I did it. I watched the Snyder cut. Precisely nobody here will be surprised to learn that it's definitely far superior to the shitty theatrical version. The new characters get better introductions, especially Cyborg, who has a solid arc balancing his self-discovery and his relationship with his father, Affleck is no longer bloated and exhausted (not to mention he isn't spouting awful quips), and god help me, even the Flash isn't nearly as insufferable as he was in the Whedon version. Ezra Miller's chirpy singsong cadence still grates, and I didn't find any of his jokes funny, but I no longer felt the urge to smack him every time he opened his mouth, so...baby steps. Visually, the movie is far more impressive, with better cinematography, more appropriate lighting, and more polished effects.
Does this make the Snyder cut a good movie? In a word, no. Snyder simply can't get over his apparent fixation on his films being first and foremost a gallery of heroic tableaus and epic, awe-inspiring shots. It feels as though most of his scenes, and certainly every action scene, are designed with this thought in mind - not about telling the story in the best way, not about letting us get to know the characters, but having as many opportunities as possible for someone to pause the movie, look at the screen, and say, "Wow, this looks awesome!" And to be clear, sometimes it really does look great. But films are more than a series of dramatic poses. When something like that is clearly the director's biggest priority, it shows, and the rest of the movie suffers as a result.
And then there's the constant slow-motion. After wisely toning that element of his movies down in MoS and BvS, Snyder has brought it back with a vengeance, and now there's so much of it that it becomes tiresome, and loses whatever unique factor it might have had to begin with. I shouldn't have to explain this, but if you take a cool element and completely overexpose it, use it way too much, it's just not going to seem cool anymore. And why does he keep using it for the Flash's scenes? He doesn't just make the world around him slow, he makes the Flash himself slow too! He literally makes the character known entirely for his speed slow for dramatic effect! Why, Zack, why? Speaking of the Flash, he still has the same exaggerated limb movements in close-ups while running. It looks really, really silly, and I don't know what the point of it was.
One more thing I want to criticize is how deliberately the movie aims for an R rating, or to be more specific, how a PG-13 movie has been edited to earn it an R rating for no apparent reason. Parademons spew digital blood when killed, the camera lingers on their mangled bodies afterward as if to emphasize that yes, they're definitely dead, and even scenes from earlier versions of the movie have been edited to be more violent. That last one I can prove. Four years ago in this thread I posted this gif from a trailer:
Bear in mind that this was before Whedon became involved with the movie. Anyway, Wonder Woman doesn't simply knock the Parademons off in the Snyder cut, she slashes them open bloodily. Why? What's the benefit of taking a PG-13 movie (as opposed to a property with adult themes or content baked into its DNA) and slathering some superficially R-rated stuff like a few shoehorned "fucks" and a ton of digital blood over it? My guess is simply that Snyder is the kind of edgelord who believes that mainstream capeshit, starring mainstream capeshitters like Batman and Superman, should be aimed primarily at edgy adults instead of kids and families, despite the fact that these movies are always marketed towards and make a lot of money from kids and families. It's very petty, childish gatekeeping, and it's genuinely sad how many people seem to agree with Snyder on this and enthusiastically cheer him on.
This ridiculous IGN review, for example, says, "Hearing Batman say f*** is rad," and even uses it as a pull quote.
A final few thoughts. The movie is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio (meaning shitty black bars on both sides of the screen) for
pretentious reasons. Martian Manhunter is in this, despite adding nothing and the "reveal" of whom he's been disguised as all this time not jibing at all with that character's past behavior. Also, his introduction completely undermines what had up to that moment been a nice scene between Martha and Lois discussing their shared grief (Why? Why couldn't those two have genuinely had that nice, heartfelt moment together? Why did he have to be disguised as one of them?) for Clark. Snyder actually had the balls to stick another stupid "Knightmare" scene at the end of the movie, and while it's not at all a good scene, either in terms of the current film or the future of the franchise, I can't help but kind of admire his dedication to such a stupid bit. Jared Leto's Joker is in that scene, and while he's still kind of annoying, especially his dumb wheezing laugh, there's no doubt he's far better than he was in SS. Oh, and it's four hours long.