JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER REVIEW

[Blake Petit]

Review by: Blake M. Petit Blake@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Excellent
MPAA Rating: PG-13

The origins of the Justice League in a silver age of heroism.

Director: Dave Bullock
Screenplay: Stan Berkowitz
Based on the Graphic Novel By: Darwyn Cooke
Cast: David Boreanez, Miguel Ferrer, Neil Patrick Harris, Keith David, Lucy Lawless, Vicki Lewis, Kyle MacLachlan, Phil Morris, Kyra Sedgewick, Brooke Shields, Jeremy Sisto
Musical Score: Kevin Manthei
Producers: Stan Berkowitz & Darwyn Cooke
Studio: Warner Premiere

Although I enjoyed Superman: Doomsday, the first film in the new line of DC Universe animated movies, I thought it was pretty obvious that it was, in fact, a first effort, and there was definitely room for improvement. With their sophomore effort, Justice League: The New Frontier, Warner Premiere has gone above and beyond the potential of the first film to create a truly remarkable superhero movie.

Based on the acclaimed comic book series by Darwyn Cooke, The New Frontier takes place in a universe where most of the Justice Society retired after World War II, leaving only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman active (much like what happened in the real world’s publishing scheme). Then, in the 50s, a new rash of superheroes – a new Flash, a new Green Lantern, Adam Strange, the Martian Manhunter and so on – begins to crop up… much like what happened in the real world. Although the DC trinity plays a big part in this story, the real tale is that of the new heroes, about how the world was changing to deal with them, and about how they had to change to deal with the world. And even as they struggle to find their place in the world, an ancient evil called The Centre is growing more and more afraid of the violent tendencies of mankind, and plans to exterminate the species.

This movie really rocks on virtually every level. The story, of course, is wonderful (if it wasn’t, this book wouldn’t have been chosen to animate), but beyond that, all the pieces are also exemplary. The animation is clean and exciting, and the characters look like they could have fallen straight out of Cooke’s sketchbook. The voice casting, which was one of the bigger flaws in Superman: Doomsday, couldn’t be better in this movie. If you stop and listen for it, yes, you can tell that you’re listening to Neil Patrick Harris or David Boreanez , but it’s never overbearing. Miguel Ferrer’s performance as the Martian Manhunter is excellent, and for everyone who has ever believed that Lucy Lawless would make a perfect Wonder Woman… well, even if it’s just her voice, this movie proves you right.

The Flash, Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter are the real stars of this film, and most of the story is told through their eyes. Each of these heroes has a distinct character arc, a story of their own to tell, and those stories dovetail together flawlessly. The only real flaw in the story is the loss of some of the subplots from the comic book – the Losers, the Challengers of the Unknown and John Henry’s stories specifically don’t make the cut, but all of them are referenced, and you can at least understand why they had to trim something. People who didn’t read the comic would never notice that anything else was missing.

In addition to a remarkable feature film, the DVD gives us a ton of awesome extras. The main disc includes a wonderful 41-minute documentary about the history of the Justice League and its main members, with great commentary by Cooke himself and many other DC writers and editors and contributors to the Justice League cartoon, including Paul Dini, Denny O’Neil, Mark Waid, Mike Carlin and Paul Levitz. Even Stan Lee throws in his two cents. We also get a nice preview of the upcoming Batman: Gotham Knight anthology motion picture and two audio commentaries. If you get the two-disc set, there are two additional documentaries and three episodes of the Justice League cartoon.

As a whole package, this is hands-down the best direct-to-DVD animated superhero film I’ve yet seen. You simply cannot go wrong with this movie.

Rating:


Buy your comics online from X-World and save!

[Jason Kanno]

Anything for NPH.

I think I might buy this.

[Ben Lehnsherr]

Question: I haven't read the two graphic novels yet, though my brother has them. Should I read them first or does it matter if I watch the film first?

[Blake Petit]

Originally Posted by Ben Lehnsherr

Question: I haven't read the two graphic novels yet, though my brother has them. Should I read them first or does it matter if I watch the film first?

Y'know, personally I always prefer to read the book first. But if you haven't, you won't be missing anything.

[Ben Lehnsherr]

Originally Posted by Blake Petit

Y'know, personally I always prefer to read the book first. But if you haven't, you won't be missing anything.

Yeah, me too. Thought it was worth asking anyway.....I crank out these two books and then sit back and enjoy the movie. Thanks for the advice!

[khazra reborn]

Main characters of Green lantern, Flash and MM? I wouldnt even care if it was good, id still pick it up

[Jiggaman Tiga]

Originally Posted by khazra reborn

Main characters of Green lantern, Flash and MM? I wouldnt even care if it was good, id still pick it up

Exactly.

