With "Justice League: War", DC animation has officially entered the New 52 era, and what better inaugural story to adapt than the "Origin" arc from Justice League, detailing the heroes' first meetings and formation of the team. How does it hold up? While it shares some fall backs with its comic book source, I feel it improves upon it as well.
To start things out, it should be noted that this film is action based more than anything. If I had to compare it to something, it would to "Man of Steel", the action in that movie which I've also compared to Dragon Ball Z. The fights in "War" are definitely destructive, especially among the heroes themselves. The stand out scene to me is when Green Lantern places himself and Batman within an energy ball to protect themselves from Superman, only for the Man of Steel to smack the ball around Metropolis, causing a lot of damage in the process. It was like in Dragon Ball Z when Frieza froze Goku in his own orb of energy and smacked it around Namek.
However, that doesn't mean character interaction suffers. Like the original comic story, the banter between Batman and Green Lantern is the highlight. You have this guy with a ring that can do anything, and he's trying to deal with "just some guy in a costume" who feels superior to him. As Batman says to him later though, they're technically the only two normal people on the team, which makes their interaction very down to Earth if you think about it.
Since the New 52 depicts DC characters very differently than before, it would seem redundant to say that this film's depiction of Superman is unlike any other animated adaptation. Much like the original Siegel and Schuster comics and Grant Morrison's own depiction of the character in his Action Comics run, which was set along side the event of the Justice League origin story, this Superman is much more cocky and willing to show off. Between his first meeting with Batman and Green Lantern to dealing with a horde of Parademons, Superman wasn't afraid to show what he could do. Pretty much "punch first, ask questions later."
While on the subject of Superman, his first meeting with Batman is also something we haven't seen before in animation. Let's look at their first meeting in the original DC animated universe as a comparison:
When you think of Batman, he's the guy who's read for anything and won't take shit from anyone, like when he flipped the rational Superman and left him dumbfounded in the preceding clip. When the two first meet in "War", while Batman does his best to fight Superman, he honestly doesn't have a prayer. Combine the facts that Superman is more headstrong and that Batman probably knows nothing about Kryptonite at this point, it definitely makes Superman a little better in this version.
I won't spoil this part, but if there's one thing some Superman fans REALLY won't like, it's what he does to Desaad.
If I had to pick a breakout star in this film, it would be Wonder Woman. Think of it like Hulk in "The Avengers." Whenever she goes into action, she REALLY goes into action, especially against the Parademons. It probably helps that she's a born warrior compared to the other heroes. While that "born warrior" aspect kind of makes her initial non-action scenes hard to get through, what she ultimately gets into is worth those. Also, just as Hulk punched out Thor, she gives Shazam a hard hit as well. We also got some hints to the potential relationship between her and Superman; the two definitely had chemistry together in the film. It makes me hope that a future animated feature will focus more on the two.
Given that the rest of League have already been active up to this point, the film only details the origins of Cyborg. Like the comic source, the catalyst to Victor Stone's transformation is him seeking appreciation and attention from his scientist father, which makes for great emotional moments in the film. Having my own father issues, it hit me as well. The strained relationship between Vic and his father has been an ongoing subplot in the main Justice League book, and has recently been resolved during the "Forever Evil" arc, though it seems like they've made amend by the end of the film. Though I guess they couldn't leave a loose end like that in a film compared to an ongoing monthly series. Still, it would have been nice to see how they made amends considering the last interaction between the two was Vic saying how his dad could only pay attention to him by making him a machine.
There has been some controversy in this film concerning the detail that Shazam had replaced Aquaman as a founding member of the League. I mean, Aquaman was such a badass in the original story that there was even a meme made:
However, once actually seeing the film, I can see that using Shazam was a good idea. As 15 year old Billy Batson, the boy is a fan of Victor Stone's high school football career. By placing Shazam on the team, this gives Cyborg more of a connection to someone than compared to anyone in the original story. In its essence, Shazam is the one who helps Vic see he still has some humanity in himself despite all that's happened. As for Shazam himself, he turned out to be a fun aspect of the film. Maybe it's because it's the same voice actor, but his attitude kind of reminded me of Raphael of the Ninja Turtles.
I have forgiven that Aquaman was not used in the film, especially since the mid-credits scene teases that the next Justice League film will be based on the "Throne of Atlantis" story. This also makes me realize that DC doesn't have to use the New 52 roster in all adaptations, which gave me the idea that they should use Green Arrow in Lantern's place in the live action film, and have Stephen Amell play the character and help tie the films and TV series together.
That brings us to Green Lantern and Flash. While Green Lantern is the first hero seen in the film and gets a lot of screen time, I found that he didn't really get too much respect in this film. Don't get me wrong, I like Green Lantern, but by the time Darkseid made his appearance and Hal charged at him headfirst two times only to get swatted away, not to mention getting his arm broken, I felt like he needed an "Owned Count" to keep track of his "fail" moments.
As for Flash, he really just seemed to be there for the sake of being there. Compared to being the focus in "The Flashpoint Paradox", it seems like the developers decided to make Barry sit in the back seat for this film.
With these two characters, I can now see why they didn't make the cover art.
Which brings us to the villains. Darkseid is of course the biggest threat to the DC universe, which is probably the reason he was used in the original story to begin with. While he and the Parademons were definitely threatening in the film, the one thing I found lacking was motivation. In the comics, we learn Darkseid had travelling the multiverse to find his runaway daughter and defeating each world's Superman in the process. At the moment, the Superman of Earth 2 has been brainwashed to serve him and the Superman of Earth Prime (which is what the Superman of this film is based on) has been the only one to defeat him. As for the film, it seems like Darkseid is just being evil for the sake of being evil.
There's also the one issue I had with the original story that I have in the film adaptation, and that's how they were defeated. Cyborg was able to open the Boom Tubes to pull Darkseid and the Parademons back to Apokolips. It just seems overly convenient and doesn't seem like a real defeat. To compare, the Chitauri forces in "Avengers" all conveniently died when their main warship was destroyed. It may seem like the same thing, but at least in "Avengers", they sent a message not to mess with Earth. In "War", it doesn't seem like Darkseid was scared into never attacking Earth again.
It's been stated that this film is the start of a new animated DC universe, with 2 films set within the continuity planned to be released every year, with the next film being "Son of Batman" coming this May. With "Justice League: War" the beginning of this new universe, it sets the tone for what's to come and introduces the new generation of voices actors for the iconic characters, though lifelong DC fans may find it hard to separate what they already know of the old continuity to fully enjoy this film. Overall, great action and character interaction make this an enjoyable film.
RATING: 8/10
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