DC Movie Mark Out - Snyder Cut

Holy second chances, Batman, this shit is da bomb. Dude, I'm serious. I'm dead fucking serious here. The Snyder Cut shreds.

I can hardly believe it, myself. I saw those other DC disasters The Zack-Man did, and they in no way prepared me for how jacked i am from this jawesome feature film.

i could have sworn those movies were butt-stupid and gay as fuck, but this one's so goddamned good it's got me reconsidering that opinion. i'm over here wanting to give those god-awful cinematic abortions another chance. 

Shit, i don't know. Maybe Zack Snyder's vision was secretly so 5d chess genius pro-strats evangelion lore deep all along that I, we, were simply not ready as a society, culture, or species to comprehend it yet. 

Clearly, the time it took to see the Zack-Attack's true vision was a blessing in disguise. Can you imagine if something like this had come out pre-endgame? We were so on board the Marvel train then we wouldn't have, couldn't have, possibly appreciated it. 

Marvel Studios struck oil when they discovered that comic book movies could be colorful and fun like dare i say a comic book, that for a while that was all anyone wanted. And we got it alright. We got it spoon-fed down our food tubes for nearly a decade, with Endgame as the dairy queen ice cream cake desert that finally blows our butts out and blasts the buckle off our belts. 

If, in the midst of that techni-color Upendi boat ride, DC had released another grimdark, edgelord-ass self-serious fever dream from Zack Snyder, we would have just laughed at it and called it cringe like we did his other ones. 

But shit changed fast after Marvel blew their wad. Phase 4 was tasked with rebuilding some intrigue from scratch again, a slow process made even more barren by pushbacks resulting from pandemic year 1. This provided the capeshit realm at last with the only possible void big enough for Mr. Snyder's wild ride to arrive comfortably in, and as that Marvel formula started getting more stale, the grimdark stuff is starting to look fresh again. 

Meanwhile, Marvel has become mired in a purgatory of its own making. Too busy making narcoleptic disney shows to break out of their own increasingly stale mold, yet with no other option but to keep cranking them out in order to slowly set up new pieces of something interesting later on. It's as if they're back in the rocky world-building necessities of phase 1 without the freshness and fan excitement that accompanied it the first time. 

Setting the stage even more perfectly for the Snyder Cut was ironically the disastrous theatrical release of the Whedonized Justice League in the first place, not to mention the sympathetically unfair nature of Snyder's replacement becoming apparent. 

Its obvious DC lost faith in Snyder's vision for this universe, and let's be honest with ourselves, we all did. But even so they at least could have had the balls to stick with their man and proudly stand as something different from what Marvel was offering. Those movies did have their diehard fans, we've all met one or two, and man i wish i was one of them so i could revel in that vindication now. 

But instead DC took the coward's way out and when ya boi came down with a bad case of the personal tragedies, they didn't waste a minute in phoning up the Avengers guy to come in and Marvel it up in post, a mad science experiment that resulted in a tonal monstrosity, equal parts unholy, uncanny, and uncomfortable for most people. 

But sometimes a bad thing is just the larval form of a good thing, and in hindsight what we eventually got is all the better for it. Even if Whedon and the studio hadn't butchered Justice League to begin with, there still would have been compromises. No way in hell would the Zack-Man back then have gotten away with making the film 4 hours long in a weird aspect ratio.

But now, after a legion of online chads rolled up on DC Lord Humongous style and demanded it, they had no choice but to not only release the biggest bro in Hollywood's original vision, but also to really let him Snyder it up. 

The result of these happy accidents is what now feels like the exact right film at the exact right time. An epic that blew my wig back and heat visioned my ass to the couch, for 4 magical hours, and i would've sat there for 5 if they asked me to. 

Right as the Marvel formula starts lookin stale, the grimdark stuff starts lookin fresh again. It would be impressive enough had DC merely predicted this and been ready to capitalize on it, but the truth is even more humbling. Zack Snyder was doing this shit the whole time. 

This man believed in his vision, even as the public viciously shat on everything he did, for years. He knew, we were playing catch up and no had idea. This man was so ahead of the curve it looked like he was behind it, he lapped us in the Mario Kart race of culture. 

What fools were we. We all mocked DC for not getting the formula right like Marvel, but when they tried to appease us by imitating that style the results were an abomination. But all along Zack Snyder kept doing his thing, just waiting for the zeitgeist to shift and the public to catch up to appreciating his brilliance. 

The Snyder Cut is a gift we hardly deserve. I loved those Marvel movies up to Endgame, but just when i was starting to want something different, so returns the prodigal son, whom we all had cursed and spurned. It was if he harbored no grudge at all from his callous dismissal years prior, and Temba, his arms wide. 

I take back anything bad i ever said about Zack Snyder or his crappy Superman movies, the man is a fucking genius, and i was just too proud, small-minded, and burdened with the arrogance of youth to appreciate it. 

This movie doesn't just slap, it straight up hammers. It hammers your ass like a piece of meat, in a totally straight way. 

It's clear that Snyder understands, even if by accident, the fundamental difference between DC and Marvel's philosophies. Marvel heroes are meant to be more relatable and grounded, whereas the DC heroes are meant to represent a pantheon of gods. Wise moral arbiters, so competent in their mythic abilities that we mere mortals could never equal them, only aspire to them.

The Marvel Universe is one where it makes sense for the Avengers to clash egos and bicker amongst themselves. But nobody wants that from the Justice League, these are supposed to be the Super Friends, not the Super Egos. They represent bigger ideas than petty squabbles.  

You can see how much that kind of bickering high school drama doesn't work with these characters in the theatrical cut, which pointlessly inserted a ton of that shit, which just made the characters seem less than themselves, smaller, pettier. It was obnoxious. 

