just watch it!

A Major Disappointment

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Superheroes in the 50's either work for the government, or they don't work. An intergalactic entity that works on fear is coming to destroy earth. All the major heroes appear in this and it's really faithful to the source material. Just a great movie.

Do you want to see backstory and irrelevant side-story for the majority of the movie that fails to bring any of that together by the end? JL: New Frontier is for you! (I'll try to keep spoilers separate, and at the end.)The movie brings us back to an age of post Vietnam war in the 1950's. The Justice League isn't a thing yet, but all of our heroes are there. Well almost. The movie follows all the characters independently, giving them full stories, and backgrounds. The camera focuses an unusual amount of time on Hal Jordan, which isn't the Green Lantern (yet) as he's recruited to be in some top secret testing program. We skip around between him, and the Martian (John) a fair bit more than anyone else. Superman, Batman, the Flash, Wonder Woman- they all get minimal screen time compared to Hal and John.Early on we're given a creepy introduction on what to expect; The "Center" is coming to wipe out all of Humanity. Some of our heroes are investigating its coming as cults devoted to this dark god begin to spring up all over the world. Ultimately JL: New Frontier tries to jam in to much content to quickly, and resolves the end plot with the finesse of a young teenage boy. Many of our heroes do come through the plot with a kill-count, and there's far more blood than expected. The final climax of the movie expects the viewer to be totally on board with its plot, but the rest of the movie fails to do anything to get you the viewer there. The themes are also something that never hold up. There's some theme of the coming end, but then it's a theme on putting aside differences to stand together, then there's a theme of a better tomorrow. It's a jumbled mess by the end. By the end, there's characters and faces that never had screen time prior, and someone not familiar with the comics in general would have no idea what to make of.The one enjoyable aspect is the focus on John the Martian as he investigates the cult of the Center as a detective. The movie could have just been that, and had been totally watchable.I would just avoid this movie. It's to childish for adults, and it's to adult for children. It tries to cram to much into a tiny package, and just fails to deliver. There's to little of its redeeming qualities to make it worth anything of anyones time.*** SPOILER SECTION *** *** SPOILER SECTION *** (This starts with weak spoilers and builds to the big spoilers. No accidental ruining for people!)Here's some things that come up and make me immediately face palm.Hal Jordan is apparently a pacifist, but we don't learn about that until the beginning of the final climax. Was I supposed to know that before hand? The assumption is of course that I'm familiar with the comic books.Hal is suffering from some form of PTSD for having killed someone in the War. That is preventing him from advancing to realize his dream of becoming an astronaut. Except Secret-Government-Organization totally wants him, and he's amazing, and totally not suffering from PTSD.Secret-Government-Organization starts off as very gun-ho with plans to attack Mars with the very greatest of America's weapons. They're painted as almost bad guys, but suddenly become man-kinds best hope by the end. And it is sudden.The Center... throughout the movie is portrayed as some kind of god that can take over peoples thoughts and actions. It is interesting at first, especially as it randomly speaks to some of the Heroes at times. But by the end, the Center is nothing more than a flying island with tentacles, and "energy blasts." It's world ending payload? Dinosaurs. By the end of the movie, mankind has to fight off... Dinosaurs. And the Heroes of the movie do JUST that! The kill the ever-loving daylights out of these creatures! But it would seem that death is just the beginning of the end, as smaller, other dinosaurs spring to life from the carcass of the fallen dinos!And the best of the worst was the death of the man that ran Secret-Government-Organization, as he's accidentally elbowed in the face by John, torn away from Dinosaur tentacles, and self destructs with a pair of grenades inside the maw of a T-Rex, blowing its head to smithereens.*** END SPOILERS ***

Synopsis: This animated feature is set in the 50s during the era of cold-war paranoia with a population that doesn't trust superheroes and a government that doesn't trust anyone. There is a malevolent force which has watched humanity grow in strength and violence and it has decided it has to eliminate it. Also included in the plot are shortened versions of Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern's origin stories.This film's setting is really used to great effect and the heroes have a classic Golden Age look about them (though their attitudes remain anachronistically modern, especially Wonder Woman). I'm sure there references to many of the other DC characters that I'm just not very familiar with.Overall the main story was fairly routine. There may have been just too many characters and the story tried to do too much. Aquaman got one line and I don't think Green Arrow even got that. Even though I liked it I think it's going to mainly be one for the comic book fans

Again I must mention having watched Batman: Under The Red Hood and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Batman Vs. Dracula, The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm and also Green Latern: First Flight, this one here falls into the just-about-watchable (or bearable) category.Out of all the above: Batman Under The Red Hood is still the best one I have seen. Then comes the Green Lantern: First Flight. The next in line is Batman/Superman: Public Enemies. That's it.If you haven't seen the above movies that I mentioned, watch them first before you accept my criticism of this film.A boring opening picks up slowly, gathers some momentum and keeps up the pace till the end. But this film is still not good enough.And also talk about running out of ideas. The creature called "The Center" is just ripped of the movie Independence Day. I mean you don't need a brain cell to figure that one out do you? I think even the cartoon industry is on the decline in Hollywood!!! Also I think the film does not do justice to the animated TV series as well.Bottom line: if you show this one to your kids and they demand a refund, or switch of the TV set and for once start doing their homework, you know you've made a wrong choice.Score 5/10= passing mark.Have a nice day. :)