Thursday, May 16, 2024

My Review of DC League Of Super-Pets (2022)

 


Written by Jared Stern And John Whittington
Directed by Jared Stern

Krypto: "Super-Pets, activate!"

Yeah, I put this one off for a bit. I intended to get to it at some point and then yesterday evening, actually sat down and watched it. On paper, it's actually a perfect story to get a very young audience into DC. I mean, who wouldn't want a pet with super powers?

The pet in question being Krypto the Super Dog (Dwayne Johnson). He's best friends with Superman (John Krasinski) but not entirely happy with his best mate getting closer to Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde). This does cause some friction between the pair and they had just stopped Lex Luthor (Mark Maron) from using orange Kryptonite along with the Justice League.

However while Lex's schemes with orange Kryptonite didn't work, someone who managed to succeed with it was a guinea pig named Lulu (Kate McKinnon). I kid you not. It turned out that orange Kryptonite actually gives pets super powers. Unfortunately for Krypto, not only did he lose his powers but Lulu took all the Justice League prisoner and had maniacal schemes that would even upstage Lex himself.

On the the other hand, Lulu wasn't the only super powered pet on the scene. A blind turtle named Merton (Natasha Lyonne) gained superspeed while a paranoid squirrel named Chip (Diego Luna) gained electricity, a potbellied pig named PB (Vanessa Bayer) could manipulate their size and a scrappy Boxer mix named Ace (Kevin Hart) also got super strength and invulnerability. Would they be enough to stand up against the scheming Lulu?

Well, they were certainly going to try to be the best team they could be with both Krypto and Ace developing a fun rivalry that turned into a nice friendship as the movie progressed. In fact the whole Super-Pets uniting in wanting to save the day served as a nice contrast for Lulu having nearly everything going wrong for her.

Her own team, which included fellow guinea pigs Keith (Thomas Middleditch) and Mark (Ben Schwartz) werent quite as solid, she got betrayed by Lex himself and defeated by Krypto's act of self sacrifice. As a villain, Lulu was perfect for this sort of movie and of course, while she might have been defeated, she wasn't entirely out of the equation.

As for the Justice League themselves, well, they did need rescuing by the Super-Pets but they also became owners. Batman (Keanu Reeves) took on Ace, Wonder Woman (Jameela Jamil) took PB, The Flash (John Early) got Merton, Jessica Cruz (Dascha Polanco) got Chip while the fire and water Mark and Keith went to Cyborg (Daveed Diggs) and Aquaman (Jermaine Clement). Basically, everyone got their perfect pet and owner.

- Mid credit scene saw a defeated Lulu being adopted by Mercy Graves (Maya Erskine). Mercy was mostly done with Lex in the movie.
- Post credit scene had Superman and Krypto meet up with Black Adam and Anubis, both of whom were voiced by Dwayne Johnson.
- There are a lot of references to both Superman: The Movie (1978) and Batman (1989).
- Villains really do love putting The Flash into a hamster wheel, don't they?
- Standout music: Taylor Swift's Bad Blood and Message In A Bottle (Taylor's Version) as well as Queen's You're My Best Friend and Burt Bacharach's What The World Needs Now Is Love.
- Chronology: Present Day Metropolis. Oh and Krypton flashbacks at the start.

I should've watched DC League Of Super-Pets earlier because this was such an enjoyable movie. The pets were cute (even Lulu at her worst) and the jokes were genuinely funny in parts. A nice batch of Easter Eggs for DC fans and this one's definitely a strong crowd pleaser.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

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