Toonchild Reviews: Justice League: War

(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)

               Before I begin this review, I want to make it clear that I have never followed comic books that closely. Growing up, I got my fix of capes and tights from Saturday morning cartoons, which offered a gateway for the superhero genre without having to wade through decades of continuity. This seemed to be the logic behind DC’s “New 52” reboot, a bold attempt to re-imagine the company’s whole Universe for a whole new audiences of 30 – 45 year-old white, straight-cis males by making them as cynical and dreary as possible. And, whoopee, this new world of ridiculously high collars and cancelled lesbian marriages is the inspiration for DC’s latest straight-to-DVD release, “Justice League: War”. What is it good for? Well, let’s find out.

               We open in Gotham City, where Green Lantern is found saving a woman from a brutish alien in high tech armor, though since is an attempt at a modern update, no one trusts our heroes. The aforementioned damsel in distress immediately asks GL what the catch is for preventing her from becoming a chalk outline on the solid concrete and Batman outright states that it’s a good thing to be feared by authorities, though that makes sense given that fear and intimidation are as big a part of Batman’s shtick as child endangerment. So, our fight continues on the rooftops, with the Worf Effect in high gear as Green Lantern is used to re-shingle the local apartment buildings, until the hulking alien in gold-plated armor is knocked clear to another building by a mere human swinging around like an urban Tarzan. OK, I admit that this is spoken as a “Batman: The Animated Series” fan, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard Batman first opened his mouth in this movie; he honestly sounds like Gen 1 Optimus Prime with a sore throat. Again, the heroes have to be antagonistic jerks to each other, with Batman and GL squabbling over jurisdiction, but considering that they both lost their gigs on Cartoon Network, I don’t blame them for not wanting to split work. So, after an impressive chase scene through the CGI city scape from the 90’s “Spider-Man” cartoon, the two heroes find themselves in the sewer where we get some self-aware humor at both characters’ expense: Batman is a walking metaphor for classism and the criminal justice system in a bat costume and he pickpockets Green Lantern to show that could lose all his powers by putting his ring too close to the edge of the soap dish. We finally get to the beginning of this plot, though, when they stumble upon a mysterious alien device that neither of their all-purpose plot devices can decode. All they can tell is that its alien, so they immediately deduce it’s Superman, because super hero team formation stories always need a scene where the future teammates beat the tar out of each other over a simple misunderstanding.

               Thankfully, Star Labs gives us a convenient exposition dump re-hashing intel they should already know to head scientist Silas Stone, saying that the device is some sort of transceiver that has been found in Gotham, Metropolis and Star City, the only cities in this universe that matters. That being said, you have to wonder why people still live in these cities when they’re the epicenter of every supernatural disaster. With the rampant collateral damage, insurance rates would be astronomical and the economy must be pretty weak if one of their leading industries is newspapers, yet with Star Labs and Wayne Industries they’re also the tech centers of the DC Universe, maybe they have enticing tax incentives to attract businesses. Anyway, as we learn from the sappy, 70’s sitcom chord and non-descript text message screen , Stone is also a neglectful father to his son Victor, not being able to make it to his football game in Metropolis. There we see that Vic is quite the accomplished athlete, and I surely hope nothing bad happens to him or his naturally born limbs (smiles insincerely). Sorry no time to build pathos or characterization, WHOOM, we segue to the White House where an anti-Wonder Woman protest is being staged by a gross, chauvinistic jerk just for a crass insult against comic’s most iconic female character. Granted, it was nice to see the writers not fight straw with straw and this rendition of the mighty Amazon who helps him see that his intolerance comes from deep-seated sexual issues and admits that she finds her outfit empowering; though I must ask if she also finds it empowering that the animators manage to get a shot of part of her ass cheeks in as many frames as possible. She then goes on to meet with the President, but we then return to our regularly scheduled teen drama cliché with Vic Stone in his locker room where he meets up with a young miscreant in a red hoodie, who is identified as Billy Batson later on in the movie but seems completely extraneous unless you saw Shazam in the promotional art and are familiar with his origin story (more on that issue later), just so young Stone can deliver a foreshadowing Aesop about the importance of teamwork.

