Saturday, August 10, 2019

My Review of Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013)


Written by Jim Krieg
Directed by Jay Oliva

The Flash (re Nora): "I just wanted to save her."
Professor Zoom: "Her hero; how noble. Oh, wait! You didn't stop JFK from getting assassinated or make sure Hitler stayed in art school. You saved your mommy. You missed her. And in a supreme act of selfishness shattered history like a rank amateur, turned the world into a living hell moments away from destruction and I'm the villain?"

Probably the most infamous storyline with The Flash and the one that some fans have wanted to see in the DCEU despite the franchise having yet to do even a more straightforward Flash movie while also being something that CW would attempt to cover with The Flash TV series during it's third season. Of course the animated movie universe got in there earlier and with better results.

The general gist of the story being that Barry Allen (Justin Chambers) was haunted by his mother's murder (Grey DeLisle-Griffin ) at the hands of Reverse Flash (C. Thomas Howell) and did something rather reckless that would result in the world around him being changed in the most dramatic of ways. Namely being that saving his mother from death would cause everything else to go to hell.

Barry created a world where Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) would die and his father Thomas (Kevin McKidd) would be a far more brutal version of Batman while Martha herself would become the Joker. We see very little of the latter but the former becomes a grudging ally as Barry attempts to regain his powers in order to correct his biggest mistake.

It's a world where the biggest threats outside of Thawne are also Aquaman (Cary Elwes) and Wonder Woman (Vanessa Marshall), both of whom have become power mad dictators, killing at random anyone standing in their way and eventually going to war themselves, following Mera's decapitation after the latter had discovered the affair between the Atlantis and Themyscira rulers.

Seeing the brutal versions of Wonder Woman and Aquaman certainly made them bigger threat as we also saw the likes of Captain Atom, Steve Trevor, Lex Luthor, the Shazam family and even Lois Lane (Dana Delany) all suffer at the hands of both rulers but on the other side of the coin we also had the Flash, Batman and Cyborg (Michael B. Jordon) rescue Superman (Sam Daly) before the big confrontation between Barry and Eobard.

As for the rest of the movie, it plays out close enough to the comic with some alterations, including the method in which Eobard is slowed down but the result is the same with Barry correcting his mistake, moving past his guilt for Nora's death, talking to Iris and Batman in some rather poignant final scenes.

- Nice selection of Rogue members with Captain Cold, Heatwave, Top and Captain Boomerang all posing problems for Barry at the start of the movie.
- Harley Quinn went by Yo-Yo in this movie as well in the new world. It was also nice to somewhat see Deathstroke and Lex Luthor somewhat try to save the day, even if they failed.
- Sam Daly who voiced Superman in this movie is the son of Tim Daly who voiced the character in Superman: The Animated Series.
-We got a post credit sequence where some Parademons were coming to Earth, leading to the next film, Justice League: War, which I'll review soon.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox does a good job with taking the origin comics and unlike some other animated movies, the changes are minor and don't jar the original source material. It's definitely one of the best DC animated movies out there.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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