After three years and an all-encompassing fan campaign, Zack Snyder’s directorial vision of his 2017 film Justice League has finally been realized. Clocking in at a whopping 242 minutes, or just north of four hours, there is a lot to unpack in Snyder’s director’s cut.

Before I get started with the film’s content, I do have to admit, I have never been a Zack Snyder fan. His entire catalog has rubbed me the wrong way since his debut in the 2004 remake of George Romero, which I do consider his best work. But, even then, I think his version of Dawn of the Dead at best misunderstands and at worst spits in the face of Romero’s original work. This track record continued through his 2009 “Watchmen” adaptation, in which characters originally written as a takedown on vigilantism and superhero violence are delegated to slow motion action sequence after slow motion action sequence with full glorification of the on-screen violence.

That being said, Snyder does have such a distinct visual style as a director, if that style does resonate with a viewer, it resonates very strongly. Quite strongly in fact, seeing the droves of Snyder fans taking part in the “Release the Snyder Cut” campaign, despite the abysmal “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

Snyder’s filmmaking track record of movies devoid of emotion, color and actual character sadly continues with his unmistakable vision of “Justice League.” The film is so long and so...Snyder, that I don’t know where to start. The film is intrinsically Zack Snyder, it oozes his style, namely pan ins and slow motion, and that’s where the issues begin.

According to an IGN analyzation, 10% of this cut of “Justice League” is in full slow motion. That is almost 30 minutes of the film dedicated to characters doing various things slowed to a crawl. It doesn’t matter what it is, in the “Snyder Cut,” you’ll be doing it in slow motion. Unboxing a magic arrow, slow motion. The Flash running, slow motion. Alfred making tea, slow motion. Roughly 30 minutes in, the slow motion began to wear on me, and I still had three and a half hours to go.

Paired with Snyder’s signature overused slow motion is what sounds like reused score from his first hit “300.” Throughout the movie, an action happens and a singer will wail into the viewer’s ears over the score in an attempt to make the actions grand and it doesn’t work once. On top of this, this kind of wailing singing doesn’t even fit most of the film’s setting. If it only happened in Wonder Woman’s home of Themyscira, then I couldn’t complain much, seeing as Snyder is trying to visually replicate “300” here, but this score is a constant audio nuisance across the film’s 242 minutes.

Another big disappointment for me is the lack of character in the film. Not once was I ever attached to any character on screen, despite four hours of breathing room to make these characters feel real. The closest the film comes to standout characters are Ezra Miller’s “Flash” and Ray Fisher’s “Cyborg.” These guys are giving the lion’s share of backstory and things to do, assumedly because they’re two integral members only just now being introduced. Despite this extra screentime, their backstories never hooked me, “Cyborg’s” specifically. Instead, I felt like I was having some edgy fan tell me what Victor Stone’s backstory was.

This feeling of exposition seeped into the movie as a whole, actually. Despite its four hours, the film constantly narrates at you DC universe plot points and informational tidbits. Relatively early on in the film, Wonder Woman simply reads a rundown of the events when the big bad, Darkseid, first came to Earth (a scene that completely deflates any danger Darkseid could have posed, by the way), instead of just letting us watch the full scene, made 12 minutes longer in the Snyder Cut. Fisher is fully delegated to narration duty. Once the league comes together, every scene with them in one room includes Fisher outright stating what they need to do to further the plot. I could keep going, but trust me when I say this film talks at you for a solid percentage of its runtime.

There is a laundry list of further complaints. Including a baffling character reveal that brings up infinitely more questions than it answers (in a bad way), a villain that never feels like a threat to any of the heroes to the point of Superman’s resurrection feels completely unnecessary, unneeded violence and gore, Wonder Woman murdering thugs infront of school children, some of the worst written dialogue I’ve heard all year, and everyone on screen taking all of this way too seriously.

All of this leads to one underlying question: Is the “Snyder Cut” better than Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut? For me, that’s an oversimplified question. Simply answered, I guess?

Whedon’s cut made me feel hollow after two hours from how badly it stunk of studio mandates. Plus, Whedon’s unbearable jokes pushed in by the director made me squirm in my chair. Snyder’s version, on the other hand, I feel wasted a full two hours of my life. This is a film that can be cut down to about two hours and 40 minutes, but persists for, I cannot stress enough, four hours. It’s Snyder’s usual fare of action for action’s sake and character’s stating their desires out loud. That being said, it does feel like a director’s vision. It does feel like someone involved cared about making this, but failed. Thus, throwing those like myself in a bit of a conundrum. I always push for a creator to be able to accomplish what they intended to make, their vision. But, I have to judge that vision based on its content and this content is vacant and poorly thought out. The “Snyder Cut” has indeed risen above Whedon’s, but does not warrant the three years of news coverage fans have forced.

The “Snyder Cut” of “Justice League” surpasses only the original cut