Zack Snyder’s long-awaited passion project receives poor reviews.

Zack Snyder’s long-awaited film, The Last Photograph, made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), but the reception has been far from favorable. Initial reviews have labeled the director’s latest effort as a tedious experience, burdened by poor direction and questionable themes. One user on X even remarked, “The worst movie of Zack Snyder’s career is always the next one.”

Film programmer and host of the Sleazoids podcast, Josh Lewis, shared his disappointment on X, stating, “It pains me to report that Zack Snyder spent 25 years trying to create his war journalist mercenary take on Apocalypse Now and The Searchers, and the final result is functionally indistinguishable from Sound of Freedom.”

Critic Nate Adams expressed his dismay, saying, “It’s borderline embarrassing that TIFF allowed The Last Photograph in. Absolutely abysmal.” Entertainment TikToker DawsOn added, “Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph is grotesque, shameless, and an utter disgrace from start to finish. It’s Snyder at his most unfiltered, with no studio intervention, which is the film’s biggest flaw. It desperately wants to be Snyder’s Civil War, but instead feels like Daily Wire slop filled to the brim with shock value.” As expected, Snyder’s supporters quickly rallied on social media, defending him against the critics who panned the film.

The official synopsis for The Last Photograph reads:

An ex-DEA operative must return to the mountains of South America to find his missing niece and nephew after their diplomat parents are brutally murdered. Teaming up with a washed-up junkie war photographer, the only person who has seen the killers’ faces, he embarks on a mission to uncover the truth and rescue the children. However, he soon realizes he must confront the ghosts of his past. Their journey into the unknown takes them further from civilization, challenging their beliefs and blurring the lines between reality and the surreal.

The film features Stuart Martin as Ethan Black, a vengeful ex-DEA agent, and Fra Fee as the troubled photographer. Snyder has been developing this project on and off for nearly two decades, first conceptualizing it in the mid-2000s before putting it on hold in 2016 and later self-producing it through his company, The Stone Quarry.

Snyder’s recent films, the sci-fi duology Rebel Moon, have also faced harsh criticism, earning scores of 22% and 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. His filmography has seen its ups and downs, with his highest-rated films being 2004’s Dawn of the Dead at 77% and Zack Snyder’s Justice League at 71%. Out of his body of work, six films have received positive scores on Rotten Tomatoes, while eight have been deemed rotten. Snyder’s next project is a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.