567: Zack Snyder's Justice League: Justice Is Gray / Letterboxd Reviews / Top 10 DC Comics Movies

[Henry Faherty]:\nI couldn't care less about all the Zack Snyder haters out there. I think that no one else could have made this movie the way he did. Some may love it, some may hate it, but for me, there's nothing better than watching a movie that whether it's good or bad, could have only been made by that person. Hello, everybody. Welcome Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Film Buds podcast. This is episode number five hundred and sixty seven, and my name is Henry. This time around, I'm going to be tackling Zack Snyder's Justice League, but more specifically, the alternate version that he also released, which is called \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nJustice is Grey, and that's the black and white version of the movie. Then we'll be doing some Letterboxd reviews of it as always, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nand then we'll end off with my top ten DC movies of all time. And this is broad in terms of it not just being the extended universe, this is the Dark Knight trilogy, the Joker films, And at some point, I will be doing more specific lists, so best Batman, best Superman movies, that kind of thing. So this will by no means be the only list. But thank you so much for joining us. Make sure to rate, review, subscribe, like, share, all that good stuff, and thank you very much for doing that. Figured this would be a kind of a more unique, less covered film. I know that we did the original Zack Snyder Justice League a couple years ago, I think, but figured I would revisit it and then do this alternate version for a change of pace. Well, with that being said, let's go ahead and get into it. And as always, we do have a clip, so take a listen. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nYou don't wanna kill me. I'm your best friend. Besides, who's gonna give you a reach around? Anyway, you need me. You need me to help you undo this world you created by letting her die. Poor Lois. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThe house. He suffered so. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAlright. Zack Snyder's Justice League, Justice is Grey, came out in twenty twenty one, is a Max original, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nof course, done by Snyder. Stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Ezra Miller, Willem Dafoe. I mean, list goes on and on and on. And the synopsis is determined to ensure that Superman's ultimate sacrifice wasn't in vain, Bruce Wayne recruits a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. Well, a little background with this. So the original version of the movie came out, I think, in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, and it was terribly received, didn't do well financially. It was just a mess, and I think it is still the worst movie or close to the worst of the DC Extended Universe films. However, the defense of that movie was Zack Snyder stepped down during the production because his daughter died, and then Joss Whedon took over and did reshoots and cut the runtime down and to make it more accessible, I suppose, but really did not help, and it just did not turn out well. And there was all these talks about, are we gonna get Zack Snyder's version of the movie ever? And then finally, Warner Brothers or HBO, whoever, financed it, and we got this four hour version of the movie as well as the black and white one that I'm talking about. And I think this was my third time watching it all the way through. You kinda have to devote a afternoon or an evening to it considering the runtime. But flat out, this is and it might appear on the list coming up soon, but this is one of my favorite DC films ever and is my favorite Zack Snyder movie to date. I understand that with the scale of the film that it's not for everyone, and some people just love to hate on DC and just love to pick Zack Snyder apart. I don't really get it compared to a lot of other filmmakers or other comic book films, but, yeah, it's an exhausting watch, but it's so satisfying. There's so much interesting character work. And actually, one thing, the black and white look of the film is beautiful. I prefer it over the color version, and I think that's something that DC just has the advantage of. It just fits the world, especially dealing with Batman or Joker or anything. It has that noir mystery vibe, that classic vibe that I don't think a lot of Marvel movies could pull off, if any. And I would like to see other Zack Snyder movies in black and white, honestly. But in terms of the extra plot, the original version was two hours, I think. So this one adds basically a whole another movie to the runtime, but for the better, like, I'm never bored. I think for anyone who loves comic books, who likes this kind of world, it's a dream. You know, you just have so much time to get invested in the world, to go on endless amounts of journeys and experiences with this group and forming the team, which is very signature for Zack Snyder of he always likes to bring together a ragtag team of some sort to complete a goal or a mission, whatever. Some major newer scenes or extended scenes, the second nightmare sequence with the Batman that we saw in the first part in Batman v Superman, which I love that in that movie too, and I like the ultimate addition of that movie. The rescue by Wonder Woman towards the beginning when there's that bomb, when Darkseid and his army attack the Amazonians to try and get that essential, you know, mythical artifact. The flashback to the invasion by Darkseid, which I will say, I don't love the villain of Darkseid. I wish they'd found someone a little bit more grounded in terms of relatability, but the flashback to that huge epic fight, and it just has tons of slow mo and great visuals. It's just all the things I love about Zack Snyder. The Speed Force by The Flash, and there's also more origin work with Cyborg and really everybody. And I know one thing that some people don't like is the design of Aquaman. I think for one, Jason Momoa, he's grown on me. I don't think he's an amazing actor, but he works as Aquaman. He just has that look that works, and he has enough acting chops to pull it off, I think. But how they make him out to be a rock star, basically, you know, there's that scene where he's walking on the pier and it's in slow mo. There's the Hallelujah song playing. He's drinking vodka or something, and it's this really epic moment where he dives into the water and disappears like that, as well as that initial meeting between him and Bruce Wayne of that's the first step in getting the Justice League going. The sequences with Harry Allen or the Flash and his dad