Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three review
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three marks the conclusion of easily the worst adaptation of any significant DC comic adaptation.
It’s impressive on a number of levels. The biggest has to be that the filmmakers actually were given the luxury to take the company-altering epic storyline into three parts and manage to make such a boring and uninteresting saga.
The Anti-Monitor is wiping out worlds throughout the Multiverse. A band of heroes led by Superman (Darren Criss), Batman (Jensen Ackles), Wonder Woman (Stana Katic), Mister Terrific (Ato Essandoh), John Stewart (Aldis Hodge) and Supergirl (Meg Donnelly) are pooling their powers and resources to try and stop him to no avail.
DC Animation films have a shaky history of adapting popular storylines. The ones that stick the closest to the source material — The Death of Superman, Batman: The Long Halloween, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract and Under the Red Hood — tend to be great. Those that deviate too far like Justice League War and Batman Hush didn’t fare nearly as well.
Pacing for Crisis has been a problem since the first installment, which largely failed to introduce much of the main conflict. A sleepy second act missed the opportunity to adapt the most shocking issues of the comic book with issues #7 and #8. The former features arguably DC’s most iconic comic book cover, which is the influence for this box cover art.
Supergirl’s fate is one of the most heroic comic book sequences in the last 40 years. The film version hardly does that moment justice.
Had screenwriter James Krieg wrapped the second chapter with the emotionally devastating moments from the comic, he would have crafted DC Animation’s answer to Avengers: Infinity War. Complete with a cliffhanger that questions if there truly is any hope.
This would have set the stage for an epic Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three.
Instead, Krieg is catching up to an earlier big moment in the comic series, which forces him to speed through other key moments in this adaptation. Not that he’s too focused on making it a note for note adaptation as the first 15 minutes features a battle with dinosaurs.
Given the scope of Crisis, spending so much time with Lois Lane (Alexandria Daddario) working on ‘the story of the century’ feels like a waste of valuable moments in this 98-minute movie. The next big battle is a questionable take on issue #8’s massive heroes vs. villains battle where the Bat Family just fights Nazis that gained control of the Rogues’ weapons.
The lack of urgency in the overall story comes at the expense of speeding through what should have been some key dramatic moments. They don’t have the full impact in no small measure because the DC Animation Tomorrowverse has only had 10 movies. And three of them have been Crisis on Infinite Earths installments.
Another problem was the Anti-Monitor’s uninspired design. He’s essentially just a giant size non-descript shadow demon with none of the upgrades to his design after his first major setback. And then making the taunting embodiment of evil a mute seriously undermines his threat level and fails to convey his true levels of malevolence.
The best parts of the film are when Krieg connects Crisis on Infinite Earths Part III to other DC Animation projects. Both within the Tomorrowverse and the New 52 adaptations. While it’s intriguing, it really has little to do with Crisis to the point this film didn’t need to be called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Maybe that’s the biggest issue. Giving this story another title even with a nod to the 1985-1986 like The Tomorrow Crisis would have eliminated any expectations from fans of the source material. Invoking Crisis on Infinite Earths suggests the story will at least try to stay within the lines of the original story.
The Tomorrowverse’s thick line work for the characters seemed to visually diminish the tone. Crisis looked too much like a cartoon unlike the New 52 visual style. which had a more realistic slant. Director Jeff Wamester doesn’t set up the action sequences too riveting as they tend to be more methodical and of a lower intensity nature.
There are some cameos that will stir up some emotions, none more than Kevin Conroy’s final vocal performance as Batman once again squaring off with Mark Hamill’s Joker. It’s a nice moment even in an uneven movie.
The rest of the cast delivers commendable performances particularly Criss, Ackles, Katic, Essandoh and Matt Ryan in the role of Constantine.
Ultimately, this take on Crisis was never going to work. Despite the unprecedented amount of time to tell a largely comic book accurate story, Krieg wanted to tell more of an original tale from a universe that’s barely had time to develop a following. For Crisis fans this was likely a major disappointment. For Tomorrowverse fans, this was an underwhelming finale to this new DC Animated direction wrapped too soon.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
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