Will Ashworth

SPOILER WARNING: 3RD AND 4TH PARAGRAPH!! The original justice league, as everyone knows, marked a new low for the DC universe and Warner bros, especially when they were competing against the set of highest grossing movies in history from Marvel Studios. The original movie was rushed and didn’t move with the tone and storyline that Zack Snyder was creating in the two previous movies of “man of steel” and “Batman vs Superman”. However, the Snyder cut was action packed, had intriguing back story’s to new characters such as the Flash and Cyborg, that lead us to both understand better and route for during the film and developed plot points from previous movies such as the nightmare sequence. In addition, Snyder really made the movie his own by adding an appropriate level of violence, blood and gore that made the whole story feel more realistic, especially considering that these meta-humans posses remarkable and therefore potentially dangerous powers. Another point to make would be the amazing visuals and an inspiring score. I was disappointed to hear that Hans Zimmer wasn’t involved as much as previous DC films with Snyder, however “Junkie XL” did a stunning job. I imagine that many people will complain about the length of the movie, in all fairness it was 1/6 of an entire day, and say that it was a drag, but personally I have to disagree. In my opinion all movie studios don’t release director cuts enough! The positives of this have been highlighted by this film, with character arcs, motivations and back stories being developed to their full potential and a complexity being added to the narrative, with the new villains being created (the legion of doom) and the exploration of both time travel and multiple realities. Furthermore, it is great for fans to see the raw vision of a director that hasn’t been tampered with by the studio executives to shorten the running time down. Moreover, although at first I was somewhat frustrated that after 4 hours the main villain “Dark Seid” had not been defeated and his threat remained, I now see why. Zack Snyder has a habit of leaving storylines without conclusion in his movies, an example of this could be in his 2007 epic “300”, this is done to, in a way, twist the studios arm to let him come back for more movies and finish his vision. Well he’s done it again! And I for one couldn’t be happier to hopefully get to see more of his DC universe. Lastly, the casting was fantastic including Jk Simmons as “commissioner Gordon”, Willem Dafoe as “Nuidis Vulko” and not to mention the great performances from the original cast members such as Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot. In addition, the inclusion of, in my opinion, one of the greatest directors working currently and my personal favourite by far, Christopher Nolan as the role of an executive producer would have gone along way to helping create this visual art. All in all, great movie, very impressed. Rating: 8.7/10