The Prestige TV Podcast - Reactions to 'Zack Snyder's Justice League'

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

In this special preview from 'The Ringer-Verse,' Van Lathan and Charles Holmes share some of their thoughts and insights into the much-anticipated 'Zack Snyder's Justice League.' Hosts: Van Lathan and Charles Holmes. You can follow 'The Ringer-Verse' on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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helps you navigate the vast streaming landscape. I am Charles Holmes. I host the ringer music show and you are about to listen to a special preview of the Ringerverse feed where myself and Van Lathen discussed Zach Snyder's Justice League and what we thought about it.

Enjoy. The movie, I don't think there's really anything genre bustying about the movie. The movie follows to me a very typical structure that a team up would follow. Okay. It introduces you to the characters, gives you their motivation for getting together, gives you a little bit of their history, they get together, they fight the big evil, and now they have a bond that seemingly, seemingly will exist on it to the future,

something that wasn't, they were heroes alone before, and now they're heroes together. Give us your general review of the Snyder Cut. right now it has a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 97 audience score Insanity Both career highs for Zach Snyder

Tell us what you're saying. Insanity. Fixed. You know what I'm saying? Like we need the recount, okay? Because I will tell you the Snyder cut was better than the We didn't cut. But that's not saying much because that's almost like he just had to trip over the bar to make it over.

I just don't know like who could like watch this movie and not leave just being like what did I just like this was a mess like it was a it felt almost like a car accident that I was like I wanted to watch and like I want to see what would happen but for large parts of the movie I'm like it just felt self-indulgent it was like I got high and like somebody's like you want to eat a tub of icing and I was just like sure that sounds great did you enjoy it that's that's my that's my question to you haven't told me whether you enjoyed it or not what kind of icing damn that sounds good I did I did I did I Like, I did enjoy it.

I actually enjoyed it. Well, you can't enjoy it all four hours. It's like being in love. Now, that's not my question. Like, well, here's the thing. It's like being in love. Like, if you're in a relationship, some people think that once you're in a relationship,

that every single moment of every single day that you're super in love with your partner, no, you fall in and out of love. But it's the overall experience that you enjoy. You're describing Stockholm syndrome. Whatever. I would say that, I would say that with the Steyerker, it's kind of the same thing.

with a four-hour movie, there are going to be some things that should have been left on the cutting room floor, without a doubt. But overall, I thought this was a much better, much more coherent,

and despite its runtime, a much more entertaining film. Well, much more entertaining film than the one that came out in 2017. Oh, I'll agree. It was entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. Let me go over some of them,

because I know we already disagree. Yeah. We got to talk about the glizzy scene with Iris and Barry, breathtaking. He's going to apply to get a job, walking puppies or something like that. Iris, they're flirting. She's driving.

She almost gets into a car accident. And then time stops. We see Barry's, like, powers for the first time. And there's just a bunch of hot dogs flying at the screen. You're telling me that this is the height of superhero cinema to you. That's what you're going to tell me. What are you talking about? Yeah, like you, the, the,

the scene, do you remember the first time we saw Quicksilver? Yes. Okay, so the first time we saw Quicksilver, not in Days of Future Pass. Yes, and either the very comedic, like, scene where time basically stops. He's moving all the food and the droplets. Well, time, well, like, time stops because Quicksilver's moving so fast, and he's moving the drop, he's moving the droplets around. He's doing all of these things. It's showing the way he sees the world when he is using his power.

to me the reason why that scene was perfect is because so he comes in he has this connection with this girl and listen listen to me he comes in he has this connection with this girl like he comes in he has this connection with this girl he has this connection with this girl it's the connection that you have with the girl

that's actually going to end up costing her her life because because she's still staring at him when she drives away still caught up in whatever little moment that is she's not paying attention to the road and all of a sudden she's in a, a potential life ending event. She flies out of the car.

He runs out of his shoes. So the connection damned her, but the connection is also saving her life because she just happened to be connected to the right guy, which is a perfect building block for their relationship. She happened to be connected to the guy

that can save her life in this instance. You don't think that's indulgent? Like, it was points like that. It was when they introduced Aquaman and you get like these women singing like this seed shanty. or anytime Wonder Woman comes on the screen is like, that's her theme.

Is it indulgent when they played Vader's death march? But here's the thing. When every single time it's almost like Zach Snyder is trying to hammer home, he's like, this isn't the MCU. These are modern day gods. And there were all of these like slow shots, these slow panning shots of Jason Mabo's hair flowing in the wind. and Batman standing on a gargoyle.

