Justice League finally has a runtime - and it's a surprising one. Previous rumors had the film being as long as three hours, but it seems like Zack Snyder's epic team-up will be the shortest of the entire DCEU so far, coming in at a mere 121 minutes. This is a very good thing.

Of course, the announcement that Justice League will be only two hours (with change) has already got its fair share of reactionary takes. Many DCEU fans seem annoyed that the film is going to come in over an hour shorter than Snyder's previous film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition, bringing up the still-raging debate over the chops and changes made to the film by Joss Whedon. Indeed, considering the movie was going to once be a two-part story, for it to now have a runtime less than villain romp Suicide Squad definitely feels unexpected.

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But, really, there's no way we can see this as anything but a positive development. There's a lot of varied expectations for Justice League, but almost every side should be happy with this outcome.

It Avoids One of Batman v Superman's Biggest Criticisms

Henry Cavill as Superman in Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice

Putting it lightly, Batman v Superman was not the most liked movie. Its reviews were savage and the cultural standing of it has only been further chipped away by the cries a thousand Marthas. It does have its fans and made an impressive $872M, but the numbers are much lower in both camps than what Warner Bros. likely wanted. The fact is, BvS is divisive, and that it's remained in the cultural discussion in the eighteen months since only serves to highlight how objectionable so many found it.

Central to these criticisms was the film's structure. Pretty much every aspect of Snyder's style was called into question - the saturated images, the needless comic book callbacks, the blunt and confused deconstructions, the bewildering entirety of Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, the obviousness of its textual themes - but the fact that the film was so protracted and seemingly so random was a major part of it. Yes, defenders will claim it's meant to be a five-act play, but the execution doesn't deliver anything of that weight. It's a long film, coming in theatrically at 151 minutes, and while the Ultimate Edition does plug some of the holes, it does so with an extra thirty minutes of running time, hardly the most accommodating.

Justice League has its own behind-the-scenes narrative but certainly exists in Dawn of Justice's shadow. Being shorter means it automatically gets some plus points from dissenters and has a chance to avoid the problems that plagued Batman v Superman and Man of Steel before it. Beyond addressing backlash, though, it has a strong organic purpose.

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Length is a big issue outside of the DCEU, of course. A bad movie is a bad movie if it's 40 minutes (the shortest classification for a feature film) or 240 minutes, but the shorter one has less opportunity for it to outstay its welcome. Even widely-beloved films can be sniffed at for pushing well into three-hour territory - Blade Runner 2049 has raves from audiences and critics alike, yet it's still lumbered with accusations of being too long or, that criticism's close cousin, boring.

Justice League can avoid all this inherently by just getting down and telling its story. There is still the genuine concern it'll be too short and thus scrappy, perhaps choppy because of its two directors, although we're not really talking about something that's only just making 90 minutes with credits. For all the production issues, this doesn't sound like Fant4stic or The Dark Tower where a product that can barely be called a movie was being cobbled together for a forced deadline. In fact, when you look at what Justice League is, it all begins to make sense.

Justice League team together banner

Justice League Doesn't Need To Be Three Hours

When it comes down to it, two hours is on the long side for films - 100 minutes is the ideal mark - and going over requires real purpose and the promise of something to keep audiences engaged. That it's become commonplace in recent years for movies to hew closer to 2 hours 20 minutes is a misplaced notion of more bang for buck, and proliferation doesn't mean it's right: when you're getting comedies coming in at two hours or films about robots punching each other nearing three, there's struggles.

Length should fit the product, and from what we know about Justice League, it's not going to be too complex a narrative. Unlike BvS, which still boggles, it's going to be a standard, three-act adventure: Bruce Wayne unites the League in the face of extra-terrestrial threat; the team tries and fails to stop Steppenwolf once; they're rejoined by Superman and all is well. It's naturally going to be more involved, but from everything that's been said by those involved and shown in the trailers, that's the score; there may be something major hiding, but that's rarely how Hollywood works, especially Warner Bros., and as Superman is the hidden factor of choice, it would be weird for anything to be so secret.

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That's a perfect fit for two hours of film. The story can be told in a tight way that balances narrative thrust and character dynamics with little fat. Indeed, we've already seen similar this year. Dunkirk was a war movie, and one of the best at that, yet came in as Nolan's shortest since his debut. There the fact it was 107 minutes didn't hurt; it made the point better. There's a misconstruing of length with weight and worth, especially in genre fare that often is overlooked in serious circles that's frankly misplaced. If a movie can be complete in a shorter time, why pad it out just for the illusion of prestige?

Justice League Trailer War Prologue

In that vein, there's sure to be some upset that the film isn't going to be a sprawling epic that goes down in history as the superhero genre's answer to The Lord of the Rings, but that's not what Justice League is or ever was trying to be. It has the epic battle in the prologue and will feature the Earth in peril, but there has been no suggestion of it ever being anything more than that basic romp under either Snyder or Whedon. Those wanting some grand scale modern myth that gives Lawrence of Arabia a run for its money are, quite simply, expecting the wrong sort of film.

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Justice League is going to be very different to everything that's come before in the DCEU. It's the redemptive step of the Superman trilogy and, being less about tortured aliens and even more broken vigilantes, has a light, more varied tone. That it's shorter is less important than any of that, but if it does say anything about the finished product, it's only positive.

Next: Justice League 2 Script Already In The Works

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