side — reminiscent of when widescreen TVs debuted and networks were still showing content that was not designed for them. Snyder says viewers will see everything he shot on camera this way, however, so there’s more information in each shot.

The format was oft-putting for a few minutes, but it didn’t take long to become immersed in the experience. Like him or not, Snyder is good at capturing visuals, and given more time to flesh out his thoughts here, Justice League — dark and moody like Snyder prefers — eventually shines.

Had Snyder been forced to release this film four years ago at a studio mandated two hours, even his version would not have been this good. He needs more room, and extra time, to develop this many characters.

Snyder shot the original more than five years ago. In March of 2017, he and his wife Deborah Snyder, who was a producer for the film, stepped away from the project following the sudden death of their daughter, Autumn.

At the time, there were reports that Warner Bros. was unhappy with the dark tones of the movie compared to the more upbeat and happy (and more successful) Marvel films. Snyder has since said he didn’t have the strength to fight for his vision with the studio, given his emotions at the time, and he moved on.

Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon — who had directed the first two Avengers movies — to finish Snyder’s work, and Whedon did a lot of reshoots and rewrites. What fans got when “Justice League” finally arrived in 2017 was simply a mess.

Some of it looked like Snyder’s work from films like “Watchmen” and “300” — dark, moody, somber. Some of it had Whedon’s touches: light, funny; full of quips and one-liners.

And in one of the worst moves, Whedon brought Superman actor Henry Cavill back for reshoots but Cavill had a mustache that couldn’t be removed because he was doing “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.” Whedon tried to remove the mustache in post production, and it looked a little like a teenager just learning Photoshop.

In the end, Justice League didn’t come close to being the billion-dollar box office bonanza Warner Bros. had banked on. The studio spent $300 million on the film and it made $229 million in the United States and $657.9 million worldwide.

This new version will deliver what Snyder fans wanted all along: More character-driven, more intense. The film has an R rating for some pretty serious violence and a few F bombs.

At its heart, it’s a director’s cut of a film we’ve seen before: Batman brings together powered beings to defend the earth against Steppenwolf, who comes to conquer the planet after Superman’s death. But there’s more to why Steppenwolf has come to Earth, which adds to the story. We also meet his master, Darkseid — DC’s answer to the Avengers’ foe Thanos. And we learn that Darkseid has been here before, and fought against Greek gods, Green Lanterns and Amazons (the battle scene here is worth the price of admission alone).

In the end, Snyder adds more context than he added for the Batman/Superman director’s cut. It takes a movie that I thought was a C/C-minus when I saw it four years ago, to an A-minus now. Snyder also sets up several story lines that are interesting: a bigger threat emerges for the team other than Steppenwolf, and Snyder also sets up a Batman arc with Deathstroke, thanks to Lex Luthor, that I would love to see.

So my thinking is this: I want (a lot) more Zack Snyder, but I would like to see it on HBO Max, and give him the space to explore his ideas. The original plan was to release this movie in four parts on the streamer, but it’s chopped into seven sections so it’s easy to digest in one sitting or several.

Fans will love this and some nonfans will come on board, too.

I also think by the weekend we’ll get a new hashtag:

#ReleaseTheSnyderVerse.

And we should.