Alternate reality of a bunch of great characters made this one of the more fun DCU animated films I have watched! While it will not be for everyone that enjoys the traditional renditions of the characters, this one was fun!
Rating: 3.5/5 - 80% - Would Recommend
A good film that tells an intriguing and engaging story, with well-developed characters. This version of the Justice League is very well done and is quite captivating.
didnt even seem likea justice league movie. very disappointed.
You usually get good stories if you go alternate but I found this rather boring. They didn´t really turn known characters around they took new ones but gave them the familiar names. Granted, that´s a definition of alternate, too. But since it´s probably a one-off and I don´t read the comic books why bother ?
Pretty good justice league animated film. I was caught off guard by level of violence in this lol. It's a great story though.
This totally confused the hell out of me, purely because superman kills people in this and Zod is his father?.... I guess my thoughts throughout this film was this must be some sort of alternative universe lol.. not suitable to watch with children as people get impaled and ripped apart and blood can be seen..
EDIT: Just seen the description and IT IS an alternative universe LOL!!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-11-19T05:48:18Z
***3/4. One of the better DCAU DTV movies I've seen.
The film borrowed a great deal from Watchmen, in structure if not in depth and thematic resonance. Both feature funhouse mirror versions of familiar characters who are, in some way, broken or damaged. Each feature a main mystery plot where heroes and friends are being eliminated and the heroes are investigating. And each feature flashbacks to how the heroes became broken, and reveal that their supergenius friend is behind it all.
That's where the similarities end though. It's a good structure for a superhero story, and I don't mind 'Gods and Monsters' borrowing it. I appreciated writer Alan Burnett's take on the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman mythos. It was familiar enough to where it carried the weight of the past, but new and different enough that it didn't feel like a rehash or mere fanservice. That was true for most of the world the film established, and it's quite an accomplishment given how much baggage the D.C. Universe has. The three iconic heroes were both familiar and foreign, which is about the right balance for this. Burnett managed to establish them as distinct characters with believable points of divergence from the usual stories, no small feat.
I have to admit, I got a kick out of Michael C. Hall as Batman given his prior role as the title character in Dexter. Dexter himself was often accused by fans of having been essentially turned into Batman by the show's writers in later season. And like Dexter, this version of Batman had trouble connecting to other human beings, had a need to kill but only did so to criminals, and even did some forensics and blood investigation at one point in the film. It's a novel take on the character, and one that I feel worked.
One thing that shined in the film was the animation. Wonder Woman and Orion's ride though Apokalips had a cute homage to Disney's Aladdin, but met its forebearer in the creativity of movement and the colorful backgrounds the pair traveled through. Superman's fight with the Metal Man wrung some creativity out of the old "two flying superbeings collide" routine. And there was some wonderful iconography even in parts of the movie that were much more still: ships in front of planets, friends standing together, and more.
The dialogue wasn't always as inventive or well-executed. One-liners like "get out of my house" and "I bet you taste like crap" feel pulled from the kind of camp of the Joel Schumacher movies, even if they're delivered with more grit. And a lot of the would-be subtext of the film is spoken outright by the principal characters. I suppose it has as much depth as it needs to, but a lot of the writing is very out-in-the-open about what the characters are feeling or what it's trying to say.
And the reveal of Dr. Magnus as the bad guy doesn't help. He's a bit predictable given the economy of characters rule for guessing who the villain is. And his explanation that he killed Tina in a fit of rage over her caring for Batman felt too cliche, as did his grand scheme to "help" mankind with his nanobots.
Still, it's an original story about how the biggest heroes of the D.C. Universe could have been darker, rougher, and almost unrecognizable from the living icons fans know, and how they could also be motivated to be more like their main-Universe counterparts. I liked but didn't love the film, but there's a lot of creative stuff in there that makes it worth watching.