After three years of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut on Twitter, DC and Warner Brothers finally pulled the trigger on Zack Snyder’s vision. In March of this year, “Zack’s Snyder’s Justice League” was released exclusively on HBO Max. After the stitched-together flop that was 2017’s “Josstice League,” fan expectations were on the up. As a fan who was disappointed with the original I had somewhat high expectations for the film. With that in mind, I sat down and prepared for the four hour behemoth of a movie I was about to watch, and bear with me because there’s a lot to cover.

ZSJL takes place following Superman’s (Henry Cavill) death, and the world is left without its greatest defender. Batman (Ben Affleck) realizes there are greater threats lingering in the unknown that the planet must be prepared for without Superman. With the help of Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), he recruits Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), the Flash (Ezra Miller) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to a team to repel said threats. Although they don’t work seamlessly, the group comes together to stop an invasion from Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) before he can synchronize all three Mother Boxes, destroying all life on Earth.

This movie was a leap forward from what it once was. Even though it was four hours long, it felt like more of a TV show that I binged in one sitting. From a plot standpoint, it’s much better and holds more detail and generally makes more sense. ZSJL, unlike the original, spent a considerable amount of time establishing characters and their motivations. That time spent made the story move forward naturally and not feel like things are happening just because the plot needs it to. Additionally, the action scenes were well done and didn’t come off as a mess of terrible CGI; however, in general, the CGI was nothing to write home about.

The movie spent a considerable amount of time establishing new characters, and although that time was needed it shouldn’t have been. It would’ve been smarter to give characters solo movies first to establish them with the audience. In addition, I found this movie used a lot of slo-mo— around 10 percent according to IGN. With an already four hour long movie, the slo-mo just becomes sluggish and unnecessary. Moreover, I find that the movie is not very memorable; incidentally, while writing this I’ve had to re-watch certain scenes to remember what was even going on. Lastly, something that bothered me specifically was that a lot of time and dialogue was spent hinting at what may happen in a sequel rather than what’s happening in the plot currently.

Considering the problems surrounding the original JL movie, ZSJL was a well thought out project that had good character development, interesting motivations, well-done fight scenes and a driven plot. Overall, the movie is a good take on Zack Snyder’s more mature vision for the DC Extended Universe, and if you’re a fan who didn’t like the original, you’ll really like this movie. If you’re an average movie goer who likes superheroes, you’ll like it too, and I’d recommend clearing up some time and getting an HBO subscription to watch it. And hey, if you don’t like it, there’s always Game of Thrones.