And I'm like, we get it, man. Can, like, can you please just, like, move along the plot? Like, we don't have to have a five-minute sequence about how hot Jason Mamoa is as the sea mist hits his face. I ain't going to lie. That nigger is fine as hell, though. Excuse my language. Like, Jason Mamoa.

You know, like, Jason Mamoa. Jason Mamoa. Like, Jason Memorial works out. That dude is... Roger said that and my fiance just looked at me. What are you talking about? Does she disagree? No, she's not disagree.

She's like, why would I, why would he say that? Like, why would you say that about... Anyway, whatever. I guess my thing is, I watched the scene. Number one, it showed just how much time, how he perceives time when he's inside of the Speed Force. Which is cool. That was, like, so cool.

which I loved. And in that instant, that split second, her life was just never in danger. Like he's a hero. Everything is going to be okay when Flash is there. You know what I mean?

For a character that really for the majority of the film is used as the comic relief, that to me was a very heroic thing. I thought it was just shot beautifully. I really thought it was a spectacular scene. I really did. I really thought,

I thought, by the way, I thought that there was that that type of stuff was the stuff that the first film was missing. This is what the Justice League can do. Oh, if we're talking about what the other Justice League was missing, like there was a scene where the Flash and Superman are fighting, and you just see how both of them not only perceive time,

but perceive a fight that I was like, what is going on? That was amazing. It was shot so beautiful. Like, this is what I will say about Snyder. He is not like a master craftsman when it comes to plot, when it comes to dialogue, but when it comes to like that nerd boy shit and shooting superheroes in a way

that makes them seem otherworldly, I have to give it up. There were so many scenes in this where I was like, oh, you managed to make cyborg seem cool, which I thought was impossible after the Whedon cut. Yeah, I mean, he's kind of,

he's basically, Zach Seyter's basically like, he's almost like the Tim Burton of action movies, meaning everything will look super cool. It's hit or miss whether or not the story will be coherent. And I know that's going to fire up all the Tim Burton people because Tim Burton is a

fantastic director, but sometimes the story is a little incoherent when you get it from them. But it's aesthetics. It's aesthetics over, in my opinion, opinion plot. So let's say we take it out of here out of out of five. You said the first

movie got a 1.5 if we're taking it out of five. I think I remember you saying that you would rate the first movie. No, I would rate Zach's D.C. whole run as like a 1.5.

Okay, what do you get this, what do you give the Snyder cut specifically? I'm going to give it a 2.5. I'm going to give it a 2.5. I think that's a strong score. That's half. That's 50%. If the plot is incoherent,

but I was entertained, you get a 2.5. And the reason I say that is because watching it over the course of four hours, I realize how much Zach Snyder is a vision guy. He's the guy that, like, he can see what he wants,

but he's not the type of person. Like, he's not a Patty Jenkins. Like, Patty Jenkins can go and make a coherent movie that's entertaining that will please everyone. James Wan can go take Aquaman and make an entertaining movie that will entertain everyone. There's nothing worse that has been offered to the DC universe than Wonder Woman 1984.

It's the worst movie they've made by far. We just watched something worse. The Snyder cut. You're out of your goddamn mind. Stop. If you think that the Snyder cut, Charles,

you're trolling me, bro. Like, I'm older to you, bro. You're running my blood pressure up. You think that that Wonder Woman 1984 was better than the Snyder cut.

Yes, and you want to know why? Because it didn't waste an extra two hours in my life. Dog, would the Snyder could have been better at three hours? Probably. Because there was a lot of stuff

they could have left out, right? Yes. But as it stands right now, it's a good film. It's a solid film. It's worked. It's too much of a mess for me. It's too, like the whole time I was watching it, I was constantly just getting distracted at what he was trying to do.

It was almost like Snyder, and we can talk about this later, he was planning so many other movies that sometimes it felt like I was watching a commercial for another movie instead of watching the Justice League. And the biggest way I saw it happening was Steppenwolf. I think Steppenwolf as a villain is a very flawed villain. Because at no point in the movie did I really understand why he wanted what he wanted. It was always he was going back. Well, he wanted it because he wanted it for Darkside.

