OK so it's no wonder why Schnepp who despised the movie completely looks at the Ultimate Cut as pretty damn good. I know I'm repeating everybody who's already discussed it but it's really night and day. Off the top of my head here's what was done that improves the movie:
Provided more context for Superman's alleged murders in Africa--in the theatrical release, we're all like "why the **** would they blame him for killing people with bullets"--what happens is they ended up cutting a scene where they dump a huge amount of the bodies in a pile and torch them, and then torch some of the others scattered around. It looks like Superman flew in and just washed everybody. This was a huge plothole to me and it was resolved nicely.
It turns out the African woman who claimed her family was murdered by Supes was a LexCorp plant. Don't want to ruin too much of what happens there but it inadvertently brought the lulz
People complained about Superman not seeing the bomb, but the movie explains it was lined with lead, which most people guessed.
A lot of people complained about Clark's lack of lines, well say no more. There's plenty of lines, Clark being a reporter, and most importantly his investigation of the Batman provides more motivation for the conflict, especially regarding the "being branded is a death sentence" situation.
Lois Lane's subplot with the bullet is remarkably less stupid because we understand that she's wondering why the hell there's a bullet just sitting around at the site of an alleged Superman heat vision massacre.
Lex Luthor's plot to kill Superman (up until Doomsday but I'll get into that later) is very solid and airtight.
Snyder is beast in the cinematography and visuals game still
Now, there are still issues that are just a result of the C+ script and no amount of editing can fix, and they mostly revolve around the third act:
Like I said, Lex's plan works and is great, RIGHT UP UNTIL Doomsday. Actually, we get a little more of Lex's motivation for wanting Superman dead, but it's not enough. A little bit of the classic "Lex hates the idea of a god-like superhuman", but it's not fleshed out enough. Just a poorly written character overall. I still like Jesse's performance, I just prefer a little less jitters next time.
Batman and Superman's 20 minute fight to the death over a misunderstanding is still ridiculously stupid.
LIKE BRUH JUST TELL HIM LEX HAS YOUR MOM. WHY THE **** DID YOU SHOVE HIM 20 FEET AWAY FOR
"Martha..." Still not feeling that.
There's still no context as to why Lex released Doomsday. Like I could understand after realizing your plot failed and doing it as a last resort but it seems like he was in the process of releasing him even as Bats and Supes were battling....wut?
So I'm not sure why the studio pushed so hard to release that butchered theatrical cut when people would have sat in the theater for that 3 hour movie, especially now knowing it would have gotten a good reception/word of mouth. Just looking back on it the original cut is just a horrible movie. The Ultimate Cut is a good, damn great flick.
Still cautiously optimistic about JL. Just need an airtight script. And I really hope Hans Zimmer comes back. I think this was the best score of any CBM aside from Spidey 1 and 2.
Interested in what Seamanup and Osh Kosh Bosh have to say about this cut.