You can be forgiven for supposing – given that it is four hours long, resources tons of extremely expensive new footage made just to make it a viable film, and it seems specificallyy designed to say goodbye to the broader ambitions of the DC Films superhero franchise – which 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 complete and totally naive. idiocy, because, hey: Did you meet this guy Zack Snyder? If you think he’s will stop pushing its very specific, very violent and very gray version of blockbuster superherodoma until it really ends, you lost your mind at Motherboxing.
Hence a lot of revelations from IGNtoday’s Fan Fest 2021 event, including news that Zack Snyder’s Justice League, despite being an arguably as definitive statement about the Justice League as any man could hope to do, it will still end in what Snyder called “Huge moment of anguish”. This, despite the fact that Snyder you know that DC has moved away from its efforts to Avengers it’s personal superhero movie franchise, and this is a Snyder 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?
Speaking of CGI: Snyder also showed an animated clip “Motherbox” that serves as a promotion for the film, in what could better be dubbed the spiritual sense. What you mean which features slow, melodramatic imagery about heavy metal imagery from members of the Justice League, while a Tom Waits song sings in dust in the background. It is, like much of the material that surrounds Zack Snyder’s Justice League–Jesus Joker, the special version “Justice Is Gray” on the way for people very overwhelmed with the desaturated version of the new cut, The pure Leonard Cohen-ness of all this-brillant, in their total immunity to 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 vibration of the whole project, and of this latest press campaign on your behalf, speculation about who that great “special character” 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 instead), for the director’s repeated statement today (folding down in 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 engaged in yet other round of mutual attacks today, with Fisher continuing to claim that DC Films’ Walter Hamada interfered with investigations into alleged misconduct on the set of the Joss Whedon film version, and Warner sacked back announcing a statement by one of the researchers in question, defending the character and conduct of Hamada. Snyder’s defense of his star is admirable, but it also points to how strange this whole Snyder Cut project was, with a the director actively publicizing the work of an actor who is now essentially at open war with the studio producing the film, for uncertain or unclear benefits or gains.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League releases on March 18. Take a rest.
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