Justice League **Spoilers from post 980 onward**

I’ve never seen the original version of Justice League because frankly I was never arsed, but couldn’t not check this one out as the cultural curio it is.

It is, alas, not very good. Not Batman v Superman bad - a truly noxiously awful film, that, even if it does at least have some actual themes (unlike this) - but just sort of a shrug of the shoulder.

It’s pretty much what you’d expect - a flabby, overstretched director’s cut. There’s so much stuff that scenes in the first half particularly just sort of happen in any order, without much in the way of rhyme or reason. Snyder does at least have a directorial style, which is more than the entirety of the MCU has to offer. But a lot of it is ugly green screen work, slow mo and a generally unappealing sheen of artificiality. The script’s shaky as all hell. The scenes of exposition between Darkseid and Steppenwolf are some of the absolute worst modern blockbuster gubbins imaginable - terrible CG creatures mixed with farcical, self-serious dialogue. Not one of the actors are able to say nonsense like ‘mother box’ without it sounding absurd.

And yet the first half does have a certain weirdly engaging energy to it. There’s certainly enjoyable scenes here and there, and the shorter, single character-focused set pieces are more vividly realised than the team brawls (even if the Flash is a bit of a creep in his first scene). It’s sprawling, silly and self-indulgent, but it passes the time capably enough. While it does boast a perplexingly terrible incarnation of Batman (a mix of awful writing and a barely present Affleck) it does give some of its lesser known characters some room to breathe. A couple of scenes go on way too long and some of the characters get too much attention, but there’s something of a novelty in seeing a superhero film that does find room for scenes to play out without necessarily being in a big rush to move on to the next one. The dialogue may be stinky and from a dimension where subtlety doesn’t exist, but Snyder absolute leans into all the cheesy beats with a gusto that’s somewhat admirable.

Alas, it just gets substantially worse in its second half. Once the league is together, it’s business as usual for this kind of film, even if Snyder is even more allergic to primary colours than most modern filmmakers. The big action scenes are snore-inducing, and just as you think credits are about to roll the film ultimately collapses into a boring fan service jamboree of tacked-on cameos and sequel teases. That last stretch - where the film keeps on going after it clearly ends with a cut to black - is where you really feel this could’ve easily been over and done with in three hours or less.

I’m glad Snyder finished his film, even if this is clearly not the film he’d have released in 2017 - putting aside the often obnoxious fandom, the man had an awful family tragedy and now at least got to finish the film very much on his own terms. But as a complete film his Justice League is predictably rife with overindulgence, pomp / circumstance and absurd stylisation. It’s a decent three star movie at its best, but a one/two star mess when it collapses into self-parody or lazy action set pieces.