Hello and welcome,
What you might not know about me is that I have always been fascinated with World War II. If you gave me a time machine, out of all the time periods, World War ll would be at the top of my list at least here in the US (for obvious reasons I would not like to go to Europe back then). When I heard that the next DC direct-to-video movie was going to be about the Justice Society in World War II I was very excited. Not surprisingly, that is a time period of comic books that I also have a fascination with (most of which are not politically correct today). I did temper my expectations a bit because DC animated movies have been a hit or miss in recent years.
Background
I found very little background for this movie except that it was directed by Jeff Wamester who has only directed a few episodes of the Guardians of the Galaxy TV Series. However, I think it is necessary to give you a basic understanding of the Justice Society (and I also love to talk about this stuff so this is a good excuse). The Justice Society is, or was, a team of superheroes created during the Golden Age of Comics (1938 to 1956). To the best of my knowledge, the Justice Society is the 1st superhero team and is the precursor to the Justice League (which I'm sure all of you know who they are). The original members of the JSA (Justice Society of America) included Doctor Fate; Hour-Man (who only has superpowers for one hour at a time); the Spectre; the original Sandman (who used a gun full of sleeping gas to sedate criminals); the original Atom (who did not have any superpowers); Hawkman (who was a reincarnated Egyptian); the original Green Lantern (whose ring is a magical object); and the original Flash (who got his powers by breathing in the fumes of hard water- that is not a typo, at least on my end). Oh! By the way, he (Flash) was also smoking openly in a lab (I do not need to tell you what is wrong with that). There were also 2 honorary members who were Superman and Batman who never showed up to the meetings, that is Comic Book speak for being too popular to waste in a silly team book. Wonder Woman did join the team later as their secretary (1940s taking a step forward but also taking 2 steps back).
Plot
With Nazi Germany invading most of Europe and Adolf Hitler seeking magical artifacts, President Roosevelt and Steve Trevor (Chris Diamantopoulos) create a team of superhumans consisting of Trevor, Black Canary (Elysia Rotaru), Hawkman (Omid Abtahi), Hourman (Matthew Mercer,) Jay Garrick / Flash (Armen Taylor), led by Wonder Woman (Stana Katic).
In modern-day Superman (Darren Criss) is fighting Brainiac and Barry Allen / The Flash (Matt Bomer) comes to Superman's rescue. When Brainiac fires a Kryptonite bullet, Flash tries to catch it, but he runs fast enough to open up a wormhole and he arrives in what he believes is the past during a battle between the JSA and the Nazis. Despite initial confusion over his allegiance, the JSA realizes Allen is an ally after he defeats the Nazis and saves Trevor so he needs to help the team defeat Hitler and get back home.
Opinion
To begin with, one of the problems of the recent DC Animated Movies is the animation to no fault of the animators; it is clear that these movies are made on a shoestring budget, but someone at Warner Bros. animation realized that if they design it in such a way to make it look like a comic book that they can hide the fact that they had a limited budget. For the most part, this technique works but it is still obvious that the WB executives do not want to spend money on this. Ironically it does not look that great on pause but in motion it is fine. The movie is very “comic bookish” so if you are not a fan you will probably be lost. There is a twist but actually, I’m not sure there really is one because it is revealed early in the movie. Nonetheless, they left it out of the marketing so I will not spoil it here. I like the relationship between the characters, particularly the relationship between the original and the current Flash. Overall, this movie is not for the non-fan, but if you are one, this is a good watch. Given the fact that I am a fan, I am giving the movie 3 out of 5 Stars.
Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™
Mr, Bee
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