There was a time I would go to the cinema, watch a movie like Superman II or Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would think I really liked that movie, could had done with another 30 minutes added on to it, what a ride.
As I get older. Now when faced with the 3 hours long, The Avengers: Endgame. All I can think is will no one think of my bladder.
There are countless examples of even 2 hour long movies nowadays where I think the director could had easily sliced 30 minutes off.
This brings me to Zack Snyder's Justice League. All 4 hours of it.
I planned to watch this over several days and to my surprise I did it all in one day.
Although Justice League (2017) has Zack Snyder credited as the director. The film was largely reshot by Joss Whedon who delivered the final cut at 2 hours. Snyder has not even seen the movie.
Fan pressure got the Zack Snyder cut released. It looks like everything Snyder shot is in it, some with better special effects added and Snyder even shot some new footage.
This is a more coherent version. I remembered just how rushed some of the scenes were in Justice League and the accompanying music by Danny Elfman.
In essence Whedon's rewrite and reshoots created a monster with two competing visions. Which then had to be heavily edited for a shorter running time.
Snyder has been allowed to give his cut room to breath. The main beneficiaries are The Flash and Cyborg who have more of a backstory and utilised better here.
Ray Fisher who played Cyborg has been pretty critical about how his character's part was reduced in Justice League and how he disliked the atmosphere created by Whedon.
Steppenwolf also fares better in this movie with improved CGI. In Justice League I thought he was just a generic CGI villain.
There are still some downsides. In the opening hostage scene with Wonder Woman. She could had disarmed the baddie as we can see she moves very fast. Instead Wonder Woman lets him reload his gun, all so she can blast him from the side of a building. How many people did the falling debris injure?
When The Flash is running around near the speed of light. Cyborg is just standing there doing nothing, not even looking behind him to check if Steppenwolf is there. In fact there is a bit too much standing around in several action scenes when the mother box is the most important item to protect.
Superman is still the casualty in both versions. A reduced role for the Man of Steel who has to return from the dead.
There is no doubt in my mind this is the better version of Justice League. However the real challenge would had been could Snyder had delivered this movie with 90 minutes shaved off.
