Justice League: War

I wasn't very pleased after watching this. It seems like the superheroes were all being degraded. Look at Wonder Woman in the movie, they showed her as some spoiled girl who only wanted to fight and flash her sword around. That's not how I recall her. She was someone who was powerful but not in the "flash my weapons to get my way" type. It was just sad to see some of my favourite DC heroes be reduced to calling each other poor names and taking things as a joke...except for Batman, who was the only one they really kept close to what his character is typically like. It bothered me that they made almost all of them cocky. I don't think DC has as much pride in their characters anymore after watching this. I wished they hadn't changed the attitudes of some of them because it didn't help at all. J/L:Crisis on Two Earths and J/L:Doom were both better because they had more care for the heroes and the people and they hardly made fun of the Justice League.

I've been watching all of these DC animated films in order of release on HBO Max.

I realize this and Flashpoint Paradox are part of the New 52 universe rebranding, but there's been a noticeable turn toward the grim and gritty. Which I feel just does not work for this collection of characters. It hasn't worked in the DCEU live action iterations and it doesn't work here, although these at least demonstrate a level of competence in storytelling logic. Mostly.

The characterization is garbage though. Why does DC/Warner think we want all of their heroes to be a-holes?

I was not a fan of the New 52. Other than Wonder Woman, I didn't care for the way they did it. This, the origin of the New Justice League, is based on the opening arc where they battle Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips. Just OK.

This animated movie is different from the majority of previous. The heroes do not play around as nice as they usually do. There is plenty of animated violence, blood, bruises, broken bones, sliced limbs and more. The PG-13 rating is there for a reason.

The relationship between the heroes is forced and easily changed by the creators, the heroes fight when it fits the script and than co-operate, when again, it fits the script. For those purposes their behavior has also been changed. Generally the movie describes, more realistic super heroes than the comic books. The heroes in this movie, have ego issues, lower moral standards, shorter fuse for violence and really poor taste of humor.

Besides that the animation is different, I think that was done to set the tone and show that these are different super heroes, not the ones we know. Less square jaws (in that matter less square anything), more details, some 3D computer rendering has been added, generally the animation is rather detailed and smooth, really easy on the eyes.

I will not talk about the voices, some guidelines do apply and in my opinion they did fine, there is no reason to obsess about it.

After taking some points off for the forced behavior and forced story line it is 8/10.

This adventure has much to love! It has action, adventure, comedy, romance (with Wonder Woman), suspense, and so much more including, of course, the heroes!

Now, everything is fine on Earth. Heroes are chilling, doing their thing. But, it's all interrupted when each of them is stopped and has to find the others to destroy a horrible alien race that will harvest humans to destroy the planet! Will the group of super heroes be enough force to stop the 'the Dark Side'? You have to watch the film to find out the ending!

The movie is surprising in a couple of ways. For one, I did not expect the adult language! And second, there are a couple of new heroes such as Shazam who replaces Aqua Man. The film is extremely intense for a DC Comic animation. I think that this film has wonderful voices though. The only small flaw is the voice of Wonder woman – for such a wonderful character, her voice sounds a bit fake. The script and animation are also done nicely.

My favorite scene is when they introduce this kid that gets into a football game for free, gets front row seats and also steals one of the player's jerseys. It takes you time to realize it but, that scene shows two people that look ordinary, but are not.

I recommend this film to ages 12-18. The movie does have a lot of adult language and intense scenes. I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.

Reviewed by Gerry O, KIDS FIRST! Film Critic. For more reviews, go to kidsfirst dot org.