Snyder isn't interested in that, and his cut features none of it. Here, the Justice League comes together because they like each other, they admire each other, and they're all very aware of how they can make each other better by working as a team. They don't have to learn this, they know it from the beginning because they're the only people like them. They're immediately bonded by the undeniable truth of how special and beyond the realm of mere normies they are. 

There's also no pointless, insufferable, awkward, stuttering, cringe Whedon talk about brunch and Wonder Woman being hot. It's a breath of fresh air to see a superhero movie taking itself completely seriously. Snyder celebrates these heroes and their legacies in a way that is totally unique from how Marvel does it, but no less sincere. 

The characters and story beats all have more room to breathe, key plot points are expanded on and actually make sense now, Cyborg and Flash have arcs that were completely absent from the theatrical cut, and everything just feels bigger, grander, more important. Flash still runs silly, though. But damn, dog, everything else about this flick is so cool i ain't even trippin about that. 

Good God Almighty, even Jared Leto was cool in this movie. That brief conversation in the scary future between Batfleck and Ugly Joker was genuinely intense and felt like it had a lot of depth and thought put into it, and it was new.

It wasn't the same old "blah blah, mirror images, you complete me" stale homo bullshit that's been regurgitated throughout every piece of bat-media since the 80s. Hearing Batman outright promise the Joker to his face that he will fucking kill him was so god damn refreshing and badass.

I don't want to hear anyone crying about Batman killing people either. There's a million interpretations of this character, it's okay for some of them to be murder-machines, just like it's cool for some Jokers to be totally cringe and off-putting. Dare i say, maybe The Joker should be a creepy weirdo you that wouldn't want to be around, at least once in a while.

We've gotten so used to this idea of The Joker as a cultural icon, this charismatic anarchist with occasionally sympathetic backstories. But the great thing about these characters is in the myriad ways they can be interpreted and presented, and frankly i like the fact that at least one Joker in popular culture is an embarassing tryhard douchebag who nobody likes. That's just as valid as any other Joker and in it's own way works just as well. If nothing else, he fits the Snyder-verse, even more-so in his Mad Max future incarnation we see here. 

Viewing Leto Joker in this light is conflicting, because it means reluctantly praising Jared Leto's performance, which is not "good" in any traditional sense. All i'm saying is it works much better in this context than it did previously.  

If Jared Leto were smart enough to have deliberately made his performance as cringe as possible for the reasons i stated above, he would deserve a lot more respect. But let's keep it real, the guy is just as much a supernova of cringe out of character, so let's not give him too much credit.

Luckily, his natural embarrassing personality was enough to bumble his way into this genius anti-performance by accident. I strongly get the feeling that he thinks he is a cool Joker, which is actually kind of rad in its own way. Leto himself is may still be a massive gaping cringe-hole, but seeing him under Snyder's direction has given me the perspective to finally appreciate the way he harnesses that cringe for the most genuinely unlikable, slimy, obnoxious Joker of all. I say it works, and i'm officially on board the Leto-Joker train. Choo choo, motherfucker.

At least when Leto gives a bad performance, it's so bad it kinda works. The only performance here that's actually unenjoyable is the same one it always is. That marble mouthed child killer, Gal Gadump, who makes me wanna subtract points from the film on principle, not because she's a child killer, but because she's fucking terrible. God, she's awful. How does no one see it? I feel like the only sane man on the planet, she does not fit this character and never has. I don't know of a character she does fit, because all the characters i can think of speak english. 

Go watch the old Justice league animated series or any of the animated Wonder Woman movies to see this character portrayed competently, by someone who can actually enunciate words. Kind of an important skill for an actor to have, i would think. 

Ultimately, The Snyder Cut stands as testament to something bigger than itself, and that is the importance of placing full trust in the artistic minds chosen to act as custodian of these franchises and characters.

Let this be a lesson to studios to let creative people pursue their own visions and keep stop poking their noses into it. Giving the artist free reign might seem like a risk on paper, but in practice more often leads not only to better financial returns but also more meaningful art that stands the test of time because it stands out.

Financier producer types think they understand the market but that understanding is incomplete without the creative instinct to create trends themselves, which is why they need visionary artistic minds to helm their projects. It is completely illogical and counter-productive to then micromanage the artist's visions and reshape it to chase trends.

Suits need artists, not the other way around. Respect that and stay out of their way. Marvel has done a great job proving that comic book movies can be mainstream, but in the process they've lost a bit of their individuality, and it's time to bring that back. 

Not everyone is going to agree with one man's interpretation of these characters or his vision of the world in which they live, but at least they know whose interpretation it is. At least they know it's someone's vision, and not a focus group's. At least it's not the same as everything else. 

Today's trends are tomorrow's same old shit, and right now i'd rather see a Batman who swears and shoots guns then ever have to hear another stupid fucking "if i kill da joker i no better than he" monologue.

If i want a Batman that feels closest to my Batman i can revisit the animated series anytime, hell i could write my own Batman story if i really want to, but i like seeing Snyder's version just as much. I don't see it as more or less valid than the one in my head, because it's presented with conviction. Snyder has conviction, and I respect that. 

As the MCU style begins to feel increasingly formulaic, a lot of people incorrectly assume themselves to be getting tired of superhero movies, but they're probably just getting tired of that one specific kind of superhero movie. The Comic Book movie bubble doesn't have to burst like so many have predicted, it just needs to evolve, and keep evolving. 

The success of the MCU formula has been a great thing because it's provided the groundwork for these properties to be treated like the big deals they rightfully should be, but if these big studios hope to keep this movie-train chugging along, i hope they take a lesson from The Snyder Cut, and allow their directors more room to stretch their wings. 

A+