I'm tired of hearing about Zack Snyder's Justice League

This new Justice League better be good.

I suppose there's a lot riding on it. I suppose it's not just a lark. I suppose it could change the whole direction of a studio's most profitable revenue stream, the superhero movie, for Warner Brothers.

But boy am I tired of hearing about it. 

Here's a quick survey of headlines just from emails I receive from MovieWeb, which is not my only source of movie-related news, meaning this is only a slice of the news I've been exposed to. (I don't delete any of these because I'm hoarder, making this search a lot easier.) To be clear, I didn't actually click on the link to read more than one or two of these:

"Darkseid Officially Revealed in Justice League Snyder Cut" - 6/20/19 - This was before anyone was talking about re-releasing the movie, just more scraps of non-news from this site based on things like a director showing a piece of cutting floor footage.

"Zack Snyder Proves Snyder Cut Exists with New Evidence and Official Runtime?" - 12/7/19 - Starting to sound more official? No, this is still just MovieWeb blowing smoke. But hang on, we're getting there.

"Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League Officially Being Released in 2021" - 5/23/20 - Okay, finally some real news. And the six-month intervals so far are certainly acceptable. But wait, it starts to get more ridiculous. Just a few days later:

"Martian Manhunter Teased in New Synder Cut Justice League Photo" - 5/28/20 - Yeah, this is the bread and butter of this geek-focused entertainment news outlet. Whole articles about deep cut comic book characters most people have never heard of.

"Darkseid Arrives in Zack Snyder's Justice League First Look" - 5/30/20 - Just two days later, we're on Darkseid again. This email blast also included two separate stories about Henry Cavill that also had Justice League tie-ins.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut is Making One Big VFX Change" - 6/10/20 - Oh, they waited ten days this time.

"First Darkseid Footage Revealed in Zack Snyder's Justice League Teaser" - 6/20/20 - WHAT IS IT WITH DARKSEID? Ten days again. That's five stories in less than a month.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Transforms Superman into the DCEU's Greatest Hero" - 7/23/20 - Better than Wonder Woman? I doubt it. They gave me a month to breathe this time.

"Zack Snyder is Happy to Finish His Justice League Cut for Free" - 7/30/20 - At least this non-news is a story of a human being being decent.

"New Snyder Cut Footage Arrives, Full Justice League Trailer Drop this Saturday" - 8/22/20 - I suppose the release of a trailer qualifies as actual news.

"Zack Snyder Loves the Violent Vigilant Beatdown in The Batman Trailer" - 8/29/20 - Technically not about Justice League, but I'm including it because I like to shake my head about the stories that boil down to "People say stuff about other stuff." I've complained about this before. 

"Zack Snyder Wanted Carla Gugino as Catwoman in the DCEU: - 11/14/20 - Ditto. (You can tell my search word was "snyder" rather than "justice," which would have brought up a million social justice emails.) But hey, they somehow took a three-month break here. My only conclusion is that I deleted those emails.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Will Be Released in Early 2021, According to Warner Brothers" - 12/5/20 - Now we're back on track. But this is only a slight variation on the earlier release story.

"Zack Syder's Justice League May Get an R-Rated Theatrical Release" - 12/17/20 - Interesting enough. But you an see how this accumulation of headlines is starting to burrow into the annoyance center in my brain, can't you?

"Zack Snyder's Justice League is Officially R-Rated for Violence and Batman F-Bombs" - 2/6/21 - Again, interesting enough, but I'm done with this. 

"Jared Leto Returns as Joker in Zack Snyder's Justice League First Photos" - 2/11/21 - Oh no, now a concrete reason not to look forward to it. 

Fortunately, that was six days ago and there has not been another. Yet. (Though I did spare you a couple other "what Zack Snyder said, what he would like to say or do, what movie he would like to make" stories along the way.)

The movie comes out on March 18th, which likely means the stories will just intensify from here.

It's possible I could do this same kind of analysis for any big superhero or other geek-focused movie coming out. MovieWeb does not need an excuse to write about something, and might create their own news related to an upcoming movie if they thought it suited them. I could see them writing a story called "Fans Say They Would Like to See Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut Released" after themselves creating a poll asking this question.

But it sure is a lot of oxygen for a movie that stunk the first time and that I can't imagine people are all that excited about revisiting, except for the hype surrounding it.

Snyder got to make his own unfettered version of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it was scarcely better liked than Justice League, if at all. Actually, it was not better liked, as the former received a mere 28% on Rotten Tomatoes' to the latter's 40%.

Still, I suspect the hype has worked and that fans will want to see this, if not in the theater (as it will surely be released here in Australia) then on HBOMax, where it will be very easy for them to pause as much as they want over the course of the (gasp) 240-minute running time.