Yes, but that's not a strong motivation for a villain. To say, if I asked you, what's Steppenwolf's motivation? And you explain to me, he's like, well, he wanted to take over the world, not for him, but for Darkside. And then I asked in the movie, did they explain who Darkside was to Steppenwolf? No. Now, if you read comics, like, then you'll have a little bit more. But I still throughout the whole movie, I'm like, why does Steppenwolf want to conquer this world for Darkside? Like, what is that emotional?

Darkside had failed, right? Like, Darkside had failed. Steppenwolf wanted to come and conquer the world for Darkside because he had fallen out of favor with him. And this was going to be. But why does he want his favor? Are they related? Does he, like, is there some type of, like, interpersonal connection with them where it's, like, like a father-son thing where he wants to impress his dad or like I needed a little bit more.

And all I got was this CGI monster who's covered in knives. Like Steppenwolf literally looks like what I would draw as a five-year-old, what I thought a villain should look like. All right. All right. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So what did you feel like was the biggest change from the Josh Whedon cut of the film to the Snyder cut the film? To you. To me, and I was surprised that Snyder pulled it off. So this is, kudos to him, was just the character development. Whether it was Flash, whether it was Cyborg, he just gave all of these characters that in the first film, we didn't know anything about. And he made me, like, even though I didn't like some of the choices, like, I got why Cyborg was doing what he was doing. Whether it was grieving his mother or trying to avenge his dad with Flash, I got the reason why he was.

he was the flash and why even he picked Ezra Miller to do that. So I think one thing I did enjoy about the four hours and I want to know what you think is that I did enjoy the smaller moments where we got to be with these characters a little bit. That's actually what I think was like a saving grace of the movie.

What do you think? I can't understand what happened with Cyborg the first time they made this movie. I don't understand it because Cyborg, if we're talking about is a relatively new member of the Justice League, even in the comic books, right? Mm-hmm.

They didn't come around until I think around the early 80s or something like that, or maybe even... No, Jeff Johns' run, which happened, I believe, in like the 2010s, was the first time Cyborg was even a member of the Justice League.

Right. So I guess my thing is they definitely needed more. They definitely needed more for Cyborg, right? Mm-hmm. And the movie, Cyborg grounded the film. like the erasure of Cyborg in the first movie is almost inexplicable.

And it really, and it really makes you wonder about some of the, the claims that Ray Fisher is making against, uh, Ween and some of the other brass over at Warner Brothers because they ripped him out of the movie and the movie, it's almost why the first movie didn't work. Because when you start to, when you start to see Cyborg and the way he's looking at things and the way he can control things, you get a full. grasp of his powers. You get a full grasp of why he feels like he has to go out and do some of the things

he has to do. You get the entire thing. And it also makes a deeper connection between him and his father. The first film, it was like, oh, by the way, this is his dad. But in this movie, you understand why his father felt like he had to do what he did. Okay. I mean, if you're a film girl, you know this stuff if you're recommable. And you also understand the strained relationship they have.

and why these things exist the way that they do. And that even comes back at the end of the movie. So I don't understand at all, at all, why they good at this character from the first film. But even from a story structure perspective, say, like, and this is in no way me defending Joss Whedon because, like, I actually think most of the things he makes are garbage. But Joss Whedon, you can't take a way that he knows how to structure a story. and I don't even know how they saw the script and they were like,

we need to take the audience surrogate out, which that's what Cyborg is. Like he's this kid with powers who's like, I can hang with these gods. I can hang with Superman and Batman. I'm a hero too. And the movie does not make sense unless you have that character arc

of this kid who's a football player realizing like his tragedy does not define him. He can still be a hero. And yeah, like that's, yeah, probably why the weed and cut is dog shit. is because, like, they cut all of that out. Is there anything that you liked better about the Wheaton cut? Besides the runtime, no.

I think the Wheaton cut was just tonally a mess. No, no. Like, I don't think there was any saving grace of that cut. No, not me neither. I mean, the lasso scene was kind of cool, you know, when he sits on the lasso, that's a well-written scene. When Aquaman sits on the lasso and he starts telling the truth because he doesn't know that he's sitting on it.

You could tell that had Josh, That had Josh Wheddon all over it. But no, I think this movie was, to me, a better movie in almost every single sense of the word. I said something on Twitter that kind of got people talking. People were talking about Ben Affleck in this movie as Batman, you know, and you get a lot more Batman in the film. You got a lot more of everything. What do you rank him as Batman after having watched this whole movie the way Snyder intended it to go?