   Anyway, we have one more main character to shoehorn into the script, so now we jump to the Daily Planet, where Batman once again puts his creepy stalker face on and admits he’s been tracing Superman’s every move on his satellite and rummaging through his garbage for locks of hair for his full-size doll. This cues the Man of Steel to fly through the sky, and Green Lantern tracks him down to a conveniently abandoned warehouse provided by a Lexcorp easter egg, where he is beaten around like a pinball, only here he probably lost an extra ball. And of course Bats is the antagonist in this fight, Superman is depicted as an overpowered, rough-housing bully who takes pleasure in showing off how he can take and dole out punishment, though maybe it’s just the fact that his voice actor barely changed the pitch of his voice that makes him sound unnecessarily arrogant. “What can you do?” he asks with an almost man-childish glee and an exhilarated grin across his face, sending DC-slash fangirls all over the internet into a frenzy. All the unnecessary profanity doesn’t help the voice acting here either, as this marks the first time I’ve ever seen Batman say the phrase “pissed off” made even more awkward by his delivery, marked with all the passion of a bystander in a “Godzilla” English-dub. Anyway, Superman is operating under the same “Let’s Have Them Fight” logic and assumes Batman is working with the aliens he fought upon finding the box from the opening, and goes full Terminator on him, breaking through every toy in his arsenal. Green Lantern shows up to restrain Superman and then seal them in a ball of energy as Superman wails on them in a city-spanning fight, punching walls throughout the nearby buildings like a game of Jenga. Thankfully, Batman reveals that he knows Superman’s secret identity, and the two heroes come to an uneasy truce after Clark Kent uses his X-Ray vision for a little “show me yours, I’ll show you mine”. Identities I mean.

   Luckily, Batman finally asks the magic question of who could be behind this all, and a pan of the camera answers, taking us to an alien home world of red and black spires that look like they were designed by Aku from “Samurai Jack”. Inside, a minion of redundant exposition tells Dr. Claw all about the Justice League, and they decide to move up the invasion time table, which will really hurt the development team, who’ll be forced rush out the first wave. It’ll be loaded with bugs, then they’ll take forever to get out a patch, and… oh, scare chord, we’re back to Star Labs!

   Victor chooses the worst time to air out his daddy issues while his father is running another test on the alien communicator by… putting it in a giant gyroscope because spinning equals science. Dr. Stone doesn’t exactly make any case for his parenting skills either, telling his son that his football talents are useless in a world of super-human beings, though I don’t think a lot of meta-humans are interested in sports careers. On the bright side, we might see a remake of “Mutant League Football” in the “DC Universe”! Unfortunately for Victor, emotionally charged scene, plus hard science equals tragic origin story in superhero comics and at this point the machines all begin to go hey-wire releasing flashes of lights and demons. And, in what really should have been left off screen, we saw that the blast turned Vic Stone into a “Bodies” exhibit. Thankfully, Star Labs happens to have a garage of untested alien technology just lying around along with the med-table from “Prometheus” behind an indestructible steel door and his father channels Nicolas Cage from that “Astro Boy” movie from a couple years ago in a truly intense, graphic scene, both physical and emotionally, as they drive syringes of Phlebtonium into his veins in an attempt to counteract the chrysalis taking over his body and we can see the terror and pain in his eyes right up until he flat lines. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman meets a young fan girl and they have ice cream, because she got tired of waiting for the President. GAH! Mood Whiplash!

   Yeah, in case you got lost throughout this review; it jumps around like a frog on a hot range (granted, a hot range that was hot from the start, not a room temperature range that gradually has its heat cranked up, in that case it would just stand in place until it dies of convection. Sorry, lost in the metaphor). It can be forgiven, since here we have only 78 minutes to balance 7 characters, and a major comic book storyline, but I feel this is a definite problem that may be prophetic of DC’s attempts at a live action Justice League film. All their favoritism of Batman and Superman over the years has left their other heroes painfully under-developed, and, again, while this format can forgive those issues since they are aimed for a concentrated demographic already familiar with the characters, mainstream movie goers would be left in the dark. It’s like parents who dote over their supposedly gifted eldest child’s piano concerto and fail to notice their youngest daughter’s macaroni portrait origin story, leaving her to grow up into a neglected, confused wreck who male writers constantly depict as a crazed straw feminist to get attention and find their place in the world. Where was I? Oh yes, Wonder Woman Then, the rampaging cousins of Coldstone from “Gargoyles” siege Washington D.C and half an hour in, the one member of the league with two X chromosomes is integrated into the plot. IT IS WONDERFUL!

