Film Review - Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

 Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the new version of the 2017 Justice League film this time fully realised by Zack Snyder who was involved with that 2017 film but left during the editing of that film due to a horrible family tragedy, the story sees Batman (Ben Affleck) begin to assemble the Justice League in order to see off an attack by Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) as he seeks the 3 Mother Boxes to bring about the Unity which will be the end of the world.

 

This new version of Justice League is an improvement over the 2017 film in that it feels like a more coherent vision of this story and it is more or less the same story that we got in the 2017 film and it has none of the insert shots that Joss Whedon put in when it fell to him to get the film finished in time for its late 2017 release date (he allegedly begged Warner Brothers to let him delay it into 2018 but was unsuccessful) and some of his stuff particularly with Superman was pretty good while others felt a lot like the kind of jokey stuff Richard Lester put into Superman II in 1980 when he got handed that film after Richard Donner was follyishly fired.

 

The one character who does benefit from this change is Steppenwolf the villain, in the 2017 version he was effectively a demon like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer who said a lot of cheesy one liner type lines which part of me did enjoy but here not only does he feel more like a proper physical threat looking like this armoured beast which Alfred calls the Charging Bull at one point but he also has a proper motivation which is rejoin great Darkseid and the throne of the New Gods on planet Apokolips.

 

And unlike Batman V Superman where so much of the Justice League setup felt ham fisted and shoved into the film for no reason rather than “We want Justice League now now now” this setup I thought worked pretty well and I liked Ray Porter’s voice work as great Darkseid, he’s not as good as Michael Ironside was in Superman: The Animated Series but he did a good job nonetheless and I hope he gets to continue in the role in the future.

 

But in terms of the weaknesses of this new version well chief among them is that it’s far far too long, no movie needs to be 4 hours long NONE! And because of that length this feels more like a polished early edit instead of a properly edited film where the story is found through the cutting room and that means sometimes great moments just have to go if their in the way it’s sad but it has to be done.

 

And also, like Batman V Superman it feels like in a haste to get to this Justice League film, Zack Snyder and Warner Brothers didn’t do their work in terms of setting up their heroes properly:

 

- Firstly we really really really should have gotten a Man of Steel 2 with Henry Cavill as Superman before this movie, Henry was not only a great Superman/Clark Kent but he was worthy of being Superman, he was worthy of that mantle and all that it represented especially during Christopher Reeve’s time in the role and in the years after his accident and between this movie and Batman V Superman it just feels like Snyder and his team have shoved him to the sidelines and given Cavill nothing substantial to do and it’s actually worse here so much so that you could’ve cut him out completely and not altered the film in any meaningful way and that to me feels wrong.

 

- Secondly the Flash, Ezra Miller is fine in the role but not only do I still feel he was only cast because he had that quirky comedic charm that Evan Peters had as Quicksilver in the X-Men movies but they were basically copying that style for the new Flash and he has some great moments here in this movie but again I wish he had a solo film where we could’ve properly introduced this character before he became a member of the League.

 

- And lastly Cyborg, Ray Fisher is very good here and the character is very much the beating heart of this story and I can see why Fisher has been so angry about what happened in 2016-17 plus Joe Morton is inspired casting as his father Dr Stone and has a number of great moments in his own right but the character takes over so much of the film that like the Flash I wish he had gotten his own solo film where this would’ve felt more organic and not an intrusion to the film.

 

And so that was Zack Snyder’s Justice League and this is very much a case of 2 steps forward 1 step back in that the story feels more coherent and the villains vastly improved but the lack of proper planning of this franchise continues to haunt these films and Warner Brothers might have thought they were steering a new direction in Snyder going but their own DC films since he went have pleased very very few and I think it’s too late for them, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Army of the Dead (2021)

 Army of the Dead is a new Netflix film directed by Zack Snyder and stars Dave Bautista as Scott Ward, a former soldier who rescued people from Zombies in Las Vegas and now he is tasked by a Japanese businessman named Hunter (Hiroyuki Sanada) to retrieve 200 million dollars from a safe underneath an abandoned casino but getting a team together to get the money will be one thing, retrieving it and getting out alive will be another.

 

Army of the Dead has like a lot of Snyder’s films some nice action moments and some nice visual moments it also has the same weakness that a lot of Snyder’s films have and that is no real human heart beating at the centre of it and that comes down to he heist angle that the film goes for and it really didn’t work for me.

 

And the main reason it didn’t work for me is that I didn’t really find myself caring all that much about the people in the heist team, it just felt like they were introduced and then kablamo their thrown into the abandoned Las Vegas and sent on the mission and this is where Snyder having a great screenwriter would have really come in handy.

 

For like Tim Burton and Ridley Scott, Snyder is a visualist who a lot of the time and in a lot of the films he has made save for 300 and Watchmen he gets caught up in the cool visuals and exciting action and slow motion moments that he forgets to give his audience great storytelling and compelling characters to go along with the cool visuals and here that isn’t the case.

 

For the characters a lot of the time feel like their copied from James Cameron’s Aliens, there’s the veteran, the badass, the expert and so on and so on but whereas Cameron took the time to build up the characters in quiet moments Snyder doesn’t and it hurts the film and it hurts the response at least for me to the action and the visuals which do look good but without the script to back them up they just feel hollow.

 

And so that was Army of the Dead and it’s fine, perfectly fine but it just confirms for me that Snyder needs a good screenwriter at his side in order to really shine as a filmmaker and in the past he has had that but he doesn’t have it here and it hurt the film overall for me, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Supernova (2021)

 Supernova stars Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as a married couple who are taking a holiday, Firth’s character is a concert pianist with Tucci’s is a writer who is succumbing to dementia which troubles Firth’s character as this is the man he loves but the two are committed to taking a nice holiday before the end comes.

 

Supernova I probably would’ve enjoyed more if I hadn’t seen it so close to seeing June Again and the Father both of which also dealt with iconic actors playing characters with dementia and like those films has its funny moments but also very dramatic moments and Firth and Tucci are wonderful, you never tire of watching them on screen but there is only so often I can watch a film that deals with this subject and that sounds awful I know as Dementia is a gravely serious condition but I wish I had gotten some space movie wise between seeing this movie and seeing June Again and the Father.

 

Also nice in this movie are the British countryside landscapes which look beautiful on a big cinema screen and sometimes that feeling is a nice one to have especially after the last year when cinemas for the most part were closed and we were watching new movies at home where the countryside and the nighttime scenes just don’t look as nice on your TV as they do on a nice big cinema screen.

 

And so that was Supernova and its again a perfectly fine film that I did enjoy watching somewhat but after June Again and the Father I am over seeing movies about Dementia for the time being and am ready now for some escaping into a cinema with a good action adventure, 2 and a half out of 5.