(Image Source: Warner Bros. Pictures)
The new action drama The Last Photograph from Justice League director Zack Snyder held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend. Several critics and media figures who attended the screening quickly shared brief first impressions on social media. Judging by the overall response so far, the first wave of reactions has been nothing short of brutal, with most offering exceptionally harsh criticism.
“The Last Photograph is a real nasty piece of business. Zack Snyder clearly got to make the film he wanted to make, and good for him, but man oh man is it one I wish I hadn’t seen. Boring, bloated, brutally violent, it’s excessive in all the wrong ways.”
“Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph abandons much of the visual flair that usually makes his films stand out, and what remains is painfully dull. The dialogue is awful, the performances are lifeless, and the violence and nudity feel forced. It is slow and exhausting; honestly, just sitting through the entire film is a grueling experience. I feel completely drained.”
“THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH—Zack Snyder’s abortion of a film—is one of the worst to ever play this festival. APOCALYPSE NO. Just unabashedly shit on every level, an exercise in incompetence and hubris, and an embarrassment to have been screened.”
“Zack Snyder tries so hard to make an arthouse movie with The Last Photograph that the finished film feels like a parody. Gratuitous and meandering, it has an intriguing premise that is ultimately undone by Snyder’s worst creative impulses and some truly wooden performances.”
“I’m still thinking about The Last Photograph, turning it over more and more in my mind, and I have to say that my feelings as I walked out were genuinely mixed. I still enjoyed parts of it, but I have to admit that some stretches were fucking miserable.”
“Put Zack Snyder in director jail permanently. THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH is dogshit. It’s aimless, contrived, misogynistic, convoluted, messy, overly long, abysmal, repetitive, slow, shallow, and downright awful. The only positive—it looked pretty.”
“The Last Photograph: about 90 minutes of it is a brutal, unrelenting thriller. Some incredible action and uncompromisingly rough. But there’s another 45 minutes of supremely indulgent auteur gunk that is snicker-worthy. There’s a good movie in it—but the cut we saw is a fascinating mess.”
“Watching The Last Photograph must’ve been like when the boys felt watching Medellín in Entourage. Possibly one of the worst films I’ve had the displeasure of sitting through. Snyder joking that this may be the only time the film is screened doesn’t feel like a joke anymore.”
“Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph is grotesque, shameless and an utter disgrace from start to finish. It is Snyder at his most unfiltered, with no studio intervention, and that is the film’s largest problem. It’s desperate to be Snyder’s Civil War, but feels like Daily Wire slop filled to the brim with shock value. This is a passion project I’m glad he got to make for his own catharsis, but it should have stayed on the ideas board. It brings me no joy to say this, but this is not only Snyder’s worst film—it is frankly one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.”
“Guys, I’ve seen Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph at TIFF, and those negative reviews are wildly exaggerated. This is actually a good movie. It’s Zack Snyder’s storytelling style on steroids. If you’ve seen Sucker Punch, you know exactly what I mean.”
(Image Source: Toronto International Film Festival)
The Last Photograph follows a former DEA agent whose niece and nephew go missing after their diplomat parents are murdered. To find them, he is forced to return to the mountains of South America and seek help from a washed-up, drug-addicted war photographer—the only person who has seen the killer’s face. Once the journey begins, the former agent soon realizes that he must also confront the shadows of his own past. As the two men venture into the unknown, they begin questioning everything they once believed, while the line between reality and the surreal gradually blurs.
The film is based on an original story by Snyder, with a screenplay by Kurt Johnstad, who previously worked with Snyder on the 300 and Rebel Moon franchises. Rebel Moon cast members Stuart Martin and Fra Fee star. No release date has been announced, as the film has yet to secure a distributor.