I never watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) or Justice League (2017) when they came out. The mediocre reviews plus the thought of watching another scowling, mean tempered Batman turned me off. Since the release of the 4 hour Zack Snyder's Justice League (HBOMax) I have been reading editorials and reviews of the two films and discovered my reservations were well founded, both movies were hacked up by the studio, especially the original Justice League after Joss Whedon took over and tried to re-make it into a funnier, happier Marvel clone.
Zack Snyder added over a 1/2 hour to make a 3 hour Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, now available only on HBOMax. The film, now R-rated, is director Zack Snyder's preferred version, with 8 major changes and a lot of minor additions or alterations and more intense violence. Characters are developed, the plot has a continuous flow and the action makes sense. I read the original version felt hurried and confused.
The revised Justice League is an epic masterpiece, if you like superhero movies. The film is so well done that is doesn't feel like 4 hours long. You get to know and care for each character through their individual backstories, how each values their independence and ultimately learn to trust each other to defeat a common enemy. Justice League now has a R rating, Batman swears more (as he should) and the battle scenes have plenty of brutal pounding, these superhero's really can take a beating.
The original Justice League was screened in widescreen but it was not filmed that way. Joss Whedon cropped the top and bottom off of the original 4:3 film to make it 1.85:1. The Snyder cut restores the original aspect ratio, you actually see more of the film, not less:
"My intent was to have the movie, the entire film, play in a gigantic 4:3 aspect ratio on a giant IMAX screen," Snyder explained last year at JusticeCon. "Superheroes tend to be, as figures, they tend to be less horizontal. Maybe Superman when he's flying, but when he's standing, he’s more of a vertical. Everything is composed and shot that way, and a lot of the restoration is sort of trying to put that back. Put these big squares back… it's a completely different aesthetic. It's just got a different quality and one that is unusual. No one’s doing that."
"Everything's composed and shot that way, and a lot of the restoration is sort of trying to put that back," Snyder said. "A lot of the work we're doing is trying to restore the full frame. It's like literally a restoration project at this point, because there were certain scenes that were just fucked up by the crop, so we have to kind of like fix it, a little bit."The sound on both films is well done, dialog is clear and easy to understand. I had my 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos turned up pretty loud and didn't feel the need to turn it down, always a good sign of excellent sound design.
If you haven't watched BvS or JL in 6 years you should do the whole enchilada, see both again. BvS extra 1/2 hour will make it feel like a whole new movie. The restored Justice League is a new movie, all of Joss Whedon's changes have been removed, what remains is Zack Snyder's vision of the DC Universe.
The Snyder Cut: What’s New, What’s Gone (and More About That Ending)“Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” out now on HBO Max, bears very little resemblance to the version of “Justice League” released by Warner Bros. in 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/movies/snyder-cut-ending.html 
