JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time

I'm a huge fan of the DC Universe animated movies. There's always been one thing that bothered me about them, though. They were aimed at an older crowd and borderline inappropriate for anyone under the age of 13 for sure. I still don't understand why filmmakers can't cater to both younger and older audiences at the same time. It's not like they're going to lose an older audience if they take away the sexual innuendos, bad language, and adult content. However, those elements will keep parents from letting younger children watch them. There's more to gain from removing the offending material than keeping it in there and alienating an entire group of potential viewers (and buyers). I wish there were more neutral DC Universe movies like "JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time." Lex Luthor captures an entity named the Time Trapper who controls the Sands of Time. Superman's arch nemesis and his Legion of Doom use the mysterious being's powers to travel back in time and wipe out the very existence of the Justice League of America. Can the super powers foil Luthor's evil plans before they're erased from history and mankind is left to fend for themselves? "JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time" came out as an exclusive release a few months back through Target stores. It just recently was released to the mass market on DVD only. The movie is good clean fun for the whole family. Female fans will embrace Wonder Woman and identify with teen super hero Dawnstar. Boys will want to emulate Batman, Superman, the Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, and teen marvel Karate Kid as they defend the world from the Legion of Doom and the Time Trapper. Bonus material for "JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time" includes 2 bonus cartoons from the DC Comics Vault. They include "The Mysterious Time Creatures" from "The All-New Super Friends Hour" Season 2 and "Elevator to Nowhere" from "Super Friends" Season 5. It also contains trailers for "Teen Titans Go," "Beware the Batman," "The Lego Movie," "Tom and Jerry," and "Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure." "JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time" was almost perfect in every way possible. It was a clean movie which didn't lose its potency without any of the questionable material found in the other DC Universe animated films. The animation is vibrant and technically superb. It's only 53 minutes long, which is just the right amount of time for an animated movie to pick up, establish characters quickly, and then go full-speed ahead with action up to the very end.

The art was interesting, and it didn't fit any of the previous JL movies we've seen. It looked more like Phantom 2040. The story was well written, and I like the unique look of the only 2 LoSH characters we see: Karate Kid and Dawnstar, although Karate Kid looked much more like a character from Avatar, The Last Airbender. Check-it out. I'm glad I own the DVD and enjoyed all 52 minutes of it.

I will be honest I back when I saw this movie I wasn't very keen on mature DC back in 2015 but as time went on I got into them. I will be honest this might not be the best DC movie I have seen but it is reasonable but I kinda wish that the movie was longer because it is not even 1 hour, in fact, it is the same amount of time as it takes for a CW series episode length. I was actually even more happy that they got Diedrich Bader back as Batman and Kevin Michael Richardson as Black Manta. In fact, the whole cast was good. In these, I am very surprised that not many people know who Karate Kid is. He is not from the movie Karate Kid he is from Legion Of Superheroes another DC TV show, in fact, there is an episode dedicated to him. If you are a fan of DC golden age heroes, Superfriends and Batman the brave and the bold then you might love this movie.

This is a very childish superheroes movie for the kids. If your under 10 and is up for a Saturday morning cartoon movie, this might work for you. If not, this movie is silly, from the animation to the character directions. This is pretty much a very simple time travel movie. With the main DC superheroes not really leaving much of an impact when it comes to the story as a whole. There is one clever idea to defeat the villain in this story, but besides that it's on the lever of another regular Saturday morning cartoon and a mediocre one at that. Batman practically does almost absolutely nothing in this. 4.3/10

I've been trying to find something my preschooler and toddler could watch. They like superheroes but none of the cartoons which are available on disc these days are appropriate for them. This was in my opinion, an excellent, clean way to introduce them to the DC universe and have a basic idea of the Character's abilities. My 4 and 2 yr old boys watch it all the time. Im grateful that it doesn't have be-headings or sexually suggestive content, because honestly there is enough material out there for the more hardcore comic book fans this isn't for them. It's for kids. Let it go. When you become a parent, then you'll understand why JLA trapped in time is a great little movie for them.

What in the world has happened to the DC quality ethic? This feature was so bad I wish there was a way to get my money back. I can't believe I paid for something this terrible. Flash is so slow that Grodd can catch him. Whoever did Batman's voice seems to have something inserted into an internal cavity, and what the heck is Robin doing with the JLA? The art was bad, the script was bad.(How is it Karate Kid can take on 3 super villains at once, see the fatal flaw in the Time Trapper and not be able to take down Robin in a fight?) Who wrote this and how did DC allow this fiasco to take place? There are thousands of fans who are much more qualified to write scripts than whatever third grader they chose. The dialog made me cringe the entire length of the feature. Heck, you could probably pick someone from random on the street and they could out write the clowns that committed this crime against comics fandom. I began to have high hopes with the Bruce Timm Justice League Unlimited series. The art was a bit sub-par, yes, but still effective, the writing,characterizations and acting by the voice talent really put that series above everything else that had ever been done. Then when Crisis on Two Earths was released, it looked like DC had reached its potential. But now this rubbish. I'm hoping the DC guys read these reviews and take action. This stuff has to go away. Here's hoping the upcoming Arkham Asylum piece vindicates DC. I'm beginning to lose patience.

