Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder’s four hour version was not built to be watched in one sitting. It is divided into six titled parts, followed by an epilogue that carries a title of its own and runs past twenty minutes by itself. In practice it behaves like a series, and stopping between parts and resuming the next day does the story no harm. The framing is unusual too. The film is presented at a ratio of 1.33 to 1, which means a widescreen television shows black bars down both sides and no setting will remove them. That was not a late decision: cinematographer Fabian Wagner says they shot the whole picture with that large format in mind from the first meeting, the intention being to fill an enormous screen edge to edge. It differs in content as well. Where the 2017 release was classified for a broad age range, this one carries an adult rating for violence and language. The studio spent at least seventy million dollars finishing it, and that money went to visual effects, score, editing and two days of extra photography rather than a fresh shoot. Right for a viewer happy to spread the running time over several evenings. Wrong for anyone who needs the image to fill the screen, or who plans to watch with a child.