   Back at Star Labs, the chrysalis that began to infect Cyborg’s body merges with his treatment pod and turns him in the some bizarre combination of an Alien Cocoon and Mark 1 Iron Man armor to begin fighting off the oncoming hordes, pulling a “Junkyard Wars” and assimilating weapons from the surrounding environment. But, we have to wait to continue this as we check back in on Billy Batson, yeah forgot about that guy? Well, the rule of narrative convenience didn’t, and more Para Demons show up in his backyard and he finally unveils his secret identity to round out our 7-man band as the recently-renamed-for-obvious-copyright-reasons, Shazam, just as fans have been waiting. Everyone else, though, is just wondering why a 13-year-old kid turned into a red and yellow Superman palette swap with an “Assassin’s Creed” hoodie.

   Next, Wonder Woman fights through armies of gargoyles up Air Force One to save the president by dive-bombing out of a blame and grabbing him with his lasso; wait, that was awesome, why haven’t we gotten a Wonder Woman movie, again? Casual sexism in the comic book industry, right, gotcha. Speaking of which, Superman finally shows up to escort the damaged plane back to the ground and the look on Diana’s face just screams that she wants a piece of Kryptonian beef cake and amidst all the fighting they still have time for a lovelorn gaze whilst landing the plane, missing frantic orders from the air traffic controller and crashing into the side of the Central City airport (no, not really). Cyborg, meanwhile is still coming to terms with his new life sentence in a metallic shell and the annoying auto-tune effect to his voice. However, there is a blessing to this curse, as his computerized brain combined with the damaged tissue from the portal explosion scans through the terms and conditions of the Parademons; in short, they’re your generic, sci-fi assimilated life forms who kidnap civilians of other species and convert them into mindless drones to lather, rinse and repeat, which, if the new DC mindset wasn’t completely free of self-awareness, means that the League has been killing hordes of innocent people being transformed into mindless drones. But no, keep the cannon fodder coming, boys! BAM! BORT! ZOWIE! Explosions are cool!

   So, our 7 heroes finally convene just in time to put the pieces together and witness them welcome their leader: Darkseid, one of the most feared, ruthless villains of the DC Universe. And in a gesture worthy of such a feared villain, he emerges by rising out of a giant arena built offshore of Star City accompanied by a blinding pillar of light land effortlessly glides to shore accompanied by a host of winged creatures, like a Lady GaGa concert. He also seems to have traded in his dark blue tunic for cerulean Super Saiyan battle armor with yellow trim, as if it’s a giant take that to Marvel for ripping off their character for Thanos. Of course he also belches his dialogue and nom de plumes in a deep demonic voice, which leads me to wonder that State of the Union addresses on Apokalips must sound like Dethklok concerts. So, more parademons show up, yeah Cyborg didn’t fill them in on the whole, “they’re mutated civilians” thing, and we lead into one of my least favorite superhero clichés, the implacable villain who effortlessly shoos away the heroes one by one, the bad guy equivalent of kung-fu movies where mooks all take their turn rushing Jackie Chan as their comrades are beaten to jelly one by one as if they’re thinking “oh well, maybe I’ll have a shot”. Anyway, he eventually falls Superman with his homing heat vision, careful, use it too much and you’ll go cross eyed, and takes him back to his temporary island base. Green Lantern has a heart to heart with Batman that begins with calling him a phenomenal douchebag and ends with Batman recounting the death of his parents as if it’s the first time anybody ever heard it before he goes off to stage a rescue mission. Look, it’s Batman, it wouldn’t be a Justice League story if he didn’t steal the spotlight from the rest of the team.

   Anyway, the five remaining members come together and in a line the perfectly encapsulates grimdark comics, their plan is the have Wonder Woman stab out Darkseid’s eyes. Just to disable his heat vision. Never mind the fact that he’s FRIGGIN’ EVIL SPACE ZEUS and the main villain of Jack Kirby’s New Gods, a brilliant, manipulative military leader who can regularly spar with Superman on a daily basis and is known to plan one step ahead of his enemies. And the film actually enforces this simplification, as after his minions capture Superman, he just hovers above the city with his Parademons just wreaking mindless destruction, just “supervising” like an evil general contractor, occasionally blasting a building with his all-powerful heat vision. By this logic, Timmy Turner is the greatest criminal threat our world has ever seen. After that attempt at a rousing speech, Cyborg and Shazam have another chat as the former mourns his new existence, name dropping himself in self-pity, while Shazam encourages him to embrace his new powers and use it for heroics; though considering all the talk about head trauma in the NFL recently, it’s probably the safer move. Of course, once the fight begins, the recently united heroes begin to bicker amongst themselves: Shazam refuses to listen to orders, GL is a control freak, Wonder Woman gets peeved with Flash for leaving the toilet seat up, typical team stuff. Back on Apocalypse, Darkseid’s subordinate reveals his plan to convert Superman with the Para-demon pods to create an all-powerful, rampaging beast with no regard for life, and make your own “Man of Steel” joke. Thankfully, Batman comes to the rescue and uses his amazing detective skills to find the power button on the terminal after his Nolan-Style interrogation fails, but not before Supes goes brainwashed and crazy. Ironically, though, he seems to forget that he can fly and has super-speed/strength, and comes off less like the ultimate killing machine and more like a white-trash day time TV guest, just sort of knocking around the furniture. All for the best though, as it’d be hard for Batman to give an “I Know You’re In There” Speech when his jaw is separated into giblets along with the rest of his head.

