Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths 2010

[7.3/10] I watched Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths as an unofficial bridge between the 2001 Justice League animated series and the 2004 Justice League Unlimited animated series that succeeded it. D.C. Animation impresario Bruce Timm explained that Crisis on Two Earths was originally meant to be the transition from one series to another, until the powers that be at Warner Bros. decided they weren’t interested.

So Timm and company shaved off the serial numbers, swapped out John Stewart for Hal Jordan, but otherwise purportedly kept 95% of the original script intact. It’s not hard to squint at Crisis on Two Earths, which came a good bit after the end of Justice League Unlimited, and see its roots as a connector between two interrelated television series.

The catch is that it subjects this movie to endless comparisons to those series and to the DCAU writ large, comparisons which aren’t favorable to Crisis on Two Earths. The character designs are uglier. The voice acting is flatter. And even with a script from superb Justice League scribe, Dwayne McDuffie, the story is duller.

Mostly notable, the Justice League T.V. series essentially already did this premise, and did it much better. In “A Better World”, our Justice League travels to another dimension where alternate, authoritarian versions of them have taken over the world and rule with an iron first. It’s an epsuidoe that asked real questions about the line between protection and domination and explored the root notions of what makes these superheroes work, as individuals and as a team, delving deep into their motivations and potential faults.

Crisis on Two Earths does very little of that sort of thing. Instead, despite the fact that this is another story where the League crosses dimensions to challenge villainous versions of themselves, these alternate metahumans are just capital-E Evil for no apparent reason. They’re not characters so much as they’re one-dimensional monsters to be knocked around by the good guys. Their Superman is a mobster. Their Wonder Woman is a psychopath. Their Joker is a noble martyr. Cool?

The problem is that the movie mostly relies on fan service and novelty in lieu of character, depth, or even plain old narrative momentum. We get to see scads of alternate reality versions of familiar D.C. heroes, teaming up to either thwart the main Leaguers or save them, but they’re little more than a flat collection of gimmicks. None of the members of the Justice League has a real character arc here, with one possible exception that’s unavailing for other reasons. And most of the plot is just a random series of skirmishes with a vague bomb threat lurking behind them, more an excuse for a stream of superhero throwdowns than physical conflicts with meaningful consequences.

It’s not until the third act that the film truly picks up and does something unique and worthwhile -- a deconstruction of the “parallel universe” concept that’s so consumed comic book-based storytelling. Owlman, the alternate universe version of Batman, has discovered those parallel dimensions and is quietly rocked to his core by the discovery. Consumed with quantum theory, he decides that none of his or anyone else’s choices matter, because there’s always some other world where they did the opposite, muting their uniqueness and negating the import of any decision. His descent into nihilism leads him to conclude that the only meaningful choice possible to tear it all down -- destroy all of reality itself to negate the very act of choice.

That’s cool, heady stuff! At some points, Owlman devolves into being a dimestore Agent Smith from The Matrix, but there’s a strong philosophical edge to his motivations that makes sense within this comic book-y premise and leans into its most disturbing implications. It doesn’t hurt that human trash bag James Woods gives one of the film’s few good vocal performances, adding a resigned chill to Owlman’s diabolical scheme and determined nature. It’s the one deeper theme that Crisis on Two Earths grapples with, and most of it comes too little too late.

The other is the love story between Martian Manhunter and Rose, the daughter of the alternate universe President. It’s not an inherently bad idea, but the relationship has no space to develop and comes about in roughly three scenes with little exploration as to why. The movie can skate by a bit on the rush of J’onn saving Rose’s life, both having recovered from trauma, and the handwave of the pair being psychically “attuned.” But for the audience, it’s thin broth when two characters fall in love after being on screen together for no more than five minutes.

There might be more time to build that relationship if Crisis on Two Earths wasn’t so devoted to a series of flavorless action scenes. Maybe it’s just that making my way through the DCAU (not to mention modern superhero cinema) has inured me to the usual superpowered fistifcufss when there’s not some interesting wrinkle to them. (And, in fairness, this one tries via the “It’s Superman vs. Evil Superman” gimmick.) But most of the battles in the film are largely unmemorable, something made worse by the added animation budget plainly intended to give the look of the movie a more pronounced style.

Unfortunately, it’s a pretty ugly style. The character designs here really suffer in comparison to the smooth lines of the Justice League series. I don’t think this was the beginning of Timm and his team’s shift to more anime-inspired approaches when reimagining these characters, but the flat-topped, angular-faced Superman in particular looks off and even downright weird here, a problem that afflicts characters across the board.

Similarly, the voice acting here is remarkably flat. That works for Woods as Owlman, whose entire bit is that he’s become detached through countenancing the scope of the multiverse, but it makes it hard to be emotionally invested in any of the other characters. The one exception is the terrific Gina Torres as Superwoman, who doesn’t get much of an arc, but is one of the few characters here to have a personality, which makes her a memorable scene-stealer unlike essentially all of the other players here.

The frustrating thing is that it’s not hard to imagine a better version of Crisis on Two Earths, one pitched as part of the DCAU and utilizing the talents, aesthetic, and storytelling rhythms that Timm, McDuffie, and others had so much creative success with in Justice League and its sister shows. The philosophical meditation mixed with punching that is Batman vs. Owlman, the villainous reflections of our heroes that make them reflect on who they are and what they stand for, the continuity nods of new allies and twists of sacrificed villains are all strong concepts that, with better execution, could be something special. Instead, this movie is perfectly fine, while also being a pale reflection of the thing that spawned it and surpassed it.