Liga de la Justicia Oscura

You have probably wandered into this review expecting some kind words about a "good effort" from Warner Animation but, of course, compared to the concurrent zillion-dollar Dr. Strange epic from Marvel, "no cigar." Well, you would be wrong.

For two reasons.

First, in spite of the big budget, and the big Benedict, Dr. Strange suffers from all kinds of narrative problems, and gaps in continuity. Mainly, I think, the result of trying to cram too much into a film -- trying to give a typical Marvel backstory while at the same time trying to present an exciting self-contained thriller.

(Dr. Strange also suffers from following too closely the original arcs of the original comics. And, before you start pounding on the NOT USEFUL key, you should know that this reviewer not only read all the originals in the series but actually SUBSCRIBED to Dr. Strange back in the day, which meant that the nice Marvel people actually mailed me each issue as it came out. In an envelope. The original story arcs were far from Marvel's best, compared to its better-known heroes, featuring the same two villains over and over, Nightmare and Dormammu, each taking turns boring the reader to death.)

Which brings us to this ambitious JLA entry, an attempt to show that the mighty DC library can possibly take on the mighty Marvel library, sort of a David Goliath thing....? Frankly, they nail it.

Part of the fun is the script. Man, is it tight. One of the best I have ever encountered in a "superhero" animation. Early in the story, a hot babe who is actually the essence of Constantine's magic house does a 30 second analysis of Batman and concludes he is mainly pain and darkness.

"How do you manage?," she asks sincerely.

"I HAVE A BUTLER" Batman responds deadpan.

That is one of the best lines of dialog I have ever encountered from DC. You could even hear the guys over at Pixar getting nervous. And, even better, the quality of the writing holds up for the entire film. Wow.

To sum up, the high score is because DC/Warner attempted the impossible, taking on a Marvel live action film with their own animated product at a fraction of the cost, and more or less pulled it off. And because the boyz at DC/Warner understood that sometimes less is more, and wisely kept the other (over-exposed) members of the JLA in the background. And, most of all, because this is an entertaining and engaging film.

In the wake of the inconsistency of the live-action, universe building marathon, it's refreshing to see a simpler, more straightforward, yet still effectively intriguing story-telling pace set by DC's animated feature titles. JLD continues the trend of it's predecessor, excelling at brief but complete introductions to some of DC's more obscure characters, bringing them out of the shadows. The use of the overly popular Batman is very fitting here and die-hard and new fans should find a bunch to like. Animation is solid, the voice-casting is even better. Admittedly, this kind of animation is not for everyone (it's not on the grand scale of say, Disney). In retrospect, the Suicide Squad film would've benefited from a similar screenplay/storytelling. Hey WB, can we get some of these writers on board with the live action stuff?

Justice League Dark didn't disappoint any of my expectations, being another good entry for the DC animated universe.

It was entertaining to watch and it had a nice animation and designs. It was also nice to see some often overlooked characters from DC comics (Such as Deadman) getting some spotlight, and honestly more of these lesser know characters deserve their own opportunity to shine.

And honestly I don't know why this got an "R", taking into consideration how The Flashpoint Paradox got only a PG-13 rating despite being far more violent than this movie.

This movie is an interesting take on the JLD run. I do not agree with everything it does, but I do believe it holds it's own. One complaint people new to the magics of the DCU may have is that Zatana and Constantine seem to have limitless power. Trust me there are lomits, it's just this is a short animated piece, that really doesn't have time to go into that.

If you can overlook that, then this movie will entertain you, but it will fall short if they never do anything with JLD again. Over all the animation is toght, the plot is dense with out seeming to rushed, and they got personalities right.

There are some good to excellent animated superhero/comic book films out there. 'Justice League Dark' is not one of the best of them, but it is nonetheless a worthy effort. People will either love it, be disappointed in it or find a lot to like while finding things that didn't work, there's a bit of all three going on here.

'Justice League Dark' is somewhat too short, 75 minutes doesn't seem anywhere long enough for a film with so many characters, rich themes and a very densely structured story. As a consequence, some of it is a little rushed and there are instances of parts in need of more exploration or characters having nowhere near the amount of screen time they deserved (Swamp Thing is one of the biggest wastes).

Most of the voice acting is fine, others not so much. There could have been more variety in some of the female voices and while good as Brand Nicholas Turturro's voice doesn't fit Deadman's personality or look. Oh and the villain Destiny is underwhelming, too underwritten, weak motivations and defeated too easily.

However, to me, the animation was not a problem. The atmospheric colours and fluidity are simply remarkable. The music is haunting and beautiful at the same time, giving intensity to the action scenes and giving weight to the more emotional and dramatic scenes.

Dialogue is smart and intelligently written and while the story isn't perfect it's absorbing and thematically interesting, with intriguing use of mythology and mystery and celebrating in a fun way the supernatural elements. Constantine and Zatanna, and their chemistry, are particularly well done.

Not all the voice acting works, but most of it does just fine. Matt Ryan and Jason O'Mara (filling in giant shoes with aplomb) are perfect as Constantine and Batman. Roger Cross, Enrico Colantoni and Rosario Dawson are also very good fits. Whatever reservations there are with Destiny, Alfred Molina's voice work is not among them.

In summary, falls short of being great but has a lot of impressive elements that make it worthy. 7/10 Bethany Cox