First of all: Karate Kid IS a DC character made on 1966, way before the unrelated movie. That movie had to borrow the name from DC so, please, inform yourself before judging. I've watched this movie last week and I loved it. I'm 33 years old and I usually like the more complex plot of more adult oriented stories but I dislike the concept of adult they have, including excesive gore and sexual situations. This one is a movie for all publics, fun, with a conflict based on sci fi, not so different of the plot of more "adult" dc movies. I think you may like a movie for different reasons, but on this case, those reasons are primary based on enjoyment, is fun, it creates a good tension to make you wonder what will happen, has funny lines, with a dissobedient Robín that defies Batman and a comical Bizarro that says the opposite he is doing every time. Just watch it. You'll enjoy it.

All I can say is...not much. My kids enjoyed and was entertained by it so I guess that is the only thing that matters. Both the animation and story was alright, but both could have been better. Like some of the other reviewers mentioned it did feel a bit like a 1 hour Super Friends television special with the all too familiar Legend of Dome headquarters and Hall Of Justice. There was some heavy hitters in the voice acting department at least. Didn't like the inconsistency of when Superman disappeared, so should have Bizarro since he was an imperfect clone of Superman. No Superman, No Clone!

I'm not entirely sure what the folks at DC & WB hoped to achieve with this "stealth release" other than proving they can churn out DVD animation faster than team Marvel/Disney can, but there is one possible explanation: as stated in another review this has the look and feel of a TV pilot for a more kid friendly New 52 Justice League series mashed up with Super-Friends that didn't get picked up for whatever reason, but by the time they heard the bulk of the project was already in the can, so it was turned into a DVD in an attempt to recoup some of the money, even though they didn't put a whole lot of money into marketing it. Anyhow, the plot finds future Legion of Hero kids Karate Kid and Dawnstar getting mixed up in Back to the Future time travel shenanigans when they accidentally release a literally frozen in time Lex Luthor, who gets a hold of the Time Trapper and uses him in an attempt to make sure the Justice League never comes into existence... by getting rid of Superman! Chaos and Mayhem ensues. I have no great love of Super-Friends, which this feels like a more modernized version of (it is reportedly based on an old episode of Super-Friends with the same basic premise), but I decided to give it a look to see how it compared with the oh so mature and action heavy "Justice League: War", which the powers that be bragged was a big epic "popcorn movie" and it turned out to be the worst kind (though not surprising given that its source material, the New 52 Justice League: Origin, was pretty bad and well below the abilities of the normally reliable Geoff Johns). To my surprise, this was actually pretty enjoyable, despite my usual anti-Super-Friends bias. While WAR dragged on and on forever with no end in sight for a rather trite and boring story and failed to improve upon the faulty source material (and for the most part was just annoying to sit through), "Trapped In Time" is surprisingly brisk and its characters for the most are not annoyingly over the top (though Karate Kid comes dangerously close to it at times - then again he probably gets more character growth in this than just about of the WAR characters), which was unfortunately the case with WAR, which tries to be mature but in all the wrong ways (substituting good, clever writing with crude in your face profanity and crassness). The voice cast is a who's who of today's best voice actors, with Fred Tatasciore, better known as Marvel's go to guy for voicing the Incredible Hulk, stealing the feature with his powerful rendition of Lex Luthor. And he's not the only Marvel veteran here, as quite a few cast members have histories voicing Marvel heroes and villains. At the end of the day this will probably appeal more to kids than older fans (unless they have soft spots for Super-Friends or just like mild camp) but it's a decent way to pass the time.

First of all I like good animation movies. And I have watched all of the Justice League animation movies as well as Marvels. Most of the time I enjoyed them. But this one was really a waste! This movie should have been named more like 'Justice League- adventures of wannabe kids'. I mean come on! Two stupid kids who clearly messed everything up, are jumping around through time loops? And the JL actually handed Time Trapper's Sandglass into the hands of that two kids who started all that chaos? Really??? I mean what the hell on earth was the script writer thinking. Story really sucked. and If you are not an average 12-13 years old, then you probably should skip this movie. Definitely not worth your money or Time. What a disappointment. I would give it 3 out of 10 maybe.