And for all those people who nailed me for my thoughts about Lucy Lawless as WW, eat it. Blake touched upon, but that need extra emphasis.

[Mark Blicharz]

Great, great movie.

[Lord Raiden]

Hi, kinda new here. this is my second post! I was privalleged enough to get a preview copy of this from my work back in november and it totally blew me away! A very awsome movie dc/warner has put out! two thumbs up for me!

[Walt Kneeland]

Originally Posted by Blake Petit

The only real flaw in the story is the loss of some of the subplots from the comic book – the Losers, the Challengers of the Unknown and John Henry’s stories specifically don’t make the cut, but all of them are referenced, and you can at least understand why they had to trim something. People who didn’t read the comic would never notice that anything else was missing.

[...]

As a whole package, this is hands-down the best direct-to-DVD animated superhero film I’ve yet seen. You simply cannot go wrong with this movie.

Just watched this this afternoon, and REALLY enjoyed it. Chased it with the documentary and Batman preview, though the 2nd disc's gotta wait til later to be viewed.

It wasn't til watching the extras that it occurred to me anything was entirely cut, but seeing some of the quick shots of pages from the source, brought me back to reality on that.

took a significant force of will to keep myself from simply ebay/amazon-ing both graphic novels the moment I turned off the DVD player.

I really didn't enjoy Superman/Doomsday much, but this one's easily among my favorite animated films (next to Lion King and Aladdin) with this single (so far) viewing.

[Magnus2k]

I'm watching it now. Loving it. Not even done yet either! The first Flash scene was pure awesome on screen.

Only gripe is I hate Batmans voice. For the love of the comic gods, can we just get a contract that says Kevin Conroy does all animated Batman roles please?

Side note, heard he's got the job for the new Batman Anime coming out!

[Ryan Broussard]

i will prob check this out....but for the love of....no Kevin Conroy!!!

come on....

[Ammar Al Subahi]

Am I in Bizarro world? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Seriously, it's up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space.

[Blake Petit]

Originally Posted by Ammar Al Subahi

Am I in Bizarro world? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Seriously, it's up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Dude, you are literally the first person I've spoken to who has had anything negative to say about it.

[Lord Raiden]

Originally Posted by Ammar Al Subahi

Am I in Bizarro world? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Seriously, it's up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I knew a movie like this wouldn't apeal to absolutely everybody! There would be some that just won't like it or get into it, for whatever reasons, whether it's the style it was presented in, the way the characters were portrayed or just plain didn't like the story! The majority of reviews that i've read have praised it, and deservedly so, I think! this is a great film that's very well done and towers very much over the marvel stuff (not that I didn't like them, i've got them also and like them, but they just weren't on the same wavelength as far as quality and storytelling goes) I loved superman/doomsday also, but that is no were near as good as far as storytelling and characterizing goes! just my two cents worth

[p4poetic]

Originally Posted by Jiggaman Tiga

Exactly.

And for all those people who nailed me for my thoughts about Lucy Lawless as WW, eat it. Blake touched upon, but that need extra emphasis.

And what was that? Better not have been something bad

[Zap Rowsdower]

Originally Posted by Blake Petit

Dude, you are literally the first person I've spoken to who has had anything negative to say about it.

I too didn't care for this film. But I absolutely cannot say it was one of worst movies I've seen.

I've seen a lot of bad movies. I saw a Zombie movie a few weeks ago in which the Zombies *****es came to life and turned into creatures derivitive of Aliens.

This actually happened.

[Ben Lehnsherr]

...and it was pretty good. I don't know if it was because of all the glowing reviews here, but it didn't LOVE it. For a movie like this it had surprisingly little action, and the big bad was terribly underdeveloped, along with the battle that ended way too easily and seemed much too small in scale to threaten the planet.

But I don't want to sound like I hated the movie. Just about all the characters were well done story-wise, and it had a ton of set up on them. The animation was spot-on, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the voice work. It was quite a bit better than Superman/Doomsday but I wouldn't say it was one of the best animated movies I've seen.....not sure its the best animated comic book movie I've seen.

But, all in all, not a masterpiece but a fun film and a great second effort.

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

My views kind of echo what Blake said. I really enjoyed the film as it is but I kind of feel like parts of it were too compressed to really connect emotionally with an audience. That's not saying that I wasn't pulled into the piece but a lot of the character bits, like the opening with Hal Jordan meeting Chuck Yeager, gave the book a much larger emotional base for the reader.