when his dad is in prison, and that's very touching, I think. I don't love Ezra Miller for a number of reasons, but I think he's pretty decent in this. And despite all the things going on with Amber Heard, I like her in general, and I think she's very good in this. I love the design of Mera, and she and Jason Momoa work well together. Like, there's the scene with them in that swirling whirlpool on the ocean floor or something along those lines. That looks amazing and is another reason why I think the black and white works for that because sometimes with Zack Snyder, you get the really glossy, super CG heavy sequences that usually look good, but the black and white hides the flaws. Another possible hot take, I love Jared Leto as Joker. I love everything about the performance. I like the design. I just wish there was way more of him aside from that one main scene at the end with him and Batman, which is one of my favorites in the entire movie. And in terms of the Zack Snyder aesthetic, I think he is absolutely \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nan auteur. That doesn't mean he's perfect. He has his flaws. He has his duds for sure, but he's one of the only filmmakers, and I mean this in the best way, who I would describe his style as cool. Like, he's just a really cool filmmaker. He's got big action. He's got big scale. He's got melodrama. He uses slow mo, speed ramping. There's operatic score, cool soundtrack choices, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\na graphic novel visual style, so I will always go and see whatever Zack Snyder does, whether I love it or hate it. And even someone like Christopher Nolan has come out and said recently how much he loves Zack Snyder, and if you saw the original and didn't like it or if you haven't seen any \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ncut of the movie, this one would be the one to start with or the only one to watch. That one is a heavy five out of five. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAlright. Well, let's end off with some letterbox reviews of the film. And as always, if you wanna have your review read, let me know. If you have a suggestion for a movie that you wanna see done so you can have your review read, please let me know in any of the contact links in the show notes. And if this is your first time listening because you got your review featured, make sure to give the show a rating, a review, all that. First one comes from Josh Lobo, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ngave it four out of five and says, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthere's an elegance to the way Snyder minds big emotion from simple moments. It's so grand and sentimental in a way I hadn't quite expected. Gods as broken individuals striving to feel whole. Steven Sajdak, sorry if I said that name wrong, gave it two out of five and says definitely more cohesive than the theatrical, and it sure is fuller. One might call it bloated. Me, I would call it bloated. The runtime is a travesty. In a perfect world, there's a two and a half hour version of this movie, and I still wouldn't like it very much. For ass tacks, I don't like Snyder style, and I don't like his take on these characters, especially Superman. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAll told, I'm glad I never need to see it again. Neecee, nicey, sorry if I butchered that, gave it three out of five, and just says, I'm so exhausted dot dot dot. I need to sleep. Last one comes from Jay, gave it five out of five, and says, this movie is just a story about Batman creating a team built on the idea of heroism rather than fear, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\na way for him to make amends for twenty years of believing fear is what the world needed to feel safe. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nHis parents would be proud, Crying emoji. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nWell, there you go. And, again, if you wanna have yours read, please let me know in whatever fashion. Would be happy to feature yours on the show. Let's end off with my top ten DC movies of all time. So number ten is Man of Steel, still remains my favorite Superman movie to date. We'll see how the new James Gunn one fares later this year, and I will probably do a ranked list of the Superman movies at that point, so keep an eye out for that. But this was the first one that I ever saw. I really like Henry Cavill as Superman. This is one of Zack Snyder's sturdier solid films. It's not too bloated, but for the most part, it's a fairly quieter film at points at least compared to his other stuff. The look of Krypton, Hans Zimmer's score is amazing. I like Amy Adams a lot, even though the character of Lois Lane doesn't have that much to do in any of these movies. While I had an issue with the big action scene at the end, at this point, I honestly enjoy it. It is a little tiring, but it's just so destructive and visually insane that I get a lot of entertainment out of it. And just seeing a whole city destroyed and that epic feel of Superman versus Zod, and Michael Shannon is another great casting choice in the movie. Number nine, the Suicide Squad. So I am a defender of the David Ayer Suicide Squad. I think the extended cut is pretty solid and it came close to making this list. It does have some issues, but I genuinely do like that movie quite a bit. But if I had to choose which one is a little bit better overall, it would be this one. I still don't love this movie, but the new set of characters are really weird and interesting and iconic. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nMargot Robbie is a staple in all these movies. I just wish she would go on to be in more Harley Quinn movies from this point. Maybe she will, but I don't think so. It's r rated, so there's a lot more signature James Gunn gore and body horror. It's very funny. It's got some good dramatic moments, though. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nNumber eight, this might be a little crazy, a little hot take, sorry, but it is Joker two, which I reviewed in full on the show late last year, so you can check out that review. I thought it was so ambitious, beautifully shot. Walking Phoenix and Lady Gaga are phenomenal together. I like the ideas. I like the ending of the film with the twist on who we thought was Joker, who's gonna be Joker. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nNumber seven, Wonder Woman, the first one. