Zack Snyder's Justice League

And Showing Your Paperwork

All of us in prison sampled the Joss Whedon theatrical cut of “Justice League” on cable, several times over, the movie forced by TNT to become an Instant Classic due to corporate synergy. But in 2018, 2019, we had also begun to hear the legends, that of an alternate cut, one left behind by Zack Snyder in tragedy, one that would never see the light of day. We all imagined it was just some nerd wet dream. We all knew that yet another Zack Snyder superhero movie wouldn’t suddenly be any more watchable than the others. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” would surely be a gussied-up version of a lousy movie we’d already seen.

And then, somehow, it existed. A streaming service was hosting an entirely new Zack Snyder movie, running a hysterical four hours. It was a thought that the nerds in prison couldn’t even accommodate. Surely it was just a rejiggered version of what we had been watching for a couple of years now, one that has the chutzpah to feature Aquaman in an Act Three battle in the desert without ever commenting on the juxtaposition.

Now that I have witnessed it, I am STILL stunned today to report to you that “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is very much an entirely new, distinctly different movie. Perhaps ten minutes of recycled footage has made it into this four hour behemoth, a massive galaxy-spanning epic about gods and monsters locked in eternal battle, and some perhaps finally learning how unity can be a weapon. It is Batman, it is Superman, it is Wonder Woman, it is big widescreen action on a massive scale, with zero concessions to the non-fans, and it is so much more. To criticize, or maybe even praise this movie, is to ignore how we are ants in its ridiculous presence. Is it a great superhero movie? Or a great movie overall? Not really, no. But it is The Superhero Movie. I’m not sure why you’d need another one after this.

The theatrical cut feels as if it’s more of a genre movie, one where a group of obviously-similar superbeings have to waffle back and forth as to whether or not they are going to form the team in the title, falsely generating suspense. It’s glib about characterization and dramatic tension, and additionally features some of the most cringey one-liners and gags one could forecast for such a film. At its end, it feels like its shutting a door it already opened a tad. The Justice League is here, to shrink a world in danger of expanding.

This new cut, instead, cracks this universe wide open, and keeps stretching further and further until, perhaps, there’s a break. The Mother Boxes, a comic book MacGuffin that gives evil Steppenwolf motivation, are no longer objects to chase but rather items of decay in a broken universe. That break is exacerbated by the death of Superman. It feels like the Whedon version treats his death in “Batman V. Superman” as a metaphor for the hope we’ve lost in the world. Zack Snyder, for better or for worse (mostly the latter), doesn’t do metaphors. The death of Superman is exactly what it is – the loss of this world’s most powerful being, and the opening of a huge opportunity for destruction.

Yes, the League has to form, which is covered in both versions of this movie. But only in this one do they have to learn what heroism is. There’s a disconnect between Ben Affleck playing a murderous, bitter Batman in “Batman V. Superman”, and being the spokesman for heroism and teamwork at the close of the Whedon cut. Here, he goes on the journey that erases his cynicism and allows him to believe in a concept like justice over something like revenge. Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Flash (Ezra Miller), meanwhile, learn to stop being their respective personas of the miserable accident and the screwup clown (therefore avoiding the sins of fathers Joe Morton and Billy Crudup, respectively), and there’s Aquaman (Jason Momoa) learning how a solo act has its limitations. Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) doesn’t necessarily have as much material as the others, but since when has Zack Snyder known much about a woman’s motivation? Even his strongest female characters are almost entirely reactive.

It is wild to see these post-credits sequences as well. The theatrical cut has two, only one of which made it to cable, oddly enough – that being the stilted race between Superman and the Flash that proves Henry Cavill has less-than-zero comic timing. The other after-credits entry is echoed in the longer version, an obvious sequel tease where villains Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Deathstroke (Joe Mangianello) become their own superfriends. This last one, however, is cruel and wasteful on Snyder’s part, featuring a (possibly?) distant future Justice League far removed from the one we just witnessed. The whole thing is a chance for Snyder to show his Batman and “his” Joker (Jared Leto of “Suicide Squad”) interacting, now somehow on the same side.

Ignoring the faulty logic of this union, this seems like a tease too far. It’s a suggestion of an entirely different movie in some other cinematic universe, a ludicrous reach that has no relationship to what we’ve seen. Now, the ideologically-redeemed Batman (who, at the proper film’s end, is welcoming Martian Manhunter into the fold semi-gladly) is back to being murderous, bitter and even sadistic. And the four hours spent drumming up the sense of hope that the Justice League represented has been thrown in the trash, replaced by this wasteland nihilism that’s supposedly a product of a Superman run amok. Leave it to Snyder to take the ending of his only optimistic movie and run it straight into the ground.

Something that stuck with me within the Snyderverse was a detail in “Batman V. Superman”. Batman had been tracking human slavers and, according to the news, he would brand their skin with his Bat-Signal so that, in prison, everyone knew they were sex triffickers, thereby ensuring their death sentences. This sort of makes sense, particularly considering they were probably headed to penitentiaries (or not – the legality of being “caught in the act” by a vigilante remains unexplored territory).

But what people should know about prison is that, largely, everyone knows why you’re there. Guys find you and, as a newcomer, they demand your paperwork. Your case paperwork, whatever it is, should always be on you, because people will demand it. It will dictate where you go, how you act, where you eat, what perks you can or cannot receive. When they read your paperwork, everyone is seeking bits and pieces of information. But they’re primarily looking for two things. First, they want to know if you do or do not have a sex crime on your jacket, in which case you will be ostracized and possibly hunted. And second, they want to see if you’ve signed a 5k1 letter. A 5k1 agreement ensures an inmate a lesser sentence because they cooperated with the federal government on the case. This person, therefore, is a snitch and cannot be trusted, as the logic goes.

You can refuse to show your paperwork for whatever reason, but obviously nothing good will come of that. First of all, people will find out – they will reach out to significant others on the outside to look you up. If you lie, they will catch you. Secondly, if you refuse to provide your paperwork, they’re just going to assume you’re a sex criminal or a snitch, and worse yet, you’re one that can’t admit it, and therefore you can’t be trusted. In other words, I don’t think Batman has to brand a guy to let everyone know someone’s charges in prison.

Next, we’re onto a week of prison films!