You can be forgiven for assuming – given that it’s four hours long, features tons of extremely expensive new footage shot just to make it a viable film, and looks specifically designed to say goodbye to the broader ambitions of the DC superhero franchise Films – that Zack Snyder’s Justice League it can be the final word of the director in this particular set of deeply desaturated characters. But you would also be forgiven for assuming that the above thought was completely and utterly naive idiocy, because, hey: Did you know this guy Zack Snyder? If you think he’s going to stop pushing his very specific, very violent and very gray version of the superhero herodoma blockbuster until he’s really done with it, you’ve lost your mind with Motherboxing.
So a lot of revelations from IGNtoday’s Fan Fest 2021 event, including news that Zack Snyder’s Justice Leaguealthough it is arguably as definitive a statement about the Justice League as any man could hope to make, it will still end in what Snyder called a “great cliffhanger”. This, despite the fact that Snyder you know that DC has moved away from its efforts to Avengers your personal superhero movie franchise, and that’s a verse Justice League 2 it is almost certain that it will never happen. But, hey: someone paid for all this Darkseid CGI, so they can use it too, right?
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Speaking of CGI: Snyder also showed an animated clip “Motherbox” that serves as a promotion for the film, in what can best be called the spiritual sense. Which means that it presents slow, melodramatic images about heavy metal images of the members of the Justice League, while a song by Tom Waits paves the way to the dust in the background. It is, like much of the material that surrounds Zack Snyder’s Justice League—Jesus Joker, the special version of “Justice Is Gray” on its way to people very oppressed by the desaturated version of the new cut, the pure Leonard Cohen of it all – brilliant, in his total immunity from parody. How do you make fun of Aquaman’s distressed religious iconography fighting tentacle monsters while sad folk rock plays? What aspect could you intensify for a comic effect? It is the critical equivalent of rope-a-dope, exhausting all mockery with the shamelessness of its invitation to mockery.
In fact, “exhaustive” (with a side order of “exhaustive”) is the general vibe of the whole project, and this latest press blitz in his name, from speculation about who that big “hero cameo” Snyder has promised at the end of the film (Martian Manhunter is easy money, although people with very short memories are waiting for the Green Lantern Corps), to the director’s repeated statement today (doubling over previous feelings) that Ray Fisher’s cyborg is the heart of the film, and the team. The latter comes even when Fisher and Warner Media are still engaged other round of mutual attacks today, with Fisher continuing to claim that Walter Hamada of DC Films interfered in investigations into alleged misconduct on the set of Joss Whedon’s version of the film, and Warner retaliating by releasing a statement by one of the investigators in question, defending Hamada’s character and conduct. Snyder’s defense of his star is admirable, but it also points to how strange this whole Snyder Cut project has been, with a director actively promoting the work of an actor who is now essentially at open war with the studio that produces the film, for unclear and uncertain benefit or gain.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League releases on March 18. Take a rest.