It seems like only a few years ago when the direct to video animated movie was a new and fresh idea. With adaptations of Superman: Doomsday and DC: The New Frontier, DC had created a great start to their new department, largely focused on interesting and faithful adaptations with sets of all star casts, such as Neil Patrick Harris as the Flash and David Boreanz as Green Lantern. Now, DC presents to us Crisis On Two Earths, which is an adaptation of several ideas of a Crime Syndicate of America with an apparent heavy focus on Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Earth-2 graphic novel. Hot off the heels of Marvel releasing Planet Hulk, it appears February is the month for the animated movies
So which one won the battle? Find out in my review of Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths.
Crisis on Two Earths is probably the first DC Animated movie I really didn’t care for. While I’ve disliked elements of the films in the past (such as the way they handled Green Lantern, though the overall film was good), this is the first one that I really didn’t like anything about it. And with New Frontier and Public Enemies being such great adaptations, I found it fairly disappointing that this one is such a disappointing adaptation. Then again, I suppose when they’re making a movie that they expect kids to watch, adapting something from the madness that is Morrison and Quitely is probably not the easiest way to go about it.
The basic premise of the film is like Earth-2: an alternate universe Lex Luthor comes to our universe to ask the Justice League for help. Being who they are, they immediately come to the aid of the plea (all except Batman, anyway). What they find on the other side of the portal is a world where evil reigns supreme and the Crime Syndicate of America are in charge, led by the devious Ultraman, Superwoman (voiced by Zoe from Firely!), and Owlman (voiced by James Woods). While the Justice League tries to right the various wrongs, they fail to see the bigger picture as Owlman begins a plot that puts all universes in jeapordy.
The very first thing I have to say about the film is the voice acting: it is horrible. I was excited for James Woods as Owlman, and at times he really pulls the role off… but compared to the rest of the film? Good lord. It comes out horribly. Mark Harmon and William Baldwin as Superman and Batman, respectively, are pretty atrocious as well. Both of the voices don’t fit the animation since each actor seems like they’re much too old to be voicing either characters, and there is absolutely no emotion in anyones voice. I love Gina Torres as well, but as Superwoman? Not so much. Josh Keaton (who does the voice for Spider-Man in the hit animated series Spectacular Spider-Man) as the Flash is probably the only voice who doesn’t feel awkward in the role.
As far as adaptations go, it’s pretty poor, but I feel that’s only fair. Morrison’s story featured a Crime Syndikate of Amerika who did drugs and were into sexual sadism. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to come through. Some elements did stay true (such as Johnny Quick (the evil parallel Flash) being Scottish), but the biggest disappointment is the changes to the plot. In the original story, the Justice League try and fix the world run by the Crime Syndikate only to find that, in the end, it is impossible for them to do so because this is a universe where evil is supposed to win, thus making a very interesting comment on the basic nature of super hero comics. In the film, the Crime Syndicate of America are really just super powered thugs and mob bosses (especially Ultraman, voiced by Brian Bloom who very much over does his accent) who are ultimately defeated by the good guys. It kind of defeats the overall purpose of the story, if you ask me.
Continued below
On top of that, they try and jam too many characters into this one. This is a story about analogs: Superman has Ultraman, Wonder Woman has Superwoman, Batman has Owlman, etc. But what the movie tries to do is throw way too many characters in here without offering the proper analog to it, which makes it’s purpose non-existant. Ok, Slade is president, but why does this matter if Deathstroke isn’t a character? Same with Rose, although Martian Manhunter makes a humorous remark to this regard. When we have evil Black Canary pop-up, and then good Black Canary pop-up later, it makes sense. Then we Plastic Man and Green Arrow, who have evil versions appear as well as the entire Shazam family. Why? What is the purpose of this?
The animation is also somewhat tacky in comparison to the other films. Pardon me if I’m wrong in this, but did they really overlay the animation of fight sequences in the sky over real clouds? Is that not the tackiest thing ever or what? I was watching it and just thought to myself that this can’t be actually happening, because it looked so bad. The final fight scene was entertaining, and even the aforementioned aerial battle was good if you forget about the clouds. Seeing Power Ring smash through Green Lantern’s constructs was ridiculously bad ass.
In general the characters look pretty poor and it doesn’t seem like they tried very hard in doing this film in comparison with the other films. Hell, Justice League: The New Frontier emulated the artwork of Darwyn Cooke perfectly, and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies seemingly took a page from Ed McGuiness. Would it be so wrong to even try to emulate Frank Quitely in this? I will fully admit that is wishful thinking, but when you look at the way the characters look in the film, it seems like they wanted to try too hard in making this the Worlds Collide film that never was (which was supposed to be a direct to video film from the Justice League animated universe by Bruce Timm). It just barely works.
One of the things that could be awesome about the DC Animated Universe that I don’t think Marvel’s Animated department could pull off is having interlocking movies. When we look at what DC has, we have two origin films, three adaptations, and an original collaboration piece. If these movies connected like the DC Animated Universe Paul Dini and Bruce Timm did during the 90’s, we’d have a perfect set-up for the animated films of a new generation. Instead, trying to make lots of different films with different actors that can’t all play the same part is a folly. You know who can do Batman? Kevin Conroy. The fans obviously love him, and it’s not like they haven’t gone crazy when he’s come back to the role (such as with Public Enemies and the Batman video game). So let him play Batman always and forever! And when you have a character like Owlman, who is the anti-Batman (even more so than Prometheus), give a little life to him. James Woods is a great actor and voice actor (see Disney’s Hercules), but this just does not cut it.
All in all, I’m pretty disappointed with this film. As far as adaptations go, it’s pretty preposterously poor, and in comparison with the animated film Marvel just released, which was an 85% correct adaptation of Planet Hulk, I’d say Marvel won this round. Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths just does not meet the Matt required levels of entertainment, and is definitely nothing compared to even Public Enemies, which was an adaptation of a Jeph Loeb story. You know something’s wrong when I’m saying that an adaptation of a Jeph Loeb story is better than an adaptation of a Grant Morrison story.
Second Opinion (from Gil):
Matt’s quite right. The movie is probably the weakest film DC has put out. Everything in the movie was phoned in, which is really disappointing, considering this is one of the best pure JLA stories in the past 15 years. Grant Morrison crafted a story that was also a commentary on heroism vs. villainy, and good vs. evil. What this turns out to be is your standard beat ‘em up action flick with little to no nuance and some creepy and downright WRONG characterizations. First off, they abandon Batman’s core ethic for the sake of closing the story. I won’t tell you what that is for the sake of saving spoilers, but it can’t go unnoticed. There also happens to be a romantic sub-plot with Martian Manhunter and the President’s Daughter. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if the President weren’t that Earth’s Slade Wilson (AKA Deathstroke the Terminator). So that means that Martian Manhunter is macking on Rose Wilson, one of our members of the Teen Titans.
Yeah, ew.
Put that with the downright poor voice acting and the script that makes ME hate Superman (in this movie only, Flash and Johnny Quick were the best here by far), I just can’t recommend it at all. Which again is a shame, it had so much promise. But it’ll be fun to rub it in Matt’s face that Jeph Loeb made a much better movie than Grant Morrison.
