After years of campaigning for the release of this movie, fans of DC were finally able to experience director Zach Snyder’s original vision for the 2017 Justice League movie. After watching, it is clear that this is better in almost every way than the theatrical cut. While the basic story beats are roughly the same, the extra additions drastically improve the way the film runs. Going in, I somewhat expected this to just be a longer version of the 2017 version, but I was very wrong about that.

One of the biggest changes is the extended character building. Because of the movie’s very long length, it is properly able to show the characters’ motivations and make them seem more like real people. The biggest benefactors of this are one of the heroes, Cyborg, and the main villain, Steppenwolf. Cyborg went from just being slapped in with almost no explanation in the theatrical cut of the film, to essentially the main character in this one. We were able to fully understand his powers and backstory, things that were only slightly alluded to in the theatrical cut. The villain, Steppenwolf, went from a joke in the theatrical cut to a menacing villain, with distinct motivations and desires.

This movie was shown in a 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning that there is more on the top of the screen and less on the sides. Most normal movies have a 16:9 ratio, meaning that there is more picture on the sides and less on top of the screen. When I first saw this change I did not like it at all but as the film went by I stopped hating and started loving it. The only thing that would be better than the 4:3 ratio would be if there was an IMAX cut of the film, which would show the entire screen. 

The worst part about this movie in my opinion is its runtime. Because it is four hours long it only works on the HBO max streaming service, and not on the big screen. This movie probably did not need the four-hour runtime honestly. Some scenes just felt dragged on just so the movie would be longer. There were a lot of slow-motion scenes that added to the runtime by a lot. If those were removed, this would probably be able to get down to three and a half hours. The way the movie was split up into six chapters helped stomach the runtime though, as I was able to pause and come back whenever I got to the next part. 

With this film attaining a majority of positive reviews, the possibility of a sequel grows. While it may not be extremely likely for that to happen, neither was this movie being released. But for now, just being able to experience this full movie as the director intended is all that matters.