So my basic verdict here is that this is a version of this movie that is better on the smaller scale, but still has most of the problems of the original, plus several of its own.
The better:
- The connective tissue of the “how” and “why” is there more. Most of the time this saves you from being confused how or why things are happening, but it doesn’t add much beyond that most of the time.
- the fight scenes are generally better, with better “good news / bad news” structure.
- More backstory for new characters means that we can connect to them more.
- more consistent tone
The bad:
- 4 hour runtime is not really justified by the above, especially given the extended prologue.
- backstory really should have been individual movies. The franchise structure of skipping to the justice league movie is bad and I don’t think can be salvaged.
- dialogue is worse overall, probably because joss whedon is better at that and none of his stuff is in this one.
- more consistent tone means flash’s quips stand out even more as being weird and awkward
- continuity hooks for seemingly future movies make very little sense and take up a large portion of runtime for no good reason.
- relatedly, almost all added characters are extraneous at best and annoying at worst
- what the fuck is up with all the random slomo, especially in the first part of the movie?