dir. Zack Snyder (2021)
The zenith of the superhero movie boom, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is remarkable in almost every way. After Warner Bros made the deeply unfortunate decision to turn direction of the original film over to a disgrace-pending Joss Whedon, who produced an abominable flop, a persistent crew of fulminating fans kept the flame burning through the dark years of 2017-2020. The unique world conditions of the coronavirus pandemic allowed for the briefest moment that a new director’s cut made economic sens. Zack Snyder seized the opportunity to create a megalithic superhero epic, a film containing so much excess that it occasionally drags it down – don’t mention the Martha Manhunter – but more often allow the director of Watchmen to illustrate all the many ways in which superheroes could be inspiring and yes, heroic, once more.