Number one. Number one Batman, best Batman, by far. Ben Affleck is the best Batman. Best Batman by far. There's no question. My man, I said this on Twitter. My man was shooting his shot at Wonder Woman during an apocalypse. Christian Bill could never.

Michael Keaton could never, okay? The Bruce Wayne that we get in this movie is just effortless. I believe, like all of the jokes, the one-liners, I think it was awkward man was just like, how many satellites do you have? He's like six. like I was like, man, like, talk, like, I want like a whiskey drinking Bruce Wayne. Like, we want to be real.

Ben Affleck carried this movie on his back. Carried it. Look, I love Bethlehc. And I think it would be a tragedy if we didn't get more after this. I love Bethlehem. I don't think he's a better Batman than Michael Keith. I really enjoy Michael Keith.

Michael Key is the last bad man. Krisha Bell's better than him. Well, not to me. But, like, I, like, I did, so here's, Here's my thing about Christian Bell. Christian Bell is dope in those movies.

Those movies are brilliant, right? Okay. And all of those films, to me, Batman is consistently the least compelling part of them. Like, consistently the least compelling part of those movies.

He gets out-he-he gets out-acted in most of those movies. And he, you know, as Bruce Wayne, he's pretty cool. As Batman, he's the least compelling

part of those movies. But once again, the movies are so, fucking amazing that that's really not even saying anything. Michael Keaton to me brought a different sort of he almost had a Bruce Wayne

sort of aura to him a tortured sort of sullen yet confident right on the edge of insanity type of meticulous and it always struck me as the role he was sort of born to play like to me even though that's not really you think Bruce Wayne is almost

a more of a handsome guy. You think of Bruce Wayne is almost more of a imposing guy, but he always just worked as Bruce Wayne to me. It was, a lot of it. I always did. This is the age gap here. This is the age gap showing. This is like, I wasn't there. I wasn't there for the, for the, you weren't outside. You weren't outside. We was outside, baby. I don't even think I was born. So you didn't, you didn't, you didn't get the McDonald's commemorative cup.

Stop. That was shaped like a bat. You know what I mean? You didn't get the, you didn't, didn't get the, the, I had to, you didn't get the, you weren't there when they announced that Michelle Pfeiffer was about to be Catwoman and everybody went, oh, shit. How old were you back then? How old were you for that first movie? I was eight for the first one, eight or nine for the first one. And then for Batman returns, I was, I think I was like 11 or 12. Damn. So yeah, what wonder you like the Snyder cut? This must be like seeing the Jetsons on

screen for you, bro. Shut the fuck, though. Wait, I got a question for you. I got a question for you. What? Like, what did you think of, like, some of the reshot stuff? Because we get, we get Martian Manhunter officially in this in one of, like, the post-credits or epilogue scenes. We finally get the Joker in this.

Like, what did you think of all of these kind of Easter eggs that Snyder was, like, sprinkling throughout all of this? So there are two Martian Manhunter scenes. The first Martian Manhunter scene, of course, is when he's talking to, to, he's talking to Louis Lane. and you think that he's Martha Kent, but he's actually Martian Manhunter. That scene, I legitimately spilled my popcorn. Legitimately. Because I stayed off the internet for the spoilers.

I did not know that that was coming. I did not know that that was coming. And also, I saw it a little earlier because I had a screener, so I literally did not know that that was coming. I lost it. Did you like that part? Did you like, were you surprised or did you like it?

I liked it. I liked him. I liked that. But if we're being cool, cool because he's revealed in an interview since that that was supposed to be John Stewart, John Stewart would have been way cooler than Martian Mann Hunt. Might have been, sure. Might have been.

Might have been. The two scenes that you're talking about at the end when we're talking about both the scene that involves the nightmare timeline when you have sort of this new rag tag group of Justice Leagueers with the Joker in there, Justice League or maybe the suicide squad. You never know. that and the Martian Manhunter scene at the end were terrible. Like, terrible. Ooh! Talk that shit. The ending Martian Manhunter scene is student film level filmmaking.

Like, it's terrible. Wait, did you read the New York Times interview with Snyder, where he was like, the original plan was for me, like, he texted, like, Affleck and Who plays Joker? Jared Leto. And Jared Leto, he's like, yo, like, let's just put a green screen in my backyard and let's just film this scene really, really quick

and we'll put it in the film. And I could not get, like, that's not what they did, but I couldn't get that out of my mind because that was like the level of acting and direction in that scene where I was just like, get this man off the screen. Like, get this out of you. So there's a couple of things with that.

