Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Trailer—Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

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source: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

This animated retelling of a classic DC Comics storyline is neat little diversion, but suffers from a lack of ambition and a couple of odd narrative choices. It whets your appetite for one thing, then serves you too much of something else. Even if your only exposure to DC super-heroes has been through animation, you'll probably be familiar with the basics of this tale because they've done several versions of it in different cartoons. It concerns a parallel dimension where all the good guys are bad and bad guys are good. A valorous Lex Luthor crosses the barrier between worlds to ask the Justice League for help in defeating their evil counterparts, The Crime Syndicate. Ultraman, Superwoman, Owlman, Johnny Quick and Power Ring are so powerful, the authorities on the alternate Earth maintain a truce by looking the other way at the Syndicate's activities. The only thing that prevents them from taking over the planet is the threat of nuclear retaliation. The heroic Luthor, however, brings Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter to his home dimension with a plan to…well, it pretty much seems like the super-heroes are just supposed to beat the crap out of the super-villains until they give up. I guess a moral Lex Luthor is also a stupid Lex Luthor. What's more interesting is a scheme by the existential nihilist Owlman. Obsessed with an infinite number of alternate universes meaning an infinite number of alternate versions of himself, Owlman believes his own life to be pointless and seeks to destroy all reality rather than accept that. He plans to use a bomb to unmake reality by destroying Earth Prime, the world from which all other parallel worlds descend. Less interesting is a unnecessary subplot involving the U.S. President on the alternate world and his daughter having a poorly thought out dispute over how to oppose their super-powered overlords. And then there's a bizarre romance between the President's daughter and the Martian Manhunter that's basically every Spock romance from Star Trek put on fast forward. Neither of these story lines is well done and they only take time away from everything else. The glimpses we get of the evil versions of DC characters are great, but they're rarely more than glimpses. Owlman and Superwoman have a nice relationship and Batman and Johnny Quick get to ride to the rescue, but Wonder Woman and Superman do little more than hit stuff, The Flash and Ultraman just stand around, while Green Lantern and Power Ring do even less than that. Instead of wasting time on awkward moralizing and melodrama, the main characters needed more to do and they should have shown a lot more of the evil versions of DC heroes. I mean, the animation is fairly high quality and the action scenes are exciting, but the best moments by far in this movie are when you get to see things like the evil versions of Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. and Uncle Marvel or a villainous mashup of The Outsiders and the Detroit-era JLA. That stuff is like fanboy crack and there isn't nearly enough of it. The voice work in this thing is also glaringly hit or miss. Gina Torres as Superwoman and James Woods as Owlman are really good. She lends a savage sensuality to her character and he provides an icy insanity to his. Brian Bloom as Ultraman and Chris Noth as Lex Luthor are okay, but Mark Harmon as Superman is just terrible and William Baldwin as Batman is plainly miscast. Harmon sounds like he doesn't know what he's going and Baldwin's voice has none of the depth or menace needed for the Darknight Detective. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths provides some entertaining comic book adventure and some treats for long time comic readers. If you're not a big DC fan, though, it's nothing all that special.

In an alternate world, Lex Luthor is the good guy battling to save his world from the evil Justice League, his fight takes him to the DC world, were the Justice League align themselves with good. And so a war between superheroes ravages through the different dimensions and worlds. The animation is fantastic as always, the action sequences are even greater, at times surpassing the 'Justice League' television series, the dialogue is witty and the storyline, flawed but forgivable....Yet one thing continued to pester me, the voice actors did not seem to fit, in their roles...Maybe it was because of my fondness for Kevin Conroy as Batman....But nonetheless a brilliant animation movie featuring DC's greatest.

Very little character development went into this story. It's an hour+ excuse to have superheroes fight villains who are nearly exactly the same at them: Batman takes on Owlman, Wonder Woman takes on Super Woman, Superman goes takes on Ultraman. You get the point. The animation style is closer to the style used in the Batman and Superman animated series but a little less blocky and top-heavy. As far as DC antimated films go, this one is among the weaker ones. Nevermind the fact that film ends with Batman blowing up entire planet and murdering probably millions of people along with Owlman. Remember, this is the guy who doesn't kill.

