we ranked Zack Snyder's movies from worst to greatest | EUROtoday
Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
Zack Snyder. This title alone, within the geek backwater, can elicit as many cries of admiration as sighs of dismay. With the director of 300, Batman v Superman Or Justice League, no center floor. While Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Slasher – sequel to his bold science fiction epic, launched final December – arrives on Netflix on April 19, a wind of nostalgia blows over the writer of those traces, who determined (loopy!) to revise then classify the set of ten function movies from popular culture's most turbulent pupil. Coming from an promoting background, Zack Snyder brilliantly started his Hollywood profession with Themilitary of the lifeless (2004), remake of Zombie by George A. Romero, absolute basic of the style.
Peplum, animated movie and above all superhero blockbusters… the director then threw himself head first into extra to supply a really private and hyperbolic imaginative and prescient of nice pop franchises. 300 (2006), Watchmen (2009), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)… Each time, a recurring type: muscular incarnation, profusion of sluggish movement, insistent spiritual symbolism. A system that has struck a chord with a phase of the general public – his work nonetheless culminates in practically three billion euros in international field workplace income – who extraordinarily revere the filmmaker's artwork.
Snyder's style for the ultra-spectacular has even made him a pioneer for his admirers. So a lot in order that Christopher Nolan (lately awarded for Oppenheimer) declared final December within the columns of the American journal The Atlantic “thatno superhero and sci-fi film today is not influenced by Zack [Snyder] “. Mass has been said ? Let's calm down and try to see more clearly in sorting the best and the worst of Private Snyder's Hollywood epic.
10. Army of the Dead (2021)
After a road accident, a zombie escapes from a convoy in Las Vegas and contaminates the surrounding area. Invaded, the city in the American West is placed under quarantine. A billionaire will have the brilliant idea of sending a group of soldiers (including Dave Bautista, star of Guardians of the Galaxy) to recover the 200 million dollars forgotten in a casino… surrounded by the living dead. Unquestionably the most idiotic in the ranking, Army of the Dead tried to reconcile a heist film with Ocean's Eleven and lots of zombies. Without success. The dialogues are drawn out, the slow motion is atrocious and the semblance of political fire never really takes off. There remains a nice introductory scene, and a 2022 Oscar gleaned from fan voting via the Internet, Covid obliges. Surprise, for a director adored online.
9. Rebel Moon – Part 1: Child of Fire (2023)
A colony of farmers settled on the peaceful moon Veldt sees its daily life turned upside down by the desire for annexation of the tyrant Balisarius (Fra Fee, Hawkeye). One of its residents with a troubled past, Kora (Sofia Boutella, seen in The Mummy), will launch the rebellion by bringing together a team of warriors recruited from across the Galaxy. A cruel, but inevitable ninth position. If this first Rebel Moon can boast of beautiful ideas, particularly aesthetic ones, he sins by having too many, too rarely developed. Almost non-existent direction of actors, numerous under-exploited settings, introductory lengths… The film serves as a stepping stone to its sequel, which has every interest in being fully spectacular.
8. The Kingdom of Ga'hoole: the legend of the guardians (2010)
Two young owls that have fallen from the nest are captured by evil, slightly eugenic owls, the “Pure Bloods”, who intend to ascertain a hierarchy of races among the many birds. Inflated by her religion within the “guardians”, a battalion of owls supposed to restore peace, Soren, one of the captives, escapes and sets off in search of these legendary heroes. UFO in the filmography of its director, The Kingdom of Ga'hoole marks Zack Snyder's first and only attempt at animation. Adapted from Kathryn Lasky's books, this ambitious, visually striking proposal (and still pretty, despite the fifteen years that have passed), struggles to exist once the “wow” effect has worn off. Recommended for moving interpersonal relationships.
7. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
The existence of the all-powerful Superman (Henry Cavill, The Witcher) does it necessarily imply that of a means of deterrence commensurate with its power? This is the dilemma posed to a grizzled Batman (Ben Affleck, Gone Girl), tormented by supervillain Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, Elusive), which behind the scenes weaves the confrontation between the two star heroes of DC Comics. Misunderstood. Frustrating. Anachronistic. There are not enough qualifiers to describe this work which, by playing the pessimism card galore, sometimes forgets the essence of the characters it adapts. Of Batman v Superman, we will remember slick photography, excellent casting and strong themes. We will throw away a needlessly convoluted plot and a messy final act as possible. Much better in the long version [« ultimate edition » en VO, NDLR]by the way.
6. Sucker Punch (2011)
After the death of her mother, of which she is wrongly accused, the heroine Baby Doll (Emily Browning, Legend) is placed in a psychiatric hospital to be lobotomized. In her thoughts, the epic story of an escape begins to be written where, accompanied by four other residents, she flees poverty to the rhythm of battles, each more supernatural than the last. The feminist scope of Sucker Punch is unfortunately restricted by a very unequal proposal. We are taken from ugliness to splendor for two hours, in an improbable hybridization between video game and manga. The interpretation often falls flat. At least the soundtrack, made up of covers of hits by Queen, Eurythmics and the Pixies, is great. A film that feels unfinished, which nevertheless deserves a second chance in 2024.
