I’m one of the mutant weirdos who actually liked the original cut of Justice League. No, not the best superhero movie ever but I had fun with it, despite some reservations about tone and plot inconsistencies. But I can also say that I thought Zack Snyder’s cut of the movie is certainly better… but I don’t think that’s due to anything inherently disastrous in Joss Whedon’s version.

I mean, this film has two extra hours to tell essentially the same story – and as long as the movie isn’t boring (which it isn’t), that’s a lot of breathing room to give scenes and plot. Not to mention Snyder had an extra year, an extra pile of cash, and the benefit of hindsight to get things right. And, frankly, he did get things right. I don’t think it’s perfect but it certainly lines up better with his previous efforts in the (hey, I liked it) Man of Steel and (hey, it was SO bad) Batman v. Superman.

Time to breath is what I think helps. For example, watching Wonder Woman’s fight with the anarchists in both versions, you can just see how much time for the little moments are given in a film that doesn’t have the limitations of a theatrical runtime. There’s just smaller, more human moments in between the bombast… and that bombast is improved as well.

And there’s more and better dialog scenes between characters and more and better exposition scenes as well. I could certainly argue that this movie might not need all the extra time devoted to the bad guy Steppenwolf since a lot of that is clearly setup for a sequel that probably won’t happen now.

And that potential sequel is, I think, the biggest actual crime this version commits. I respect, conceptually, that having more scenes of a nightmare future was part of Snyder’s original plan… but putting them in and then apparently not having any plans to follow-through just seems (as Barry Allen would say) rude. Same goes for the appearance of another member of the team who gets a tiny handful of scenes.

There’s frankly so much to say about this movie from a nerdy film lover’s perspective that I don’t have the space or inclination to say. I’m the guy who bought Batman v Superman (a movie, once again, I hated) just so I could watch the original cut and the extended cut side-by-side to see the difference. Because this kind of thing – how you can take a movie and save it or kill it in the edit – is fascinating to me. And Justice League may be a crowning example of that…

So, instead of writing a novel, I’ll just end it here. I don’t think this film will cross-over to the people who have no interest in superhero or blockbuster films. It’s still, at the end of the day, a very very long and indulgent beat ’em up movie. But as that kind of flick, I think it works very well. And offers a better movie than the first time around… and maybe even makes an argument to keep the studios and the suits away from these movies. Not that that’s ever going to happen.

Score: 86