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI do also really like nineteen eighty four, the second film, but this would be my favorite of the two. The origin story is so strong. Gal Gadot is perfect as Wonder Woman, and Chris Pine is great along with her. The World War one setting, it's so well built. It looks great. It also has one of the better, I guess, secondary villains of the DC films, which is the scientist who's coming up with the mustard gas during the war and overall is a very inspiring \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ncharacter, and I think does Wonder Woman, the character, justice. Number six, the dark knight rises. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nIt and the whole trilogy really helped to modernize even though there was the Sam Raimi films, the Spider Man films, and all that. Before, this was still very much early on in the modern age of comic book films, and Christopher Nolan brought all of his best strengths and skills to it. Christian Bale and Tom Hardy are great together in terms of Batman versus Bane. There's endless amounts of practical action and effects, which is something Christopher Nolan is, of course, very well known for. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nIt's a long movie. It's an epic movie, and there might be a few issues here and there, but I was in awe when I saw it in theaters for the first time, and it still holds up very well. Number five, Birds of Prey. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nOne of my favorite things about DC, and I wish they would do it more often because I like it when they can do grounded, smaller scale, r rated comic book films. They can be gritty, violent, coarse, graphic. There's not a lot of CG. This movie is, for the most part, not doing anything too fantastical or supernatural. It's so much fun and to me is a very underrated film that I think people maybe wrote off because of the things that I just said I like about it. I don't know or something along those lines, but I've always loved it since I first saw it and I've seen \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nit probably four or five times since and I like it more and more each time. Number four, Watchmen, The Ultimate Cut, another Zack Snyder film. I just watched The Ultimate Cut for the first time. I'd seen the theatrical \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nand the director's cut, but this was my first time watching \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthe biggest version of the movie. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd similar to Zack Snyder's Justice League, not for everybody, it's three and a half hours. It's very violent. It's very dark. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThere's a lot of characters, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nbut it is, I think, one of the best adaptations of any graphic novel, comic book ever. Not necessarily in terms of just adapting the look and feel of the original source material, but it has such great drama and emotion. The casting is perfect. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Billy Crudup as Doctor Manhattan. There's so many interesting ideas that were in the original, but are also evoked through this movie about nuclear war, nuclear power, about changing of society over time, and about the past. It's not too big scale in action or anything, so it's very story driven. It's very character driven. The addition of this animated storyline sprinkled throughout the narrative, I like. It doesn't necessarily need to be there, but it's got great animation and the movie is already three plus hours, so what's an extra ten or fifteen minutes? If you haven't seen any version of the movie, I would maybe start with the director's cut. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI think it's around two fifty, three hours, and it doesn't have that animated feature. Number three, The Batman, the Matt Reeves film. And I know that, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nunfortunately, they just recently pushed back the Batman part two release date by a year. But I remember when Robert Pattinson was cast, people were very unsure even though he'd been doing very well in other films. It's like, okay. Is he the right fit? He's young. You know, how is this gonna work? I had total faith in Matt Reeves because of his work with the Planet of the Apes films, and it turned out to be one of the best Batman movies ever to me. It's really one of the first where he actually feels like a detective. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThere's that noir vibe, the procedural. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nIt's one of the best looking. I like the emo Batman with the eye makeup and the nocturnal feel to everything. Paul Dano's great. The whole cast, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, top notch. It's definitely a series or a trilogy, I guess, it's gonna be that has the potential to be one of the best of all time in the superhero genre. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nNumber two, Zack Snyder's Justice League Justice is Grey, which I just talked about, and it's fantastic. Nothing else needs to be said. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd number one, maybe it's not a hard one to predict. It is The Dark Knight. Even more so than The Dark Knight Rises, I had never seen anything like it. It remains my favorite Christopher Nolan movie to date. And some people say, oh, people only like it because of Heath Ledger as the Joker. No. Not for me. Yeah. He's amazing, and that dynamic between Batman and Joker will always be one of my favorite conflicts or relationships in comic books. But everything about the movie is I would say it's a perfect film. The ideas about society and chaos and Joker being this kind of figure of just wanting to spread destruction and seeing if he can turn Batman evil is very interesting. I think we'll never go out of relevance with people and \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthe possibility to do bad things and Batman trying to maintain a sense of morality even though he wants Joker to be stopped. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThe opening heist is probably one of the most iconic in all of film history. The boat or ferry sequence at the end with the dual bombs and the triggers, the interrogation sequence with Joker, his monologues about how he got the scars, the relationship between Batman or Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent and Harvey Dent's decline into Two Face, I think it's generally considered to be one of the best of all time, not really just in comic books, but one of the best movies ever made. And, yeah, just an absolute total masterpiece. There you go. That is my top ten DC movies of all time. Please rate, review, subscribe, share with your friends, post on social media, and I hope you enjoyed it even half as much as I did, and I'll see you next time. \n\n