Zack Snyder’s Justice League is finally here, and its critical reception so far is a very different story from the theatrical cut, per Rotten Tomatoes. The Snyder Cut has been highly anticipated by fans for years, and with its release having come at last, it’s time to see if the new version of the movie was worth the wait. Looking at the reviews so far, it at least seems like Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a drastically different film than the one moviegoers saw in 2017.

Justice League finished its initial theatrical run with a dismal 40% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes – a number that dropped even lower to 23% among “Top Critics.” The audience aggregate score stands much higher today at 71%, though that’s to be expected for a franchise with such a massive fan base. At the time, critics panned the film for inconsistent tone, poor structure, and pacing that was somehow at the same time too rushed and incredibly slow. So with such a low bar to vault over, has the Snyder Cut succeeded in delivering a better film?

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The short answer, thankfully, is yes. Currently, the Snyder Cut holds an admirable 77% Fresh rating across all critical reviews, dropping to a more modest 62% among “Top Critics.” That’s orders of magnitude more positive than the response to the original film, and it should hopefully let those who’ve waited years to see the Snyder Cut breathe a sigh of relief. However, the new Justice League is still very divisive, and its Tomatometer score doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story of its critical reception.

Rotten Tomatoes is not a true aggregator, in that a film’s score does not average all the scores it’s received from critics. Rather, the Tomatometer percentage simply weighs the number of net-positive reviews against the number of net-negative reviews. So, in the case of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the 78% rating means that 78% of the reviews are overall positive, not that the film’s average critical score is a 78%. Thanks to the binary rating system of Fresh/Rotten, a film that a critic was lenient neutral to mildly positive on can fall on the side of a Fresh rating, so the average review score is a more accurate indicator of the overall critical rating.

The Snyder Cut’s average review score is actually 6.8/10, a full 10 percentage points lower than its Tomatometer score, signifying that many of the film’s net-positive reviews are more modest in their praise. Looking through the reviews that have come out so far, that trend becomes quite clear. Many critics have praised the film for making marked improvements over the theatrical cut, while still noting that the film has significant problems. There’s also a fair share of reviewers who’ve panned Zack Snyder’s Justice League for adding little to the original version other than an extra hour and a half.

All that being said, the Snyder Cut still seems to be a vast improvement over the original Justice League by just about any metric available. There is a notable contingent of critics who have rated the film quite highly, praising its cohesive aesthetic, improved character arcs, and dedication to a singular vision, even if that vision wasn’t quite pulled off. What held the Justice League theatrical cut back most, it would seem, was that the finished product had been chopped up and changed by so many different people that it came out feeling like an inconsistent mess. Zack Snyder’s Justice League, on the other hand, is fiercely devoted to a central artistic identity, like it or not, and that alone seems to have put it leagues beyond its predecessor in terms of quality.

Key Release Dates
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  • The Suicide Squad (2021)Release date: Aug 06, 2021
  • The Batman (2022)Release date: Mar 04, 2022
  • The Flash (2023)Release date: Jun 23, 2023
  • DC League of Super-Pets (2022)Release date: Jul 29, 2022
  • Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)Release date: Mar 17, 2023
  • Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2022)Release date: Dec 16, 2022
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Rick Stevenson
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Rick Stevenson is a writer, editor and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s written on TV, film and games for over six years, in addition to assorted stints in bookselling, carpentry, and TV production. Rick studied writing at the College of William & Mary and Oxford University, and can report with some authority that they are both old. He lives and dies for Avatar: The Last Airbender.

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