Justice League Snyders Cut, the review of the film with Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck

ZACK SNYDER'S JUSTICE LEAGUE: MORE THAN JUST A DIRECTOR'S CUT

It is singular that one of the filmic events of this 2021 consists in the release of a re-edition of a film that hit theaters four years ago. And, indeed, it would be really surprising if Zack Snyder's Justice League , available On Demand on Sky , was actually a "simple" director's cut.

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The reality, however, is much more complicated. We are not talking about the Extended Version of a film, with three or four scenes cut to add some non-essential frills, for the sole delight of fans.

Nor is this the most significant case in which a director manages, despite the efforts of the studios, to bring to light his own version of a film, after it had been turned upside down in the editing room and released in a sweetened version. as in the epic battle (even narrated in a book ) between Terry Gilliam and Universal for control of the final “cut” of the cult Brazil .

Justice League Snyder's Cut is all of this, but it's also so much more, and in addition it is on a completely different scale. Not only for the huge additions of the new version (we are talking about four hours total, against the two of the original: a real doubling!), But also because of the way in which the project came to life and for the precedent it constitutes in the film industry. Before proceeding with the review of Zack Snyder's Justice League it is therefore necessary to take a small step back.

JUSTICE LEAGUE SNYDER'S CUT: THE HISTORY OF THE PROJECT

At the time of getting to work on the character of Superman, Zack Snyder was already a director known and appreciated by the studios, and for many reasons he seemed the most suitable for this task: after all he had films like 300 and Watchmen to his credit , both film adaptations ( rather slavish, but still remarkable in their ability to bring the inked page to the big screen) of cult comics.

Thus they see the light in 2013 The Man of Steel , with Henry Cavill in the role of Clark Kent, and in 2016 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , in which the role of the Bat Man was entrusted to Ben Affleck . From a commercial point of view the results Zack Snyder had largely brought them home, even if according to most the comparison between the DC Comics productions and those of the Marvel house remained decidedly in favor of the latter.

Justice League , the all-star movie that brought together Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman ( Gal Gadot ), Aquaman ( Jason Momoa ) and friends, in a sense DC's Avengers, had the potential to rebalance things. But not everything went the right way, quite the contrary. Zack Snyder, already at loggerheads with Warner Bros due to the classic "creative differences", abandons the film's post-production following a personal tragedy. The reshooting and final editing are thus entrusted to a veteran like Joss Whedon and the film arrives in theaters in a decidedly different version from what Snyder had in mind.

Despite the box office results, Justice League gave many the impression of a piecemeal and in its own way incomplete work. The gap between what the director had in mind and what then arrived on the big screen has fueled the imagination of cinephiles and superhero enthusiasts, so much so that the elusive Snyder's Cut soon became a legend.

Then the announcement: Zack Snyder's Justice League would come true. But it wasn't going to be a simple re-editing of the film. Warner decides to invest a good 70 million in this alternative version , moreover putting the special effects back, at the time considered inadequate for such an ambitious film.

It is no small detail, that of the 70 million. Because in a sense Justice League Snyder's Cut is an “on demand” project. It is fan service brought to the nth degree , because to convince the major to give the green light was the will of the fans to see this story concretized in its own wonderful way, in which Zack Snyder, despite adversity, manages to make his original and impressive vision. It cannot be excluded that in the future what happened may become a much more common phenomenon.

The plot of Snyder's Cut inevitably expands that of Justice League , because it has double the time available to tell its own story. But on the whole it does not differ much, at least in its general lines.

 
Thousands of years after Darkseid and his Parademons attempted to conquer Earth with the power of the three Mother Boxes, an invasion thwarted by an alliance of men, gods, Amazons and Atlanteans, his follower Steppenwolf seeks to recover the precious items, after Superman's death reactivates them.

If the supervillain managed to bring the three objects together, there would be no escape for humanity. Against him, however, are the superheroes of the Justice League: Batman / Bruce Wayne, Wonder Woman / Diana Prince, Aquaman / Arthur Curry, Cyborg / Victor Stone ( Ray Fisher ), Flash / Barry Allen ( Ezra Miller ). But to succeed, this real dream team needs the help of the late Clark Kent.

It is inevitable that a review of Justice League Snyder's Cut begins with a question: is it actually a different film than the one seen in theaters in 2017? The answer is yes. And also no.

It is always the same film that saw the light four years ago, because broadly the plot, as we have already said, remains the same: the greatest superheroes in circulation must overcome mutual distrust and join forces to face an external threat. .

The doubled length of time, however, gives greater airiness to the story, allowing the director to let the narration proceed without forcing and thus to archive some hasty passages of Whedon's version. Despite this, however, the plot retains some "woodiness" of that of the Justice League of 2017, because basically they are constitutive of the story told by the all-star movie of DC Comics.

But Zack Snyder's Justice League's strong point isn't so much the plot . Rather, it is a pretext to see the bulwarks of the DC multiverse reunited and, in the intention of the director, to tell them in a more exhaustive way than what has been done so far.

To gain from these 120 additional minutes is not so much the plot itself, nor the action scenes, which are better refined than the version released in theaters, but even in this case they are not distorted by Snyder's Cut .