Director: Ethan Spaulding
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Duration: 69 minutes
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (DVD) – Movie Review
As of late, more and more DC animated movies are being created. Surely this downpour of superhero movies will bring delight to fans of the DC universe. Recently another movie was released, with a superhero that screams for more attention, namely Aquaman. Aquaman, the ‘submarine’ hero, often gets tossed aside as being weak or that he can only talk to fish. Throne of Atlantis is here to prove us otherwise.
Atlantis, a legend among men, seems to be reality in the DC universe. When a submarine gets too close to the hidden metropolis (wink wink, nudge nudge, Superman) it gets immediately taken down by what seem to be hostile Atlantians.
This causes the ‘Justice League’ to take action. This team consists out of Batman, Shazam, the Green Lantern, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Superman and the Flash. With the amount of solo artists in this band, it’s hard to form a group that is able to work together properly. Cyborg has already taken matters into his own hands, to research what happened with the submarine, in order to learn what kind of threat the group is facing. When the heroes are finally assembled, it’s time to kick ass and chew seaweed.
It becomes clear that the queen of Atlantis, Atlanna, is not out for war, but her son prince Orm is. Atlanna hopes to bring forth an age of peace with the humans and thus there is only one thing to do, namely seek contact with her long forgotten son Arthur Curry, otherwise known as Aquaman. Arthur lives out his life, talking to lobsters, like a regular Joe. He knows he is different than those who surround him, but he cannot place his finger on who (or what) he truly is.
When a man arrives at his doorstep, claiming he has answers, gets murdered in cold blood, it’s clear that he is more than a nobody. When he fights of the villains together with Mera who came out of nowhere to save our hero-to-be. Mera, was luckily sent in time to bring back Arthur to Atlantis to tell him about his legacy and hopefully he would accept his mission to bring forth an age of peace and understanding between both world, above and below the surface. By now it’s clear that Orm and his compatriot Black Manta are up to no good.
The story of Throne of Atlantis is pretty much the stereotypical movie where an evil prince is determined to take over the entire world. Jealousy is his main motivation and power is all he desires.
Overall the flow is quite rapid. You will get a basic plot and the required information to learn a bit more about Aquaman, as he is an underappreciated hero. This, however, makes it feel like a lost chance. It would have been great if Aquaman received a bit more backbone, instead of going from one action scene to another. Even though the action scenes are decent and at times a bit more bloody than you’d expect from the heroic posse, it will feel as if something is missing. It’s fun to see all the heroes together, but the movie could have done better with a bit more information or character development.
With the high amount of famous characters, comes a decent cast. You’ll be treated to performances by Sean Astin (Shazam), Rosaria Dawson (Wonder Woman), Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern), Christopher Gorham (The Flash), Matt Lanter (Aquaman), Shemar Moore (Cyborg), Jerry O’Connell (Superman), Jason O’Mara (Batman) and many more. From the start, you will notice that the voice acting is superb, but again a bit more attention to some characters would have been great. Actors like Sean Astin, who excelled in trilogies such as The Lord of the Rings, only get a few minutes of screen time. Nathan Fillion, known from Castle is still able to hang to cheesy one liners and silly behavior patterns which tend to make up for the limited time he gets. Batman, Superman and many other feel like side characters, whilst on the cover it seems like they would pose an important role as well.
Animation wise the movie looks great. Animations are fluent, colorful yet grim when needed. There’s a tad more graphic violence to be seen compared to many other superhero animated movies, but it seems DC is shifting to a more adult audience to view their new line of animated flicks. Movies such as Son of Batman and Batman: Assault on Arkham already showed us what DC is up to nowadays and truth be told, it’s a great evolution.
Conclusion
Throne of Atlantis is a great way to make Aquaman known to a broader audience, even though it’s mainly through actions scenes, rather than a pleasing storyline. Great actors and actresses were hired for this animated movie about the life of Arthur Curry, this does not mean everyone received the screen time they deserved. All in all, Throne of Atlantis is a fun, yet serious animated movie but a lot of potential remains untapped in this adaptation about the coming of Aquaman.
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (DVD) - Movie Review,
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+ Lots of violence
– the story is kinda stale in my opinion
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