On DVD: Justice League New Frontier

 

Directed By David Bullock

Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Lucy Lawless, Jeremy Sisto, Neil Patrick Harris

 

Marvel and DC have embraced the idea of bringing many of their iconic characters direct to DVD in the form of animated films.  DC is a bit luckier than Marvel in that they already have a solid team of creators that can be brought over from their successful animated series Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, and Justice League.  That luck shows when you compare the two studios' films.  The Avengers movies have been mediocre at best and the Iron Man movie was a travesty.  The Doctor Strange movie was markedly better but still not as good as the character deserved.  Those films feel very retro and shallow compared to their comic book counterparts.  While not perfect by any means the DC film Superman / Doomsday was the best animated super hero film yet.  The next logical choice for DC was either a Batman or a Justice League film.  It made sense for them to choose the Justice League because they had a team together than had just recently done the television series.

 

The Movie

 

Unfortunately for fans this is another origin story, but it really does something unique with the origin.  It even references some classic comic book character evolutions.  If you haven't read the books from 30 or more years ago don't fret because they aren't required for the film but if you have you'll get a little more depth of history for this team and the individual heroes.  The good news is much of what happened in those old comics is recapped in the bonus features but more on that later.

 

This film is set at the end of the Korean War and America is thrown into a state of paranoia causing most super heroes like Batman and Flash to work covertly, not being trusted due to their masks.  The writer's use the masks, and especially the green skin of the alien Martian Manhunter to cover some really overdone commentary on race.  For the era in which the film is set dealing with race makes sense but the commentary to me feels to heavy and amateur, especially when it gets to Superman's rallying speech where he says everybody is ok regardless of the mask they wear.  While the weak handling of this subject does take points away it doesn't destroy what ends up being an overall solid effort.

 

A mammoth being known as "The Center" has been watching humans cover the Earth and believes they must be purged from the planet.  So he expands into this shall we say unique looking being and begins working his way across the planet on a mission of destruction.  His immense power forces Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, the Flash, and two new heroes, the Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter to work together with the U.S. military to stop the beast.  I actually felt like this monster was sort of bland, like the villains in the fit Avengers film, and his motivation was basic, but he did enable some cool super hero action.

 

One other small complaint, DC has been doing these characters in animated form for sometime and along the way from series to series they've often used the same voice actors.  For some reason in this film new voice actors were used in most cases.  The standouts that really took me out of the series were The Flash and Batman.  Bring back the old school actors, they were better.

 

The social commentary was kinda weak and so was the big bad monster.  So what makes this film a good watch?  Well, the true centerpiece of the film are the origin stories of the Green Lantern and The Martian Manhunter and both of those stories mix in subgenres to the super hero arc like noir and romance in a very successful way, giving both of these characters a level of depth not often seen in animated film.  When all the heroes finally do start fighting the action is fast paced and exciting too.  It's not a perfect retelling of the classic comic book story but it is the best animated super hero film in recent memory.

 

8/10

 

The Video

 

The style of the film is typically gorgeous featuring the retro flare common in Batman The Animated Series mixed with modern twinges from the Justice League series.  While the style is solid throughout the animation is a mixed bag.  Sometimes it looks great and other times it stutters and lesser detailed characters can move in a blocky manner.  Colors are vivid and black levels are solid.  There aren't any issues with jaggies so common to animated films.  It looks great, so great in fact that poor animation and other elements stand out a little too good.

 

7.5/10

 

The Audio

 

The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix sounds great with a clean powerful mix that actually takes advantage of the surround environment.  There's not much subtlety to the experience but it does sound fine.

 

8/10

 

The Packaging and Bonus Features

 

The cover art is quite cool and well representative of the film.  The two discs are presented in a standard amaray case with a hinge for the second disc.

 

There are two feature length commentaries, one from the creator of the comic book upon which the film is based and the other from the animation team that created the film.  The second of the two is the best containing tons of information about the film and the process of animating this story.  The first is pretty basic just story synopsis and back slapping.  There are some really small bits of information that make it worth a single listen though.

 

Super Heroes Unite The Complete History of the Justice League is 40 minute long detailed look at the history of these iconic DC characters, how they came to be a team, and their evolution over the years.  This documentary features interviews from some of the most important faces in comic book history including Stan Lee and Marv Wolfman.  This is the bonus feature I referenced earlier in this review.  It covers some things only briefly mentioned in the film with much more detail really enhancing the viewing experience of the film.

 

Also on disc one is an extended preview of Batman Gotham Knight an animated anthology set to hit shelves at the same time the new Batman film hits theaters.  It runs about 10 minutes and features clips, art, and interviews with the creators.  It's not deep at all but succeeded in getting me hyped for the DVD.

 

Comic Book Commentary: Homage to The New Frontier is a brief look at the comic book and the transition to film with the creator of the comic book.  It's interesting to see the panels from the book compared to scenes from the film.  There's also some information about parts of the story that were cut in the transition to film.  It's interesting if a little too brief.

 

Legion of Doom: Pathology of the Super Villain feels out of place in this set.  It's a 34 minute documentary about super villains featuring the same industry insiders from the previous documentary.  It offers a lot of great information about the creation of a super villain and their evolution over the years but feels separate from the film because the film didn't even feature a single regular villain let alone the Legion of Doom.  As interesting as it is this documentary should have been saved for a more fitting film.

 

Finally there are three episodes of the Justice League TV series.  This is almost like getting another whole Justice League film.  This series was consistently good so putting a few episodes on this second disc to get newbies interested is probably a good thing.

 

There's a lot of stuff here and most of it is of a high quality.  The extras alone make this worth a buy for the true Justice League fan.

 

9/10

  

Overall (Not an Average) 8.5/10

The Review

The Film 8/10

The Video 7.5/10

The Audio 8/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 9/10

Overall (Not an Average) 8.5/10

 

Stephen Lackey