Time. It is your best friend and your worst enemy. It waits for no man, yet, in due time, creates opportunities. Opportunities to right wrongs, fix things, think things through, mend and append stories. In the world of superheroes — in both comics and movies — time is a quintessential enemy; it topples universes, undoes decisions.

Back in 2017, when Joss Whedon took over the reigns of Justice League from Zack Snyder, time was on the former’s side. Whedon had delivered two Avengers movies for Marvel; both individually made over a billion-and-a-half at the box-office.

Warner Bros., the owners of the DC Comics brand, had lesser success at the time. Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), both directed by Zack Snyder, brought in a cumulative business of a billion-and-a-half from worldwide box-office. The films were financial disasters.

With a noxious mist of “grim darkness” overseeing the studio’s better sense — a blame I divide equally between Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan, who directed the Dark Knight trilogy with Christian Bale in the bat suit — the bleak, hard-faced tone of the stories and the heroes didn’t fly with the audiences.

Other than the greater violence and the revert to bleak colour grade, director Zack Snyder’s biggest changes in the long re-cut of Justice League is the way he develops characterisations and motives

Something had to be done, and quick. Every tick of time shook the accounting offices at Warner Bros. with a boom.

Then a personal tragedy hit Zack and Deborah Snyder (his wife and producer of the film); their daughter, Autumn, committed suicide, and they left the project in post-production. Whedon was brought in to complete the film. At the time, ‘complete’ meant to ‘fix’ it — but not just in post, as the saying goes. Whedon’s overhauling duties included rewrites and reshoots.

The film was set to release by November. Time — and Paramount, who wouldn’t let Henry Cavill shave the moustache he grew for Mission: Impossible — were the enemy.

When Whedon’s lighter, more audience-friendly Justice League came out, no one gave it a chance; it made less money than Batman v Superman. It was too much too soon. The saviour had become the enemy.

Whedon was blamed for the job he was hired to do in the first place. And to top it off, the visual effects work that painted out Cavill’s moustache became a meme of legends. Immediately after the film’s release, fans rallied for the completion of a purported Snyder cut. It would, supposedly, mystically, change things for the better.

A big duh moment then: as HBO Max debuts a four-hour long take of the Justice League — titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League — a lot did change, though not for the better. At least not in the miraculous way fans may have been hoping for anyway.

The main story remains what it was: Batman (Ben Affleck) still assembles a team of heroes — Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg (Gal Gadot, Jason Mamoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher) — to stop a cosmic world destroyer named Steppenwolf (the voice of Ciarán Hinds) from assembling three all-powerful cubes, called Mother Boxes, that would annihilate the world.

Appendages include long walks, longer, more droning camera moves, and women in a remote Icelandic village suddenly bursting into a Nordic, fable-sounding song. It’s quite sombre and dramatic.

Snyder, who hasn’t seen — and will likely never see — Whedon’s cut, takes out whatever he didn’t shoot. With a green light of 70 million dollars from Warner Bros. to complete “his vision of the film” — which by the way, is presented in a 4:3 (ie. non-wide-screen) aspect ratio and features a lot of rehauled visual effects. Cavill’s moustache debacle is fixed. Steppenwolf is redesigned. New, more effective, scenes are shot or re-inserted. The film now looks, and feels, like an expensive mini-series…only, it’s not (Snyder has added six chapter breaks, to break the momentum though).

If ever you were on the lookout to see how the magic of precise editing changes a narrative, then look no further. David Brenner (the three DC movies mentioned above plus 2012, Independence Day) makes Snyder’s film as seamless to follow as he did Whedon’s version. A few scenes are shorter, most new ones are longer. At times, one feels as if Snyder used every shot he filmed.

The most apparent changes are right there out in the open: the rating jumps from PG-13 in the theatrical release to R; amongst Batman and Aquaman’s few expletives, there’s a lot of blood splatter from villains. The alien Parademons had a green ooze-like blood in the past; it’s all red now. Also: heroes have no qualms about killing.

Wonder Woman, in a longer version of her introductory scene, where she saves children from reformist terrorists, throws people at walls without care; their skulls’ impact leave a very apparent red stamp on the paint job. At the end of the sequence, she blasts the main terrorist with the power of her gauntlet. The discharge levels half the floor, shooting debris on the streets below. When smoke clears, the terrorist’s hat floats down, implying that he has been killed by the heroine. Batman, who, historically abhors gun violence, too, has no problem gunning down Parademons. When Superman returns, his beatdown of Steppenwolf is brutal.

Speaking of the Man of Steel, despite some additions, Superman appears to be less human in this version. In fact, other than the violence and the revert to his bleak colour grade, Snyder’s biggest changes in the Justice League is the way he develops characterisations and motives. People interact differently as backstories are fleshed out, which further re-prioritises the character’s placement in the story.

This brings us to the fundamental difference between the two cuts: the superhero god complex.

The heroes in Whedon’s version were stuck in cliché: the story, at the time, was about assembling a dysfunctional family whose shared ideals led to camaraderie and understanding. In Snyder’s film little, if any, of that particular exchange and exposition happens. The heroes we see are, comparatively, gods — as depicted in a scene in Batman v Superman (Superman, of course, has been written this way for a while now — a hero whose death, ascension and rebirth parallels Jesus Christ).

The Leaguers are saviours who, despite some personal reservations, are bigger than mere mortals. Their priorities and decisions are prompt, unambiguous and without question. However hard Snyder tries to frame them as humans, there is a lack of warmth and human fallibility on display.

Bruce and Diana’s arc takes the biggest hit, as Snyder places Cyborg as the emotional centre of the story.

Cleaner narratives are always welcome, of course, but not at the expense of longer running times. The jokes — the very few that made it to this film — also, often, fall flat on their face. Notice, then, the way jokes are edited, and especially notice the way the background score cuts in (Thomas Holkenborg aka Junkie XL replaces Danny Elfman’s score).

There are some fan-service moments that make Snyder’s cut worthwhile. Steppenwolf’s backstory leads to Darkseid’s introduction. Darkseid is the equivalent of Thanos from the Marvel universe (though he predates him in comic book history). His search for the anti-life equation (another big duh moment: it’s found on Earth), would have become the grand story arc if Warner Bros. didn’t let time dictate their actions in 2017.

With additional spoilers and elaborate scenes, Snyder’s cut presents the beginning of a big story arc, which may never happen.

There is a new Batman film starring Robert Pattinson in production. It is most likely set in a parallel world, and will jumpstart the idea of the multi-world theory in DC’s movies; Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, obviously also set in a parallel world, may develop a sequel.

On the Justice League roster, Wonder Woman and Aquaman films set in the same continuity — with brighter tones mind you — did exceptional business at the box-office (Shazam and the upcoming sequel Black Addam is also set in this universe). But Affleck, whose Batman, according to both renditions of the Justice League, is the heart and soul of the team, has discarded his cowl for good.

This begs the question: what now? Does Snyder’s film still function in the same DC continuity, or is it to be appreciated, and discarded, as a vanity project designed to bring in subscribers to HBO Max?

DC’s stories, since their unending reboots in the last 20 years, have been off-putting of late. Like their film series, the comics can’t seem to make up their mind, so I guess, one can’t blame the movies for everything.

Yes, despite the arguments above, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a more complete version, and a marginally better film. Take that into consideration when you decide to take out four hours to watch this extended re-cut. Despite a lot of new, there’s little newness here.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, streaming now on HBO Max, is rated R for violence, a few expletives and bloodshed

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 28th, 2021