5. Man of Steel (2013)
Rewriting the origins of Superman, Man of Steel still follows young Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), an alien from the planet Krypton with immense powers, taken in by a family of farmers from Kansas. Child, then adolescent, then adult, Kent divides his life between growing up as an average human and learning to become a superhero. The suit fits Cavill like a glove. The British and other actors – Michael Shannon, Amy Adams and Diane Lane – shine. The film doesn't care about the milestones set by the inimitable Superman by Richard Donner (1978), whom the coward had wrongly followed before him Superman Returns (2006). And delivers a darker reading, certainly, but above all more down to earth of the legend of the Man of Steel. Be careful, however: high potential disappointment for the most purist fans of the hero.
READ ALSO “Ghostbusters: The Ice Menace”: save who can!
4. Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Snyder was compelled to depart the manufacturing of Justice League (2017) following the loss of life of his daughter, Autumn. The montage then launched within the cinema had been largely tinkered with by Joss Whedon (Avengers), employed every now and then, for a disgusting end result, for which you might be spared on this rating. In Zack Snyder's Justice LeagueBatman, Wonder Woman, Superman and their colleagues face the malevolent Steppenwolf, for a 4-hour XXL format… A protracted model, actually.
Released solely on VOD because of the mobilization of followers, the movie was in a position to compensate for the Whedon failure by giving full powers to its director. The complete factor is imperfect, however stuffed with coronary heart, chaptered in such a manner as to provide the viewer time to grasp what they’re seeing – or to take pauses. And then we love this Snyder-style imaginative and prescient of the super-team, virtually turning into a brand new Olympus… Already a hell of a chunk of the historical past of the style, if solely due to its very specific genesis.
3. Army of the Dead (2004)
Not to be confused with the latest Army of the Dead from the identical Snyder on Netflix, positioned on the backside of the pack in our rating. Army of the Dead (unique title : Dawn of the Dead – actually, Dawn of the Dead) was, in 2004, conceived by the director as a semi-remake of Zombie (1978) by George A. Romero, absolute basic of the style. The worldwide success of 28 days later by Danny Boyle had, in 2002, revived the style for the undead movie and triggered the inexperienced gentle from Universal studio for this rereading of Romero's revered masterpiece.
Army of the Dead follows a really disparate group of civilians cloistered in an American buying heart, after the emergence of an epidemic remodeling the world's inhabitants into devours of human flesh. More unbridled motion, much less social satire (Zombie implicitly denounced the over-consumption society of the Seventies, a political dimension completely absent from this remake), Zack Snyder's first function movie definitively reanimated, on the artistic and business ranges, a style then in an outdated coma. Gore galore, with a way of picture and a rhythm to knock your socks off, Army of the Dead even obtained the honors of an out-of-competition screening on the Cannes Film Festival. A deserved recognition.
2. 300 (2006)
In 480 BC, Leonidas (Gerard Butler), ruler of the Spartans of Greece, should defend his territory from the invasion of the Persians, led by the tyrant Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). He then brings collectively his 300 greatest troopers… To face tens of 1000’s. Adapted from the eponymous cartoon by Frank Miller, the movie is in actuality a largely fantasized account of the traditional battle of Thermopylae. The truth stays that the gang of body-built guys led by Butler impresses on this 100% digital however elegant setting, to be proven in all the nice particular results colleges. Legendary traces to the music of Tyler Bates (John Wick, Pearl), passing in fact by the “paw” (for the primary time so recognizable) Zack Snyder and the constancy to the unique materials, 300 doesn't simply appear to be a cult movie. He is.
1. Watchmen: The Guardians (2009)
In a Cold War America gripped by fears of nuclear battle, a group of superheroes as evil because the criminals they're imagined to cease is put into early retirement. Some of them will come out to research a plot involving vigilantes, which might properly finish in an change of missiles between the Soviets and Americans… Still terribly related, Watchmen is the zenith of Zack Snyder's profession.
A greater than honorable transposition of the sacred comedian ebook by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986). But additionally an actual writer's blockbuster, the place the fears of the period described on display brilliantly meet, whether or not they’re geopolitical or far more intimate. The movie unusually mixes the spectacular of the superheroic style whereas taking its reverse view. An strategy which, fifteen years later, nonetheless motivates many authors, similar to these of the collection The Boys And Invincible, to cross the edge of adaptation. Definitely among the best superhero movies.
https://www.lepoint.fr/pop-culture/rebel-moon-watchmen-300-on-a-classe-du-pire-au-meilleur-les-films-de-zack-snyder-19-04-2024-2558072_2920.php