Movie Review: Justice League: War

Rating: 2 stars

What can I say about Justice League: War? Well, I did like the animation style and some of the action scenes but as for the story. Well...it does hold true to it's original source material, the first six issues of the new 52 Justice League written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jim Lee as being a sub par story.



This wasn't as bad as the Justice League: The Flash Paradox (I didn't even bother to review that garbage because it was just too awful), but it wasn't that good either. It was just okay.

In Justice League: War, Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Shazam join up to try to stop Darkseid from trying to take over the Earth. I always thought that these superheroes despite being hated by the public and hounded by the police working together to try to save the world was a great premise but the story just didn't work in either the book or the movie.

I would say the biggest problem with this movie (besides the lackluster story and awful dialogue) was the character portrayals. They were even worst than the comic versions. A majority of the characters were extremely unlikeable with the exception of Batman, Cyborg and The Flash.

Why was Green Lantern such a complete and useless idiot in this? And not to mention a jerk, they seemed to have turned him into nothing more than an arrogant jerk who can't do anything (he was the weakest link in the group). And not to be out done by GL for being a jerk is Superman. This murderous meathead and colossal jerk's only function was to be the big dumb muscle bound alien because I don't think he came up with one idea or plan throughout the whole movie. Poor Wonder Woman, she was transformed from the once regal and intelligent warrior and princess into nothing more than an airheaded simpleton whose only purpose seems to be fighting. Oh, and since Aquaman wasn't even in this, which I don't understand why? Does anyone know why they decided to cut him completely out of the story and replace him with the annoying and bratty jerk that is Shazam (the former Captain Marvel)? Rumor has it Aquaman is supposed to be getting his own animated movie.

And lastly, what happened to Darkseid? He is supposed to be the ultimate bad guy and villain. He is feared and for a good reason because he's more than just some intergalactic enforcer and murderer (like he was shown in the movie) he's calculating and has an evil yet keen mind. The Darkseid in this movie was a mindless monster.

The poor characterizations were bad enough, then they had to start introducing the Superman and Wonder Woman fauxmance in the movie. Something else that annoyed me was the guys acting like Wonder Woman was some kind of thing they could call dibs on and fight over. With all the things they could have included from the comic why include this low point.

What I think this movie did do a good job on was Cyborg's side story. I wish they had put as much time and effort into the rest of the movie as they did with that particular aspect of the film.

So what does this movie have? Let's see, a substandard story, poor characterizations and inferior voice acting. It's so rare that the voice acting isn't good in one of these animated movies especially with Andrea Romano as Voice Director. But in Justice League: War, most of the voice acting was dull and boring and generic. It felt like the actors just phoned it in most of the time.

This wasn't the best movie to start off with if they were trying to bring the new 52 into the animated movies. I wish DC had started with the Green Lantern instead that was a far better quality first arc than the JL's which wasn't very good.

I hope the next animated movie, "Son of Batman" will be much better, because it just has to be an improvement over this.


Side note: If you want to see a less jerky and arrogant version of Billy Batson (Shazam/Captain Marvel) or for that matter Superman, please check out the animated short, DC Showcase: Superman/Shazam! The Return of Black Adam. It's really worth watching.

And if you want to see a more interesting Justice League story please watch Justice League Doom. This has a great story and amazing voice acting.

Or you might want to watch Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. It's also a really good movie.