   Meanwhile, the League’s “brilliant” plan to blind Darkseid, like a green banana, comes half way to fruition after Wonder Woman literally slaps some sense into her teammates and goes in for the kill, driving her sword into Darkseid’s face, and then we get a lovely shot of blood gushing out the left side of his face like Ragu sauce. Understandably upset, the warlord resumes his brawl with all the collateral damage and team attacks one expects from one of these movies until Flash rams a rusty crowbar into Darkseid’s other eye socket, giving him a sweet tax deduction and providing a lightning rod for Shazam to deal the final blow. Shazam: This is for making my sister turn evil for poorly developed reasons! Cyborg then realizes they can create a portal back to Darkseid’s world using one of the boxes he acquired earlier, but he gets his 4G through Verizon and he has to get airborne in order to open a series of select vacuum portals back to his home world. Still, our handi-capable villain manages to put up a fight, why it’s almost as if he’s a battle-born warlord capable of holding his own against any threat in the known universe. However, out from one of the holes comes Superman, who was brought out of his brainwashing off-screen by a man he has known for just a few hours. Or maybe not, as he gives Darkseid unwilling laser eye surgery, making the whole “World of Cardboard” speech from “Justice League: Unlimited” a lot creepier. Anyway, Cyborg’s new BFF Shazam gives him just the energy boost to force the portal open a little longer and send the villain back to Apocalypse and they share another bonding moment, which feels a little odd given Captain Marvel’s dark past in terms of racial relations. Then, the civilians who weren’t pinned down by rubble from the ensuing fight arrive to finally give our heroes accolades and we close out on them receiving honors from the president. A little more Superman x Wonder Woman ship teasing is thrown in BECAUSE IT IS NOW CANON AND YOU MUST ACCEPT IT! Even going as far as to give Lois Lane non-speaking cameos and having Steve Trevor walk away dejectedly to rub in the salt. I smell a crack-ship…

               And, of course, the film ends with the main heroes deciding that they should get together and do this more often, preferably in a never ending stream of cross over events leading directly into each other and derailing the on-going arcs of titles that don’t have “Super” or “Bat” in their name. AND THE JUSTICE LEAGUE IS BORN! Sort of, if this movie didn’t think it was being clever by avoiding using the real name in the final scene.

               Overall, this movie is, for better or worse, a crash course for mainstream audiences of what to expect in DC’s New 52 universe: characters we easily recognized and loved from our childhood given a rough edge to make them more modern. Again, I’m not deeply into comics, but all I’ve heard from blogs and reviews is that this has been a misfire at best and from this film I can see why such a change has fallen flat. The characters come off as abrasive most of the time, with some of the profanity and more adult mentality feeling misguided, and once again the attempts at darkness only amplifies the cartoonish collateral damage in the fight scenes and some of the more unsettling scenes of violence. And, of course, all the in-fighting coming off as unnecessary as the marquee pretty much guarantees us a superhero team-up by the final act. But still, it has all the production values we’ve come to expect from the studio’s animation department with some well-directed fight scenes and fluid animation. In short, if you’re one of those fans who are still convinced that the “New 52” is some New Coke-style strategy to alienate long-time consumers by changing a long-standing formula and are waiting for them to bring back the classics, I don’t blame you for wanting to skip this one. Still, keep in mind that with the cancellation of "Young Justice" and "Beware the Batman" leaving that Mad TV-"Teen Titans" skit as the only cartoon DC has going at the time, this may be the only action animation fix we'll have going for a while.

Toonchild, tuning out!