Wednesday, August 14, 2019

My Review of Justice League: War (2014)


Written by Heath Corson
Directed by Jay Oliva

Shazam (to the US President): "That's right. You can call us the Super Seven."
Superman: "Please don't call us that."
Cyborg: "The Super Seven?"
Shazam: "What, you don't like it?"

Eh, it's not a bad title but considering that you would have more members, it might be a bit limiting though. Based on the Justice League: Origin comic, this one is a pretty simple adaptation as we see seven of our heroes take on Darkseid (Steve Blum) and do their best to stop him from taking over the planet and so on.

Things break off into some interesting rapport. First of all, there's Batman (Jason O'Mara), Green Lantern (Justin Kirk) and Superman (Alan Tudyk) who quarrel for a bit while intially fighting Parademons who are stealing people for Darkseid. One of the ongoing jokes in this movie is other heroes being surprised with Batman's existence, which I kind of found a little odd but fortunately, it's a joke that doesn't wear too thin though.

Of course while those three are getting to know each, Wonder Woman (Michelle Monaghan) has a meeting with the President and a group of protesters not happy with her attire to contend with as well. I'll admit that bit of the movie (along with the confession of one of the protesters being a cross dresser) did throw me off a little, but I did enjoy her brief scenes with Steve Trevor (George Newbern) and a little girl over an ice cream.

Then there was Victor Stone (Shemar Moore) and Billy Batson (Sean Astin). Their scenes were a highlight of the movie and it was nice to see a bit more of a friendly comrade as some of the other pairings were a bit too competitive at times. We got a good origin story for Victor as Cyborg along with his relationship with his father, Silas (Rocky Carroll) while Billy was more hostile with Freddy and Darla as well as being reluctant to tell the other team members that he was in fact, Shazam.

As for The Flash (Christopher Gorham), he kind of popped up towards the second half of the movie, seemed a little surprised too with Batman's existence and also clashed somewhat with Green Lantern but all seven of our heroes were instrumental in taking down Darkseid nonetheless by sending him back to Apokolips and breaking the hold he tried to have on Superman.

In terms of baddies, this was a solid use of Darkseid along with his Parademons and the sadistic, Desaad (Bruce Thomas) as all of them proved to be strong threats for the Seven before they were respectively defeated. The end scene with them all getting thanks for their heroics was a nice touch as the group reluctantly came together. They might need another name though.

- The post-credit scene showed Ocean Master with a dead King, setting up Justice League: Throne Of Atlantis.
- Really hated that loud mouthed protester calling Wonder Woman a whore.  I also noticed the Titans reference for Victor's football team.
- Thomas Morrow also briefly popped up in the movie, though his role was fairly small here.
- Chronology: Seems to be set in the present day for our main heroes.

Justice League: War isn't the strongest of the DCAU movies but it's a rather decent one nonetheless with some nice character moments and a good use of Darkseid. It does feel a little small scale, despite Darkseid being the main threat of the movie but that's not a bad thing and I did like the set up for the next movie.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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