I guess if there's a real reason to cheer this, it's not Snyder trying to correct the record on the movie Joss Whedon tried to salvage but probably ended up making worse. It's that the reason Snyder had to quit the movie before post-production was finished was because his daughter committed suicide. That's an awful thing that you would not wish on anyone, and definitely not on a person who is guilty of nothing more than being a glorified hack. (Though I do love Dawn of the Dead and Watchmen.) 

If releasing a new cut of Justice League helps Snyder get over his grief, perhaps even providing closure on the darkest period of his life, then more power to him.

Justice League bad; Wonder Woman untainted

It was impossible to be sure how I would feel about Justice League. Despite sharing the same general negativity of most discriminating fans toward the DCEU, the DCEU had redeemed itself with Wonder Woman. It's been a good year for DC in general, to the extent that you can credit DC with the success of The Lego Batman Movie.

Justice League came with some advanced bad press, but if you can believe it, so did Wonder Woman. I can't remember what source this was so I can stop trusting it, but the first buzz I heard about Wonder Woman was that it was just as guilty as the other DC movies of unforgivable excess and general lack of quality. Of course, that turned out to be wrong.

One thing I felt sure about, or at least scared about, was that if Justice League was bad, it would directly taint my fond memories of Wonder Woman. It made me not want to see Justice League at all. There are other big 2017 movies I've been skipping for far less legitimate reasons, such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, because I am only lukewarm on the original.

Then again, for the hope that Gal Gadot's already iconic hero could elevate poor material rather than be dragged down by it, I went anyway.

Well, Justice League is, in fact, bad. But so far, it doesn't have any impact on my love for Wonder Woman.

"So far" = 12 hours since I've seen it, so we'll have to wait and see, and the true test is when I watch Wonder Woman a second time, probably in December. But so far so good.

What's on screen in Justice League is not good. What's off screen may be worse. The film feels unfinished, especially in its visual effects, which I suppose is not something we can blame only on bad filmmaking. Zack Snyder had to leave the project in order to be with his family after his adopted daughter committed suicide, and that's not a thing anyone should make light of. Snyder should probably just get a pass on this movie altogether.

And in truth, the vintage Zack Snyder sequences in this film really work. There's an opening credits montage in which we get a glimpse of society in the wake of Superman's death, and it's scored to a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" performed by the singer Sigrid. It reminded me of my favorite sequence of Snyder filmmaking, the opening of Watchmen to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin.'" (And Snyder also used Cohen's "Hallelujah" in Watchmen.)

But so little of everything else feels coherent. That's despite me generally liking each of the three new heroes we're introduced to, particularly Jason Momoa's Aquaman, who I expected not to like. It was Ben Affleck and (heh, "spoiler" alert) Henry Cavill who I really didn't like.

So what about Diana Prince, the erstwhile Wonder Woman?

I suppose Gadot's magnetism and heroism are still there, but she's definitely someone who benefits from good direction and is limited by bad. I suppose any actor is that way, but it's clear how much more comfortable Gadot felt in the hands of Patty Jenkins. Of course, being the main character in your own movie puts you in a different head space as a performer. Even though Wonder Woman has as much to do here as anyone does, her character arc is definitely squeezed in, and it feels like that. What's worse, the story suggests that she's basically been in hiding for the full century (!) since the events of her movie. Although Wonder Woman 2 (and 3, and 4) will certainly give lie to that, it's pretty damn disappointing to learn that Diana is ashamed of her own filling or failure to fill the role of a hero for a hundred years.

And yet I don't think this has any practical impact on my feelings toward Wonder Woman, though as I said I can't be sure until I watch it again. The same logic applies as for inferior sequels. You don't now hate The Matrix just because the two sequels are sub-par. (Or maybe you do, I don't know.) I'm seeing Wonder Woman and Justice League the same way.

The only thing I wish is that Justice League had not been in the same calendar year as Wonder Woman, as it does potentially complicate my year-end ranking of the latter film. I don't mind telling you that Wonder Woman is currently entrenched in my top five of the year, out of nearly 100 movies I've seen. I'd rather have gotten its ranking out the door and into the official record books before I had to even contend with Justice League, but short of skipping that movie, I wasn't given the choice. I suppose one of these years Marvel or DC might even manage to squeeze the same character into three different movies released in the same year.

And there's a chance Wonder Woman, at least this Wonder Woman, won't have to undergo any further tainting. Gadot has said she won't play Wonder Woman again if Brett Ratner stands to profit from it in any way. This is in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct against everybody's favorite hack punching bag.

That's the Diana I know and love.