Zack Snyder’s Justice League

A vast improvement over 2017’s Justice League, Zack Snyder’s Justice League follows Ben Affleck’s Batman as he attempts to round up a crew of superheroes, including Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, to battle a fearsome, world-destroying villain named Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds). Filmmaker Snyder, working from a screenplay by Chris Terrio, delivers a padded-out yet mostly watchable endeavor that benefits from a first half concerned mostly with exposition and backstory, as the movie, in sharp contrast to its earlier iteration, does an effective job of establishing its raft of appealing, affable protagonists and appropriately villainous bad guys – with this vibe certainly heightened by the strong work of an often astonishingly stacked cast that includes, among others, Amy Adams, Henry Cavill, and Ezra Miller. (The latter, cast as Barry Allen/The Flash, is especially terrific and winning here.) It’s equally clear, however, that the picture suffers from a continuing (but far-from-surprising) emphasis on slick, special-effects-heavy action set-pieces that are hardly as compelling or exciting as Snyder has undoubtedly intended, although, to be fair, the 242 minute running time ensures that such moments are spread out to a tolerable degree and are, for the most part, far less oppressive and interminable than one might’ve anticipated or expected. The hit-and-miss final hour, which is capped off with a mostly satisfying epilogue, cements Zack Snyder’s Justice League‘s place as a decent-enough superhero film that fares better than most of Warner’s recent comic-book-inspired output, which is nothing short of astonishing, really, given just how abhorrent and dreadful the theatrical cut ultimately (and predominantly) was.

*** out of ****