All 9 Zack Snyder’s Justice League Characters Ranked
A few days ago, Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League was released on HBO Max. I wasn’t planning on doing any other coverage besides a review, but I wanted to talk about the characters. Because the characters were a big reason as to why the movie was so great. Note, I only counted their arcs from this movie, not any previous DCEU movies. Only this movie. Let’s talk about DC characters!
9. Arthur Curry/Aquaman: I think this version of Justice League didn’t give Aquaman anything extra or memorable to do. They explained as to why he was at certain parts when he was, which makes the movie flow a lot better. But in general, the lines that Jason Momoa gives are the same as the lines that he gave in the 2017 movie. As I watched it, he was the character that I felt was on the back burner. He was the character that was more along for the ride because Atlantis was attacked, and that’s a bit frustrating. To be clear, Aquaman gets some great moments in the finale throwing down the Para demons. So he’s a character that has great moments and is played by a fun actor but beyond that, he isn’t really given a deep character arc that I felt moved his character for me. And in some ways, maybe dropped him down on the DCEU heroes ranking. He’s last because somebody has to be last, I didn’t hate him in this movie he was still good.
8. Darkseid: This is a character that I thought would get a lot more to do going into this movie. But they used him similar to how they use Thanos in The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, where you know he’s there they mention him, but you don’t get a lot of time with him. And I think that worked for this movie. Darkseid was intended to be the main villain of the movie, he was going to be the main villain for a future DCEU movie. In general, he appears in a scene in the middle of the movie, and a small little scene in the climax of the movie. He has potential to be a great villain for a future movie, but as of now he’s just there to be the leader to Steppenwolf. He helps make Steppenwolf a better character, where in some ways Steppenwolf is Darkseid’s slave in some ways, that was really talked about in the 2017 movie. So in that sense I think it’s interesting, but nothing really beyond that.
7. Diana Prince/Wonder Woman: Like Aquaman, she was one of the Justice League members that I felt wasn’t given a lot more memorable moments. She’s important and prominent through-out the movie but, the moments we saw of her in the theatrical cut are the same moments in this movie. But, in the finale she gets some awesome moments with Steppenwolf that are some of the best Wonder Woman moments in the DCEU. What I found most interesting about her, was she was the expansion character. She is the one that tells Bruce and the rest of the team about Steppenwolf and Darkseid. In that sense, I think she’s very important to the story. But as far as moments, nothing really new besides a few moments here and there. And I was hoping that maybe she was going to go back to Themyscira and have a nice scene between her and her mother, that didn’t happen. But still a good character in the movie.
6. Steppenwolf: This was one of the characters that I thought was most improved by this version of the movie. In the 2017 movie, the only interesting thing about was the creepy number of times that he said “mother”. And when that’s the most memorable or interesting thing about him...that’s a problem. In this movie they give a personal motivation. They explain why he’s here, and what he himself is trying to accomplish. He is trying to win back Darkseid’s trust, and the only way to do that is to take over Earth and get the mother boxes. That is a whole lot more character development to make him a much better villain. He’s still not a fantastic villain, but did improve. And you probably could have guessed that with his placement on this list. Also, I think the CGI for his character is much better. He looks more threatening in this movie than the 2017 movie. Like I said, one of the most improved characters.
5. Silas Stone: This is one of the characters that I didn’t expect that I was going to like as much as I did. I thought he was one of the most interesting characters in the movie. He’s responsible for Victor turning into Cyborg, and that is very interesting to me. Cyborg has an arc through-out this movie, and he is one of the most important pieces of that. And that once again...is interesting to me. I thought the actor Joe Morton did a great job, he can do the emotional moments but also play the smart scientist really well. He’s important to a great arc for Cyborg and he adds some emotional moments to certain scenes here and there. All in all, a character that I thought was going to be fine and be a nice side character. But was far more important to the story, a lot more memorable, and better character overall.
4. Barry Allen/The Flash: Now, I’ve never hated Ezra Miller’s version of The Flash the way some people do. I thought he was fun, and added some nice humor here and there. But most of the jokes he was telling were the Joss Whedon re-shoots, so I think the writing is to blame and not Miller. But in this movie, there are some of the same jokes in this movie but they feel more natural and they flowed organically. Two scenes in the original movie with The Flash, felt forced to add humor. One, Flash falls on Wonder Woman and his head goes on her chest, gets up, and acts awkward about it. Then, in the finale you have The Flash save a family, look over and sees Superman carrying an entire building. Also, he’s far more important to the story than the original movie, in that movie he was scared of bugs and tall people, and he acts like a fool in the action scenes. Here he’s important to their mission in the finale, and to all of the action sequences. He was a character that I thought was really well done in this movie.
3. Bruce Wayne/Batman: I found this version of the character, to be a nice continuation of where he left in Batman vs Superman. He made a promise to Superman, and he is going to live up to that promise. And in the 2017 movie, he feels like a completely different version of the character that we saw in BVS. Also, I’m not the biggest fan of BVS but I thought Batman in that movie was great, I thought Ben Affleck did a great job. And in Justice League he didn’t do as great of a job. In BVS Batman has some epic moments and lines, and here he gets some epic moments and lines that make him a better character. Ben Affleck doesn’t fake it like you can sometimes tell in 2017 movies. But this is a great version of the character, and I hope that with what is set up in this movie. Ben Affleck finally gets his own movie or there are some rumors about an HBO Max mini series with Ben Affleck as Batman, that would be awesome. Once again, an improvement of the character.
2. Clark Kent/Superman: When I did my DCEU heroes ranking back after Wonder Woman 1984 came out, I had him in 5th place out of the 7 heroes. So not very well, and my big thing was I felt like he was too uneven. In Man of Steel was his first day on the job, BVS the world hated him, then in Justice League he’s the more old fashioned Superman. But it didn’t feel like a continuation of the same character. This movie makes his arc feel like one arc going over three movies. We don’t get a lot of him, I mean Henry Cavill doesn’t show up until the end of chapter 5, but I think they do a great job with the time that they had. I don’t want to spoil what he gains in the climax of this movie but it is awesome and I hope we get to see more of it. He probably gets bumped up 2 or 3 spots on my hero ranking because of this movie. And of course, Cavill is great in the role, and this was a great version of Superman in this movie.
1. Victor Stone/Cyborg: A few months, back Zack Snyder said “Cyborg is the heart and soul of the movie”. I was curious to see how much of that was true. He was not lying, Cyborg is the heart and soul of this movie. I mentioned earlier, but Cyborg has an arc in this movie where he accepts who he is and it is powerful. He thinks that he is a monster at the beginning of the movie, and he finally accepts who he is in the climax to save the world. In the 2017 movie, he was there to be there and he had connections to the mother boxes, I thought he was a blend and boring character that I didn’t care about. I was watching this movie, and I cared a lot about Cyborg and everything that he does. The character isn’t given a lot of funny moments, but that’s not what Zack Snyder wanted for this movie. So, he is easily the most improved DCEU character for me and I hope that maybe one day Cyborg gets his own movie.
Thank you so much for reading! What was your favorite character in Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Make sure to check out my review for the movie that is already on my blog.
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