Director: Sam Liu
Distributor: Warner Bros Home Entertainment
Duration: 72 minutes
Justice League: Gods and Monsters (DVD) – Movie Review
DC has been bombarding us with many original animated movies as of late, with some being slightly better than others. Nonetheless, most of these flicks bring some forgotten characters back to life, or simply give some franchises a new modern look. That being said, Justice League: Gods and Monsters heads in a totally new direction, by presenting us with a story that situates itself in an alternative dimension, where heroes might not take the same convictions to heart, as those we already know and love. Truth be told, we were stoked to see a darker version of some of the DC Universe’s well known heroes.
The story immediately starts off with a famous scene, namely the destruction of planet Krypton, Superman’s home planet, but for some reason things seem to be going slightly different than normal. In the original tale, Jor-El, sends down his son to earth, who is more commonly known as Clark Kent or Superman. In Justice League: Gods and Monsters, general Zod, the evildoer in the Superman saga, sends down his son instead, who happens to become this universe’s Superman, albeit with a totally different personality. This world’s Superman doesn’t have a ‘no kill’ rule, as he simply wipes out those who threaten the planet, without a second of hesitation. Add in a very aggressive Wonder Woman, who happens to come from another dimension herself, and a vampiric Batman, who loves to feast on criminals, and you will have a very different Justice League than we are used to.
It seems Superman a.k.a. Hernan Guerra (Benjamin Bratt), who was raised by Mexican immigrants, and his compatriots, Kirk Langstrom, this world’s Batman (Michael C. Hall), and Wonder Woman otherwise known as Bekka (Tamara Taylor) are not quite loved by the population. Many of their actions end up with the slaughter of criminals, which some might not consider as bad, but the world expects them to set the proper example. Whilst these super(anti?)heroes pretend they don’t care about what the general populace thinks about them, they still don’t have the most laidback life one could imagine.
When suddenly famous scientists, who used to work on secret government projects, start to get murdered in ways that lead back to the crew of superheroes, it becomes clear that someone is trying to frame the disliked trio. Seeing all of the murdered scientists are killed by ‘powers’ that resemble those of the Justice League, the government decides to take the heroes to justice, dead or alive.
Overall the main storyline is very thin, but it works well for a team of disliked superheroes. The pace however, is just perfect for this movie. You’ll have a decent amount of action sequences, but the biggest strength comes forth from the scenes were all three superheroes get introduced. Every hero will get a small background story, showing what precisely happened to them, to make them the Superman, Wonder Woman or Batman from this universe. All of these small stories are perfectly tied together with the main storyline, making one great big whole.
Outside of the different storylines, the creators decided to set the mood even more by letting the alternative heroes make a decent amount of sexual references and an even bigger ‘I don’t care’ attitude than we are used to.
An amusing touch is the fact that loads of references are made to many of the existing characters from the normal universe. Of course, within this other dimension, they all have resembling features from their ‘original’ selves, but they are still quite different.
At the beginning of the movie, some of the animations seemed quite stiff and lacking details. Luckily, as the movie progressed, this made way for top notch animations, especially during one of the many action scenes. The appearance of the ‘new versions’ of the three heroes was well thought off, and they immediately feel quite natural in portraying their roles.
Acting performances are simply outstanding, which could have been expected with such a renowned cast. Michael C. Hall, who already has a lot of ‘serial killer’ experience under his belt from playing the lead in Dexter, portrays a grim vampiric Batman in a brilliant fashion. Benjamin Bratt lends his sturdy voice to an intimidating Superman, whilst Tamara Taylor, known from Bones, lends a fairly sympathetic voice to her character, Wonder Woman.
As far as extra’s go, the DVD release gives us a glimpse of the upcoming Batman: Bad Blood movie, where Batman has seemingly passed away, due to the Heretics, a new gang of villains. The small presentation also shows that Batwoman and Batwing will both be introduced to fight off the powerful gang of thugs. Certainly something to look forward to.
Conclusion
Justice League: Gods and Monsters finds its pace a lot better than the previous Justice League movie, and also presents us with original characters, that share names with the most famous DC characters ever created. Toss in interesting background stories, as well as a hefty load of action, and you’ll be good to go for the coming 72 minutes. We only regret that this movie was so short, as well as that there is no certainty another movie of this grim trio will be released in the future.
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