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Justice League Dark (semi-spoilery review)
championshewolf
Posts: 4,375 Arc User
Well, I sat down and watched this movie last night. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this animated movie is rated R, the violence wasn't anything more than you would see in in other less kid friendly movies, hell even on some Saturday morning cartoons, and the cursing I could count on one hand and the harsh curse words were even less. The gore level wasn't that high so I am baffled by why this movie was rated R.
Was the movie enjoyable? It's a mixed bag really. They shoehorn Batman into the movie I guess to take the position of the "everyman" that we the audience are suppose to be, yet it just comes off as forced as he hardly has a role in there. It's basically just comes across as WB stroking that Batman fetish they have since it has literally been the only comic book franchise in the last generation to actually do any good for them. The rest of the "Justice League" are barely even cameos in this movie as well, with Superman, Wonder Woman, and even John Stewart Green Lantern appearing in it for a few seconds.
The center stage is mostly on Zatana and John Constantine, with support coming from Jason Blood (Etrigan) and Deadman (who they just refer to by his name Boston Brand). Batman just meanders around behind these four characters throughout the story, except when a Deus Ex Machina moment needs to happen that these other characters cannot over come and Batman uses a gadget or environment at the right moment to stop the issue, but otherwise, Batman serves no purpose other than to grunt and growl annoyed at things and to continue to stroke the idea that Batman is far superior to every other character in the DC roster because.... he's Batman and no other reason. Needless to say, it feels very forced in these situations, especially with the whole plot of Batman even being there since you can literally pull him out of the story and it would proceed just fine without him.
As far as the story itself, it kind of does what most of the Justice League animated movies do, starts out strong but tends to fast forward through plot developments so fast you hardly have time to comprehend what just happened. It's enjoyable to watch for a bit, but then you get to other bits and you go, did they really just rip this off? I will put it this way, anyone who has watched Dogma will know what scene I am talking about, they almost rip the scene off verbatim from that movie. I don't know what to say about that, but I don't know if they were trying to pay homage or be offensive because they wanted that R rating or something, because the rest of the movie just does not earn an R at all. At best, it might be a mild PG-13.
So in the end will it keep you entertained? I would say that it has a lot of good moments, it will keep you entertained and the red herring is a bit nice, though once the plot is revealed it honestly doesn't feel earned and feels kind of cheap. The final showdown is nice to, but once again it boils down to why is Batman even here? If you were expecting the Justice League to be in a movie named after them, curb your expectations. I get the feeling that WB was not confident they could sell the movie on it actually being a Zatana and Constantine flick so tried to hide it as a Justice League movie.
Final rating: Entertaining and Watchable, but repeat viewings might be hard thanks to contrivances.
Was the movie enjoyable? It's a mixed bag really. They shoehorn Batman into the movie I guess to take the position of the "everyman" that we the audience are suppose to be, yet it just comes off as forced as he hardly has a role in there. It's basically just comes across as WB stroking that Batman fetish they have since it has literally been the only comic book franchise in the last generation to actually do any good for them. The rest of the "Justice League" are barely even cameos in this movie as well, with Superman, Wonder Woman, and even John Stewart Green Lantern appearing in it for a few seconds.
The center stage is mostly on Zatana and John Constantine, with support coming from Jason Blood (Etrigan) and Deadman (who they just refer to by his name Boston Brand). Batman just meanders around behind these four characters throughout the story, except when a Deus Ex Machina moment needs to happen that these other characters cannot over come and Batman uses a gadget or environment at the right moment to stop the issue, but otherwise, Batman serves no purpose other than to grunt and growl annoyed at things and to continue to stroke the idea that Batman is far superior to every other character in the DC roster because.... he's Batman and no other reason. Needless to say, it feels very forced in these situations, especially with the whole plot of Batman even being there since you can literally pull him out of the story and it would proceed just fine without him.
As far as the story itself, it kind of does what most of the Justice League animated movies do, starts out strong but tends to fast forward through plot developments so fast you hardly have time to comprehend what just happened. It's enjoyable to watch for a bit, but then you get to other bits and you go, did they really just rip this off? I will put it this way, anyone who has watched Dogma will know what scene I am talking about, they almost rip the scene off verbatim from that movie. I don't know what to say about that, but I don't know if they were trying to pay homage or be offensive because they wanted that R rating or something, because the rest of the movie just does not earn an R at all. At best, it might be a mild PG-13.
So in the end will it keep you entertained? I would say that it has a lot of good moments, it will keep you entertained and the red herring is a bit nice, though once the plot is revealed it honestly doesn't feel earned and feels kind of cheap. The final showdown is nice to, but once again it boils down to why is Batman even here? If you were expecting the Justice League to be in a movie named after them, curb your expectations. I get the feeling that WB was not confident they could sell the movie on it actually being a Zatana and Constantine flick so tried to hide it as a Justice League movie.
Final rating: Entertaining and Watchable, but repeat viewings might be hard thanks to contrivances.
Champions Online player since September of 2008, forumite since February of 2008.
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