Movie Review: Justice League: War

DC Animated features have a pretty good reputation and are widely held as successful. They are announced months in advance and anticipated by fans. No other straight to DVD animated movies have that kind of hype. That said, in recent years I personally have found these films lacking. The animation has seemed lazy and the stories haven't been great. So my anticipation was somewhat tempered for Justice League: War, the animated film version of the New 52 comic book series Justice League: Origins. So did Justice League: War redeem DC's animated offerings? Let's break it down.

The Good

For one thing, you can't complain about the action in this film. The story involves the world being invaded by flying aliens and sees the individual members of the Justice League fighting them off as they come together for the first time. Among the most bad-ass action is Wonder Woman, without a doubt. After watching her scenes, all I could think was "I hope Zack Snyder watches this!" Other than the action, I felt the voice acting was pretty stellar including Jason O'Mara as a very grizzled Batman and Sean Aston (of Lord of the Rings fame) as Shazam. I also felt that a major standout voice talent here was Justin Kirk in the role of Green Lantern. He perfectly captured the humor inherent in Hal Jordan. The story was amazing as well. Of course, the story was not original, having been taken from the comic book series, but it bears mentioning as a great part of this movie.

The Bad

One gripe I have with the film is the lack of Aquaman. The original comic book story did not have Shazam, but Aquaman instead. Clearly, DC didn't feel Aquaman had enough appeal to contribute to the film so they swapped him out with Billy Batson. Don't get me wrong, Shazam was pretty good in the movie and Sean Aston did a great job, but I was offended on behalf of Aquaman. The only other part I didn't like was the animation. I said this before, but it felt primitive, for lack of a better word. It's hard for me to watch amazing animated movies and shows that use modern techniques, or even modern movies that use old-fashioned hand drawn animation, and then go back to watching these DC movies that look like bad anime. You can do better WB.

The Verdict

Poor animation and disappointing character choices were not enough to detract in a meaningful way from the great story, action and performances in Justice League: War. 

Dusty's Score: 7 out of 10

image source: Wikipedia