No spoilers

Instead of taking the time to make a coherent review, here’s nothing more than a scattered list of positives and negatives that occurred to me:

+ Cinematography. This is the main thing. I’ve made no secret of not being a fan of too much CGI. Obviously this has a lot. But this has to be the pinnacle of Snyder’s distinctive style when it comes to visuals. Most of the film just looks uniquely stunning (if you like that kind of thing). Heavily stylised, deep contrasts, vivid colours lighting up the super-defined dark. It looks like how I’d like reality to often look. Shots look like paintings in motion. More than ANY other comicbook adaptation I’ve seen, it looks like a living comicbook. But…

– The movie is so stylised (including a lot of Snyder slo-mo) that it can arguably distract from it as a movie, from both the story and from general action scenes (which feel more surreal than “real”). I said paintings in motion – this isn’t necessarily what we expect watching a non-arthouse movie. It’s certainly not expected from superhero movies and it can be hard to adjust to. You’re often just ‘damn that looks cool’, ‘damn that looks cool’, ‘damn that looks cool’ – ‘oh wait, there’s a story’.

– Can’t say I’m still much of a fan of the blurry visuals of the Speedforce, though.

+ Much less distraction with Cavill’s face. Thank god.

+ Much better characterisation, more of the needed time given to better develop the Flash and especially Cyborg. Even the antagonist, Steppenwolf, is given some much needed characterisation (and, like everything else, better visual design).

+ Far more tonally consistent. Much less goofy humour. Those awkward presumably Whedon reshoot scenes simply not included.

+ Far more coherent than the Whedon version. It all fits together, and any part where you’re like ‘huh? Are they gonna go back to that/explain that?’, they do. Even stuff that builds, as intended, on the confusing parts/loose strands of BvS. Most of the additions to this cut benefit the story (only one I can think that didn’t was that weird singing bit at the beginning of the film), and all the excisions or non-inclusions were for the better.

+ More weight given to the themes. More heart. More humanity. I really feel like the loss of Snyder’s daughter influenced how he made this cut.

+ That single random family we’re supposed to care about for no reason is completely gone from the movie. Good. The film is so much better without them.

– The general overarching plot still isn’t that interesting or novel, being that the Big Bad and what he wants isn’t deep, complex or relatable. This is a criticism of the source material more than the film. And it applies just as much to at least the first two Avengers films. I find these big movies, especially the team-ups, rarely have the Big Bad and their Grand Plan of Death as their main selling point.

+ The soundtrack is much better than the totally forgettable Elfman score. Some scenes become significantly better just because of the music supporting them. Although – unique song choices aside – it’s still not as good as the BvS soundtrack.

+ That Epilogue. That Batman line.

+ Genuinely, 4 hours was not too long. It doesn’t feel too long. It should’ve been an – even longer – miniseries. I can’t imagine cutting half an hour let alone TWO. The movie had a lot of heavy lifting to do. Linking back to BvS, 3 new (theoretically new) main protagonists and their backstories, getting the team together, the main plot, and setting up the thread for the intended JL Part Two. Now the film no longer feels incredibly rushed and full of holes.

– Not a fault against this cut, but it’s just such a shame this wasn’t what we got in the first place, and even more of a shame that there wasn’t at least 3 movies before it setting up. And the biggest shame of all, that it’s highly unlikely we’ll get that Part Two that it gets you hyped for.

+ However, in the absence of these extra movies that never happened because Warner Bros rushed everything, we get scenes that otherwise Snyder wouldn’t have been the one to deliver, and some of them are pretty good and uniquely distinctive in his hands and would’ve come out completely different (and maybe blander) with another director.

– The aspect ratio. I get his intention of echoing IMAX (even though nobody is watching it on IMAX). I have never been a fan of the ultra-widescreen that almost every movie is now, I always thought we went too far in that direction (horizontally), and I’m tired of consistently having big black bars at the top and bottom of my widescreen TV. Snyder wanted more vertical information, which I’m all for, and it definitely was good for the film, but could there not be a halfway point? Did it have to be a box? A movie that for once filled my TV screen would be brilliant. I’d like to say I got used to the aspect ratio but I just didn’t – I did for a film like the Lighthouse, but not for a blockbuster with so many characters and big action scenes. I really hope one day we get to see blockbusters which have an aspect ratio somewhere in between.

+/- Honestly, for better or worse, there is no other comicbook adaptation that is like this one. It is wholly distinct from the Marvel films, both in presentation, style, tone, and somewhat in themes. It does not feel generic, it feels, again for better or worse, like an auteur’s vision. You couldn’t watch this film and get mixed up with one of the Marvel films. It is its own thing entirely. I think that is a good thing, that it’s so different, but I can see that people might just still want something more like the Marvel mould (movies I also really like, in a more straightforward way). I find it unfortunate that everything got fucked up so bad by the execs that DC wasn’t allowed to develop its own style and instead just became all over the place – and also more similar to Marvel.

All in all, MUCH better than Whedon’s one. Thank goodness. Something I could be proud to own. And also be forever irritated that first cut was ever allowed to happen and capsize the DC Universe.