The Last Photograph Reactions Slam Zack Snyder's 'Passion Project'

It's not controversial to say that Zack Snyder is a polarizing filmmaker. Sure, he's made very successful movies, but for the most part even his best films get quite mixed reactions. It's undeniable that Snyder has a great eye for iconography and visuals, with his films often having striking imagery. And yet, they can be quite flat and empty when it comes to storytelling. A Zack Snyder movie is easy to recognize, for good and ill.

After making two massive flops at Netflix with the "Rebel Moon" movies, Snyder is back with a new feature film. This time, Snyder is doing things differently, directing a movie based on someone else's script rather than something he himself wrote (though Snyder did write the original story). The film stars Stuart Martin and Fra Fee as a former DEA agent and a war photographer who venture into a jungle in South America to find the agent's missing niece and nephew, as well as get revenge for the murder of the kids' parents.

The film has been in development since at least 2011, as it was originally meant to star Christian Bale and Sean Penn, with "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" director Niels Arden Oplev initially attached to direct. After many delays, Snyder eventually decided to take on directorial duties himself.

"The Last Photograph," which Snyder directed from a screenplay by "300" writer Kurt Johnstad, just debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Following the film's premiere in Toronto, the first critic reactions are hitting social media, and they are even worse than you might expect. For just one example: the Globe and Mail critic Barry Hertz tweeted that the film is a "lurid, turgid, and not a little bit racist tour up river."

"The Last Photograph" is the latest passion project Zack Snyder has managed to turn into a movie, but even compared to his last few films, this feels especially important to him. In addition to directing, Snyder also served as cinematographer and cameraman on the film. It is notably his most independent production to date, done without a studio or even a streamer involved.

Unfortunately, critics were not charmed by the film. Freelance critic Elizabeth Mulloy took to Twitter to say that Snyder needs to be put in directors' jail, calling it "aimless, contrived, misogynistic, convoluted, messy, overtly long, abysmal, repetitive, slow, shallow, and downright awful." Likewise, That Shelf editor Jason Gorber wrote, "Snyder's abortion of a film is one of the worst to ever play this festival. APOCALYPSE NO. Just unabashedly s**t on every level, an exercise in incompetence and hubris, and an embarrassment to have been screened." Meanwhile, Fox News producer Evan Miller called the film a parody of art house cinema. "Gratuitous and sluggishly paced, it features a compelling premise that's held back by Snyder's worst tendencies as a filmmaker and shoddy performances," he said on Twitter.

Indeed, the reactions have all been quite negative on "The Last Photograph." Some called the film "functionally indistinguishable from 'Sound of Freedom,'" others tweeted that the film was "grotesque, shameless and an utter disgrace from start to finish," while calling the film "Daily Wire slop filled to the brim with shock value." Next Best Picture editor Matt Neglia called this "Easily the worst film I've seen at TIFF so far," calling out the film's "misguided scripting choices, gratuitous violence and nudity, wooden dialogue, and hollow performances."