Justice League War Review
With the start of a New Year, the DC Animated Universe Team is adapting another slew of fan favorite comic book stories. With a New Year and new beginnings, the best way to get everyone in the mood is by retelling the New 52 story that brought the Justice League together. If you are a fan of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee's work on the first story arc of the Justice League comic book, then this is your DC Animated Movie!
The DC Animated Universe Team does it again! They have successfully recreated one of the first stories of the New 52. While it does have it's fair share of issues (including story element changes) this story is: Seven individual heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Cyborg, and Shazam) are united to stop one common foe from destroying their world; Darkseid. And with this story it is an enjoyable experience to watch.
First off lets start with the good aspect of this movie. The movie does not waste any time establishing its heroes and showing that they will be facing a larger than themselves kind of threat. This was good on the writers part, because we have the character's relationships building within the situation itself. Instead of having the heroes isolated and content with their own problems, then suddenly wanting to band together and stop Darkseid. The writers did a superb job at making the heroes feel more connected with one another during this movie. It made them a bit more likable in this movie because the writers had each hero paired up or connected with the other in some way.
In this movie the writers showed a bit more respect to their fans. Showing that the writers are writing this for the fans and not just the average person. While this movie is easy for the average person to follow, you can tell by watching this that the writers aren't trying to dump information you already know (i.e. Superman and Batman's origins). The writers assume that their fan base is the ones who already know these things and are here to just enjoy this movie. I believe that the DC Animated Universe Team finally understands that their movies are for the loyal fans, while the comics are used to bring in the new viewership.
Another aspect that helped this movie was the voice actors. Shazam (Sean Astin - Lord of The Rings, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Billy Batson (Zach Callison - DC Showcase Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam, The Legend of Korra), Flash (Christopher Gorham - The Batman, Covert Affairs), Green Lantern (Justin Kirk - Weeds, Modern Family), Wonder Woman (Michelle Monaghan - Mission Impossible 3, Due Date), Cyborg (Shemar Moore - Criminal Minds), Batman (Jason O'Mara - Terra Nova), Superman (Alan Tudyk - Young Justice), and Darkseid (Steve Blum - Wolverine and the X-Men, Transformers Prime) all did an outstanding jobs in their respective roles. The actors were extremely comfortable in their roles and they helped breathe life into the characters and their different personalities.
A major problem with this movie is the obvious story element changes. Sure all movies based on books change, but a big problem I had with this movie was replacing Aquaman with Shazam in this movie. I'm not saying Shazam is a low point in this movie, some of the best lines came from Shazam. However, I feel this change was a bit forced, but with the end credits teaser in this film, it might look like the DC Animated Universe Team is looking to do something different with Aquaman and his people.
Justice League: War's execution has many characteristics that I hope to see in the eventual live action Justice League movie in 2017. The strong character bonding and good execution of a story. If you are a fan of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee's work, then this will be the best movie for you. It does have it's fair share of problems, but if you can ignore the story element changes, this can be an enjoyable experience. The DC Animated Universe Team did a great job pulling together their talents and working with the actors to pull this thing off. Overall 4 out of 5.
Justice League: War has a release date of February 4th, 2014. Available digitally and on DVD/Blu-Ray. You can pick this movie up via iTunes, Playstation Network, Xbox Marketplace, and more (Amazon.com Justice League: War http://amzn.to/1dPrLEr for a full list of the different special editions).
