Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

I went into this movie with an open mind. I was never too crazy about the Multi-verse thing going on in the DC comic universe. Still, I liked what I saw for the preview so I picked it up for a rental after work one night and popped it in.

Story: The Alternate Lex Luther seeks the help from our Justice League to fight the Crime Syndicate – their Alternate Justice League because of how bad things have gotten on the Alter Lexs’ world. Our League decides to help and so we got league on league action. The pace was good enough and you didn’t need a crap load of background to get what was going on which was nice. And you didn’t need a road map to follow the story, which was good. Although thinking back the main story was a little formulaic, but the underlining plot was a little more mature.

Design (as it relates to animation): The animation quality is top notch. Although the backgrounds

are about what you see in the Batman the animated series. The character design had a little flair but was nothing unusual. Manhunter in particular looks a bit different this go around. The Crime Syndicate was well animated. But nothing we’ve not seen before. All the side heroes were well done too.

Voice Acting: This is where the movie shined for me. The characters were excellently depicted in this movie personality wise. I was especially proud of Owlman. My only issue was with Batman and Superman’s voices. They were great in their own right but they were sounding too close to those you might remember from their respective animated series. Unfortunately I am somewhat jaded for my batman voice. I have heard a couple passable and some that were pretty good, but I feel we face the George Clooney/Val Kilmer dilemma where you are either one or the other, and I challenge others who play the Batman voice to be convincing as Bruce Wayne like Kevin Conroy. I’m biased and I know it. Sue me.

Overall: There were times I wasn’t sure if it was trying to be an episode or a movie. There were times that there was a lot of superhero fighting going on which was done very well . My favorite parts were with Batman and Owlman, they had the most deep thinking sequences of the show. If you enjoy the DC animated movies you’ll enjoy this too. Not the best, not the worst, but good.

Happy Easter – if you celebrate that, that is.