'Justice League: War' Review

I like reading comic books, and DC in particular.  I started out interested in comics from an early age having watched the 90’s Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons on a Saturday morning and was drawn into the world of Marvel and their characters.  It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I actually started reading comics and it was at this point I was drawn more towards DC.  Their characters, history and the legacy of the universe is what won me over.  I liked the fact that I could go back and read about the Golden Age Flash, see him meet Barry Allen, see Barry train Wally West and Wally eventually take over for Barry and grow into the mantle himself.  It felt real and natural and there was so much character growth.

With that said I have to admit that I was upset when DC announced the New 52 and rebooted their universe.  Some of the changes they have made have been okay, some of the new stores they’ve told have been brilliant.  But on a whole I miss the old universe, I miss the history and depth it had.

The first new book of this new universe was Geoff Johns’ Justice League title that told the new version of the formation of the Justice League.  In this new version they had the six classis characters of Batman, Superman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Wonder Woman, The Flash (Barry Allen) and Aquaman.  The seventh spot on the team went to Cyborg this time round rather than the much better Martian Manhunter, one of the best and most powerful characters in the DC Universe.

Darkseid invades the Earth with his armies.

Despite liking Johns’ work I really didn’t like this new Justice League.  I found the characters all came across as either idiots or arseholes.  The story was fairly run of the mill with nothing new or interesting to it and by the end of it I found myself with a sinking feeling for the whole of the new universe.

DC’s latest animated film ‘Justice League War’ is based on this new origin tale and is the start of their new line of ‘New 52’ movies.  For the most part I’ve enjoyed the DC animated films and went into this one with a bit more of an open mind, especially as they’ve added Shazam (Captain Marvel) to the roster too, another character that I absolutely love.

Shazam replaces Aquaman in the Justice League roster.

Unfortunately the film captured everything of the original story and magnified it.  A dull plot that’s pretty much one long boring fight, characters that are just shit and go against what they should be and the worst thing a film can do, it was just boring!

I’m really disappointed with DC for this offering.  Green Lantern acts like a cock, Superman just wants to hit everyone (except for Wonder Woman who he wants to fuck),  Shazam acts like a stupid kid (yeah I know he is a kid but what happened to the wisdom of Solomon?  He’s supposed to be wise when he’s powered up for Christ sake!).

Wonder Woman is handled particularly badly too, I know that she’s new to ‘mans world’ but she acts like she’s lived alone in a cave for years her interaction skills are so poor.  Unless she’s the only person who was on Paradise Island she’s clearly got some kind of autism.  I don’t mean that in a harsh way, I know people with autism and they’re lovely, but Wonder Woman here just seems like a poorly handled stereotype of someone with an inability to social interact appropriately.

The heroes fight each other as much as the enemy.

I suppose I have to be nice about some aspect of the film, apart from the terrible story, dire characters and bad voice acting…um, some of the animation is nice I guess.  It’s not the worst looking DC animated movie, that award has to go to the fucking dire ‘New Frontier’, but pretty animation can’t save a poor film.  If anything it makes me think of the terrible ‘All Star Batman and Robin’, a pretty book but other than that it was fucking dire!

I hope that this is not the shape of things to come for the DC films, this film barely held my attention and kind of shit on some characters that I really like.  Please DC, stop fucking over existing fans that respect our company and your heritage just on the off chance that you might draw in some new fans.

Amy.
xx

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