Just staying on the Marshall Manor thing, I thought the scene at the end was Hammy. They called me. the Martian Manhunter. I just don't, like, that's, that was very hammy. It was, it was, it was hammy, and it was stupid,

and it was more than anything, it was unnecessary. We had already seen Martian Manhunter. We know that he's going to find his way to the Justice League in some sort of way. We'd already seen him. Like, it was hammy.

That's the first thing. The nightmare thing is this. I know that they want more movies. I would love to explore the nightmare timeline. Love to. Stop. Love to explore the nightmare time. I think that's interesting.

I want to see, look, in Superman 2, I think it was, maybe Superman 3. No, Superman 3, Superman 3, he goes rogue, right? I'm pretty sure it's Superman 3. He goes rogue. And there's like a cool scene in Superman 3 where he goes rogue and he's in a bar drinking. He's got a drinking problem now. Okay. You've never seen this?

No. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No. So, great. Superman 3. Man, how old do you think I am? In Superman 3, he starts, he's in a bar. Superman's gone bad.

It's really crazy. His suits dirty. He's got a 5 o'clock shadow. The whole nine. He's in a bar. And there's peanuts on the bar. And he's flicking the peanuts. And he's flicking the peanuts so strong that they're like bullets.

You know what I mean? They're like, bing, bing, killing glasses and stuff like that. Just shattering glasses. And when I was a kid, I looked at that and was like, damn, what a Superman went bad? And so I have always been obsessed with that notion. Of course, you get that from time and time.

You got that in injustice. And to see this super hyperpowered version of Superman as an enemy and trying to see, and the most interesting thing about the scene was Batman kept saying that they needed the Joker. I'm like, well, why would they need the Joker? What possibly could the Joker have in his arsenal that could have pit him against Calell

of the planet crypto. All of this confounded me. Like, Martian Manhunter scene confounded me because I'm just like, Bruce Wayne would never do this. Bruce Wayne wouldn't just see an alien and just be like, oh yes, you know my secret identity, of course, join the team.

Like, that's everything we know about Batman from the comments to everything. He is distrusting of everyone. And him just seeing this alien he's never met. And be like, yeah, sure, join the Justice League. Bullshit. The Joker seed, for the similar reason, they never explained why Joker was there

and it was written in such a way where it was just like fans are gonna eat this up Snyder Cut fans gonna eat this up but there was no there was no rhyme or reason even like when they were talking back and forth I'm like the one scene that I did the one line when like

Ben Affle was like he was like I'll fucking kill you I was like oh oh yeah okay well the Joker was like the the Joker was taught to him you know, he was taunting him over, I guess, the death of Jason Todd. Or I guess it, or if it's Bruce, or if they, if they haven't been Dick Grayson, I don't know. But, you know, this is obviously something that has happened in this universe. We saw the costume in the Batcave in Batman versus Superman. So this is obviously something that's happened in this universe.

So, I mean, that was kind of interesting. But, you know, all of those three scenes, even though. scene where Death Stroke comes to speak to, there's a scene at the end of the movie where Death Stroke comes to speak to Jesse Eisenberg. And the one thing I really hoped more than anything would come out of the Snyder cut was no more Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luther. It just doesn't work. Jesse Eisenberg is a fine actor. He is a

fine actor. But I think that we've seen something here. I think that we've seen that portraying Lex Luther on screen isn't as easy as you think it is. Kevin Spacey, who was everybody dream to play Lex Luthor at the time that Superman Returns came out, he fumbled that, okay? And now you have Jesse Eisenberg, which when the casting was first announced,

I was like, you know what? That seems to make sense. It's nothing but a sort of step forward from his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg, the real life of Lex Luthor, in the social network. But it is completely not worked. Totally not worked and didn't really work in this team.

Hot take only good Lex Luthor on screen. my man from Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum. What? Out of your mind. What? Stop. You're such a child.

Gene Hackman played Lex Luthor. And Gene Hackman was fantastic. I can't. I can't ask you a question. Have you seen Superman the movie? Yes. With the crystals? Huh?

With the crystals? Yeah. Superman the movie with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman playing Lex Ler Luther. You don't think that Gene Hackman was fantastic as Lex Luthor? No. I can't mess with it. I can't, move on. I'm not doing this with you.

I'm not doing it with you. Thanks so much for listening to this special preview, and you can listen to the full pod on the Ringerverse feed from the Ringer Podcast Network.