The 8 Most Ridiculous Moments from 'Zack Snyder's Justice League'

The long-awaited, fan-demanded Snyder Cut of Justice League has finally arrived on HBO Max, and with it comes a flurry of takes. Mostly, it's being praised as an indisputable improvement of Joss Whedon's 2017 Frankensteined attempt, wherein he rewrote and reshot a hefty amount of Snyder's close-to-finished work, leading us to ponder the what if's had the original director's vision happened all along. But then, we would never have gotten this four-hour-and-two-minute project (in a 4:3 aspect ratio) revised with a new ending featuring Jared Leto's Joker, new scenes that provide necessary character development or context to motives, and new details in existing or extended scenes that add a layer of that dramatic Snyder flair. We've chosen our favorite good, bad, and silly moments—most new, some not—from Zack Snyder's Justice League, which unfortunately does NOT include the Joker saying "we live in a society" like the trailer promised.

Have you SEEN a Zack Snyder film?? The guy loves putting things in slow motion. He began Watchmen with that iconic blood-spattered smiley face pin falling out of a window, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice starts with the guy who killed Bruce Wayne's parents snapping his mother's pearl necklace and letting the pearls skitter around on the street. 300 is basically all slow-mo. But Snyder's use of the effect in his cut of Justice League borders on straight-up hilarious, as he takes pains to lovingly animate a giant sesame seed from a hamburger bun bouncing around the cab of a truck, a shell casing from a giant bullet hitting the ground, a batarang whooshing past the Flash's face, a photo of superdad Kevin Costner sinking into a pool of primordial goo, and even some hot dogs wobbling languidly through the air. Snyder's tic is helped a little by the Flash's ability to slow down time by moving so quickly that he's almost imperceptible, giving him plenty of time to pocket a floating bunless hot dog—so, of course he would see things moving veeeery slooooowly. —Emma Stefansky

After watching Justice League, if you felt a random need to shave or go out to the dealership and buy a Mercedes or decide to get into photography with an extremely expensive starter camera, then you'll know the product placement is working just as the entertainment industry expected it would, Batman, muahahaha. Early in the film panning a city street, the only marked storefront is with a bright red Leica logo. Bruce Wayne adds a slick Benz with doors that open wrong to his collection of expensive toys (to remind us that his superpower is being rich), and also possesses the latest in face-hair removal technology, because we wouldn't want the cowl to chafe at any five o'clock shadow when the Justice League is on a mission. —ES

During Diana's long bout of exposition wherein she explains what the whole deal with the mother boxes is, she describes how each community decided to hide their respective mother box to prevent another war with Darkseid. And while the Amazonians and the Atlanteans have elaborate methods of hiding it from public view, the men, looking like extras who wandered in from the set of the Lord of the Rings reboot, just throw it in a shallow ditch. My dudes! This does not seem like a good place for your box! Men, am I right? —Esther Zuckerman

Is Amy Adams aware of how much she's in this movie? Hard to say. The frequent Oscar nominee is in the Snyder Cut a lot, mainly looking morose as she pines for her dead boyfriend Superman, and nearly all of her scenes seem overwrought and out of place. Let's take a look at her introductory moment: It starts with a close up of latte art. You see, she's buying coffee and then giving it to a cop—which seems like a real violation of journalistic ethics—who watches over Superman's memorial. Every time we check in on her, the situation grows more and more depressing. There's the strange sequence where she's visited by Martha Kent (Diane Lane), who turns out to be Martian Manhunter in disguise encouraging her to go back to work. (She meets up with Martha later… do they ever discuss this moment?) Finally, and most chaotically, when Lois finally pulls out her old press pass, it's on top of a pregnancy test from the invented brand Force Majeure, which is a pretty heavy handed name for a pregnancy test. Is she with Superman's child? Or is this a reference to leaked storyboards, and an acknowledgement of Snyder's proposed sequel where she and Batman actually get it on and she has his baby? Ignoring that, it's just a weird tease for nothing here. —EZ

Correctly, Zack Snyder knows that money is fake, a bank statement just a number on a screen that still has the power to change someone's entire life. When Victor Stone is realizing his new powers, playing with the Matrix-y fabric of space and time in his cyborg brain, he conjures a bunch of images, including a battle between a CGI bronze bear and bull, and later little bit of money, turning it into a big stack of money, teleporting to a street scene of a mother checking her bank account with $11.92 in it, and then funneling all that cash into said bank account, giving her an extra $100k that's made to look like a promotional giveaway. Though this isn't happening in Justice League's reality, the sentiment pairs well with the scene (that also appears in the 2017 cut) when Barry Allen asks Bruce Wayne to remind him what his superpower is, and Bruce responds, "I'm rich." As Aquaman might say: Zack Snyder, my man. —Leanne Butkovic

Though it's remained more or less intact from 2017's Justice League, the scene where Bruce Wayne drops in to recruit Barry Allen, aka the Flash, to his super-team got a little nerd-ass Easter egg touch-up in the Snyder Cut courtesy of some WarnerMedia IP. During Bruce and Barry's conversation in Barry's Flash cave, an episode of Adult Swim's Rick & Morty is playing on one of the screens behind Bruce's head—specifically, the end of "Something Ricked Comes This Way," where Rick and his granddaughter Summer bulk up to go beat the shit out of Mr. Needful, the Devil in the form of a second-hand shop owner who's been selling cursed items to unsuspecting townsfolk. Of course the Quirky One is a Rick & Morty fan. —LB

When Batman, with Wonder Woman and the Flash in tow, responds to Commissioner Gordon's Bat-Signal, JK Simmons' police commissioner shows the crew a pencil sketch of a parademon that's been kidnapping people for Steppenwolf to interrogate about the location of the last mother box. The rendering is... not good, looking like a grade school art project with major X-Files' bigfoot drawing or monkey Jesus energy. The sketch also appears in 2017's Justice League, but it's simply too ridiculous to be ignored. —LB

In 2018's Aquaman, Willem Dafoe's Vulko rocks a tight man bun. Not so in Snyder's vision. Here, he's got long flowing locks that bob in the water and drape on land. Snyder's version of Atlantis is quite different than James Wan's; where Wan went for a pop aesthetic, Snyder sticks to his glum color palette. (Amber Heard unfortunately also tries out a British accent.) But honestly, we have to praise Dafoe's Snyder Cut hair. It's definitely sillier and also definitely more metal. Rock on, Vulko. —EZ

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