I somewhat enjoyed "Public Enemies", and "Under the Red Hood" is by far the best feature ever, but this edition really could have used some work. It has the same problems as a lot of its predecessors, delivering solely action and a pretty basic plot outline of the much deeper graphic novel. This was pathetic to me, because the premise was pretty promising. Not only that, but Batman spends 90% of his time in the movie getting his ass handed to him, which was insulting really. Chris North, Mark Harman, and William Baldwin, all were decent, but nothing compared to Kevin Conroy or Tim Daly. Although give credit where credit is due concerning James Woods, who did pretty damn good throughout as Owlman. If you're around 10 this will be the best thing you've ever seen, but if you were born in the 90s or older then it will pass off as mediocre.

When the Lex Luthor of another reality comes to earth from his earth (where he is a hero), he enlists the Justice League to come help him bring freedom, peace and justice to his world. One problem: the Crime Syndicate of that world doesn't like this, so they come to earth and... you get the idea. A really enjoyable movie.

I've seen a lot of these animated super-hero movies and this is in my opinion by far the best. It's no coincidence that it was written by Dwayne McDuffie, who also penned the wonderfully absorbing story arcs in Cartoon Network's JLA and JLU. I won't recount the plot, others have done that before me, but suffice it to say the script is intelligent, mature, doesn't talk down to the viewers, yet is also accessible to people of almost any age. There's a preponderance of action over story here, but when the characters do settle down for some exposition, McDuffie makes the most of it. The characterization, especially of the villains, never seems two dimensional. The nihilistic Owlman, especially, is fascinating and well-handled; I also think that James Woods probably gave the best voice performance in the feature among many very good ones. McDuffie has fun drawing parallels between the way the team of super-villains organize their crime empire with the real life Cosa Nostra, in one scene going into quite a bit of detail that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a cartoon kiddie show. Another standout scene has the JLA discussing the philosophical implications of taking on powerful crime figures in a parallel dimension where they have no jurisdiction, and the hardship this may place on its native inhabitants; they can stop the bad guys in the immediate present, but what happens when they leave? Are they willing to stick around forever to prevent retaliation? Are they willing to kill to make sure there isn't any? And I've become convinced no one writes better, more well-choreographed action sequences than McDuffie. An early one makes good use of suspense as two characters are fleeing pursuit through a series of massive doors that come together and lock behind them, and the sounds they hear as their pursuers batter the doors down just out of eyesight. My favorite mix-it-up action fight scene has to be the one that takes place in in a stormy sky involving several characters that fly under their own power and a sophisticated fighter jet. It really engaged a feeling of wonder in me, and envy, to be one these gods who can zoom around and play in the cloud banks. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention McDuffie's wonderful ear for dialogue; he can make the discussion of fantastic elements sound so natural. A good example is when Wonder Woman brings home an invisible plane from the alternate dimension: Flash: I can't believe you kept that thing ... Wonder Woman: Spoils of war! Flash: What do you even need it for? You can fly! Green Lantern, to Flash: You drive a car ... Flash: That's completely different! Don't you think that's probably the kind of things super-folks would say if they were real? Ah, to be a member of that club ... well, I can't, and neither can you, but you can do the next best thing and watch this film.

Every fantasy and sci-fi show does an alternate/parallel world episode. "Let's make the good guys act like bad guys, and the bad guys act like good guys. The normal good guys cross over into the alternate- reality and defeat the new bad guys. While we're at it, let's put two of the good guys (who are now bad guys) into a romantic relationship." It's the sci- fi version of the sitcom "bottle episode" and is rarely well done. This variation of the theme is worse than most, and for Justice League fans, the randomly chosen set of celebrity voice actors makes the whole production just seem fake - i.e. good superman and bad superman both sound wrong. Alternate-world episodes usually seem to be driven by actors who want to dress up and "act" differently. But in this case the unfamiliar voices of the characters only works if the script is exceptional (like in Flashpoint Paradox), but in this case the story and script and very bland. The entire movie just falls flat.