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I've just seen so much shit that's all the same, that when it feels like somebody's going for something, anything, in a movie... I tend to remain more fascinated.
That's not to say it's good necessarily. But witnessing the unbridled vision of a guy, especially compared to the truly dreadfully boring and flat version released in theaters... I gotta say, I was mostly into it.
Probably *because* it was released on streaming, though-- if I'd seen this in theaters for four hours, some of the grace notes that I kinda enjoyed here, like the Scandinavian women singing to Aquaman, would've made me pull my hair out.
The CGI characters are still largely distractingly bad, but the colors and visuals are generally much improved here. I dug the "seriousness" of the movie-- I rewatched Batman V Superman recently, and I actually quite enjoyed the first two-thirds (basically everything until the Batman-Superman fight), because when Snyder's not lost in how cool it looks when things are hit super hard, he's built a pretty distinctive world tonally for these superheroes that we haven't really seen in movies/TV like this. (At least, not outside of Watchmen, that is to say.) So even though much of the philosophizing can be ponderous... again, I'm kind of at the point where ponderous over-reaching doesn't bother me as much, personally.
And the action is generally improved here. The scene with the Amazonians is great, full stop. I'm not sure if Whedon just brightened the whole thing, but the images in the first Justice League look *really* flat, like a TV pilot, compared to this movie. Say what you will about the slo-mo and the darker sheen and what have you, but it does create depth of image, clarity of movement, and this idea that these motherfuckers are *gods*.
God help me, I'd be interested to see where this goes, if only because, well, these aren't really the characters I know, for the most part. I'm used to a certain Superman, a certain Lex Luthor, a certain etc... and Snyder, for better and for worse, is doing his own thing. One of my favorite moments in the Whedon Justice League was Superman's entrance into the final fight, because it felt like *the Superman I know*... but it's clear upon revisit that that just isn't what this franchise is going for. So I need to stop fighting it and see what interesting meat Snyder can pull off these bones. And in fits and starts, he's doing interesting things here.
It will definitely be interesting to see if Snyder can spin the positive reception this is getting into getting WB to fund the next movie. At a time when IP is at an all-time premium, they can't just *not* make movies about these characters. And I think a reboot would be treated with pretty heavy skepticism, tbh. I don't know how to feel about acquiescing to the army of hateful trolls, and I don't know if I'd actually *enjoy* a movie like this in theaters. I've disliked more of Snyder's movies than I've liked. I still don't like Man of Steel, even though I've come around on the first two-thirds of BvS and I mostly vibed with what was happening here. But I can't deny that I'm fairly intrigued any time we can get a filmmaker's unfiltered vision, for better or worse. I'd rather see a swing for the fences and a giant whiff than something fine but entirely forgettable at this point.
(tl;dr: fascinating experience, good and bad things here, prob wouldn't have liked in theaters, interested to see where both the story and WB go from here) My movies: http://russellhainline.com My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/ My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide
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