Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Zack Snyder’s filmography, including Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Army of the Dead, and Sucker Punch.
It’s no secret that Zack Snyder is one of the most controversial directors in Hollywood. On the one hand, he has fateful fans who unquestioningly praise his movies. On the other, a different crowd constantly bashes him and reduces all of his efforts to a hack.
Love or hate him, there’s no denying that Snyder is a highly influential voice in filmmaking, for better or worse. Because of that, dismissing his entire filmography is as much of a mistake as thinking his movies are immune to criticism. To understand why the director’s work is so polarizing, let’s look at the five most controversial movies he’s made over the course of his prolific career.
Army of the Dead: The one that somehow got an Oscar
After Snyder’s involvement with the DC Extended Universe, he got a legion of followers angry at Warner Bros. Discovery for derailing its cinematic universe. While Warner’s lack of transparency when parting ways with Snyder was undoubtedly unfair, he landed on his feet by signing a multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix. The first original IP to come out of this deal was Army of the Dead, a zombie apocalypse flick featuring an all-star cast and thrilling action scenes.
While Army of the Dead is entertaining, the critic and public consensus is that the movie is far from a masterpiece. Despite this, Army of the Dead went on to win an Oscar in 2022. That year, the Academy decided to do an experiment by offering an award to the Fan Favorite movie of the year. Snyder fans, quite vocal on social networks, began to advocate for Army of the Dead. In their eyes, an Academy Award would somehow balance out the end of the SnyderVerse. Against all odds, Army of the Dead did win the popularity contest and the Fan Favorite Academy Award. There is a catch, though, as some concerns were raised about the online voting process being rigged by bots. These claims were never fully confirmed or wholly dismissed, only fueling the fire. People who love Snyder felt avenged by Army of the Dead’s Academy Award, but people who hate him used the supposed bots to complain.
Man of Steel: The one that angered Superman fans
Man of Steel takes many liberties with the original material to create Snyder’s version of the Superman origin story. As happens with almost every superhero film, comic book fans were not happy about this. The most criticized aspect of Man of Steel was its third arc, in which Henry Cavill’s Superman clashes with Michael Shannon’s Zod. During their fight, dozens of buildings and thousands, if not millions, of people are caught in the crossfire of the Kryptonian war. In addition, Superman ends the conflict by snapping Zod’s neck, a choice that’s not aligned with the comic book’s Boy Scout persona of the hero.
The decision to show Superman killing Zod reflects Snyder’s intention to create a darker superhero universe, something that continues to bother fans. However, even the director seemed to agree that the thoughtless mass destruction caused by the end fight of Man of Steel was worth criticizing. It’s no wonder that Snyder’s direct sequel to Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, retells the Superman fight against Zod from the perspective of scared civilians watching gods wreak havoc without considering the fate of humans. That was a clever way for Snyder to incorporate fan criticism into his work, but Man of Steel’s destruction had an undesirable effect, too. From then on, Warner decided big DCEU fights could no longer involve civilian casualties, leading to bland and tasteless atrocities such as the third arc of 2017’s Justice League.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: The one that killed the SnyderVerse
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice received so much attention that it became one of the most controversial movies of all time. Almost everyone agrees that Jesse Eisenberg’s take on Lex Luthor was a misfire, but things get messy when we break down Snyder’s other polarizing decisions for the film. For instance, even if Batman had already been killed in different media, no version of the hero was as ruthless as Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight. There’s also the infamous Martha scene in which the duel between Batman and Superman is halted because the World’s Greatest Detective suddenly discovers the name of the Man of Steel’s mother.
To be fair, the expectations surrounding Batman v Superman were on the ceiling, and Snyder had to deal with a lot of executive meddling when crafting his ambitious film. The extended version of Batman v Superman also adds some depth to some controversial aspects of the story, showing how Lex is behind prison deaths supposedly caused by Batman and building up the Martha scene into a moment where the Dark Knight first sees humanity in Superman. Yet, the movie remains polarizing because only Snyder converts watched the extended cut, and most people got the regular (and underwhelming) theatrical cut. That underlines Snyder’s most significant difficulty as a filmmaker: understanding that he must make his story fit in an average theatrical runtime.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League: The one that prevented the SnyderVerse from dying
After Batman v Superman failed to impress Warner executives, Synder was booted to the side while Justice League was still shooting. Joss Wheadon took the helm of the production and was tasked with reshooting and recutting Snyder’s intended story to fit the executives’ taste. The immediate result is one of the worst superhero movies of all time. The most bothersome consequence was the “Release the Snyder Cut” movement, in which the director’s fans demanded for his version, more often than not by attacking people who had nothing to do with Warner’s executive decisions (more recently James Gunn and Peter Safran, the new heads of DC Studios).
It took years, but Warner Bros. decided to give fans what they wanted and paid Snyder to finish his version of the movie. In 2021, we finally watched Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a four-hour epic featuring some of the greatest DC heroes ever. Even Snyder haters admit the movie is far superior to the theatrical version. Then again, there’s no way any movie studio would greenlight a four-hour cut to hit theaters, which brings us back to Snyder having trouble understanding the constraints of the movie format. Furthermore, Warner was mistaken when deciding that the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League would appease fans. Instead, it made the “Restore the SnyderVerse” crowd more active than ever, prolonging the life of a toxic fan movement.
Sucker Punch: The one that is considered both feminist and misogynist
There’s no movie in Snyder’s career as controversial as Sucker Punch. That’s because it’s almost universally hated for two very distinct reasons. Some people denounce the hyper-sexualization of the movie’s female cast and paint Sucker Punch as a profoundly misogynistic story. Other people got enraged to find out that their fantasy movie had a feminist ethos. But how can a film be feminist and misogynistic at the same time? Well, that results from good intentions, poor execution, and abhorrent studio meddling.
With Sucker Punch, Snyder has tried to deconstruct the male gaze in pop culture by having hypersexualized female characters while, at the same time, denying the public the pleasure of titillation. He never focuses the camera on the women’s bodies ⏤ the sexy dance of the main character, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), always happens off-screen ⏤ and the story of violence and harassment is disturbing enough to prevent the public from seeing the characters as mere objects of desire. However, Snyder is not as provocative in Sucker Punch as he thinks, because the women only gain more agency in imaginary worlds, a male figure still guides them, and the stylish action makes the story look so good that it can be consumed as passive entertainment instead of as a critique on the male gaze.
The worst offender in Sucker Punch, however, is the marketing campaign designed by Warner Bros. We might even wonder if the studio sabotaged Snyder on purpose. The trailers and marketing images of Sucker Punch focus on the sexualized characters, promising an arousing cinematic experience. Those against the male gaze have dismissed the movie only by looking at the marketing material. Those who seek this exact kind of entertainment, on the other hand, get disappointed when they watch it. That’s why, in the end, Sucker Punch was a failure at the box office as well as with critics and audiences.