It’s late. We made the decision to stay up and watch the 4 hour Zack Snyder version of Justice League tonight.

It was a good decision.

The original movie was a disjointed crapfest that disappointed me to the core. As a huge DC Comics and Justice League fan, I was so sad after watching it. While I had little hope that doubling the length of the movie and adding in a bunch of scrapped scenes would do much to improve it, it cost me nothing but time to watch it on HBO Max (we already subscribe) so we figured what the heck.

In a nutshell, I was wonderfully surprised to be so very wrong. Yes, it’s long. And, yes, you’ve got to sit through a slow start story building and set up, but your patience will pay off as it all comes together to show a Justice League you actually root for, are inspired by, and want to see again. It even made me kinda like Aqua-Momoa a little. (I know I’m in the minority, but I do NOT like him or this iteration of Aquaman. It’s just not the same character I grew up reading about and loving.)

The weakest link, by far, was Ezra Miller as the Flash, a weak, whiny joke of a character that even an extended story and expanded scenes could not rectify. (Not exaggerating….he literally shrieks in a whiny voice in a couple of scenes.) But even he had a redemptive moment.

Bottom line, it was a VAST improvement over the first version, and should have been the version released from the start. And a couple cameos from another favorite DC character gave me comic-geekgasms. The only thing missing was an appearance from my number one guy, Green Lantern. (Although there was a referential nod in the beginning.)

If you like this genre, and either did not see the original, or saw it and disliked it, do yourself a favor…see this version. It’s worth the time. It was for us, anyway.

Although not everyone made it to the end…