Justice League: Gods & Monsters Review
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If you know next to nothing about the story of Justice League: Gods and Monsters, DC’s latest animated movie, then stop right now and go watch it. It’s a story about an alternate universe where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are re-envisioned as much more violent and brutal characters with different origins, so the fun of watching Gods and Monsters comes from seeing it all unfold before your eyes, taking the familiar and twisting it into something fresh, exciting, and decidedly dark.
The story sees Superman (son of Zod), Batman (a vampire), and Wonder Woman (now a New God instead of an Amazon) policing the world as the Justice League, but this version of the team is feared by the public and heavily criticized by the media. And not without good reason.
An early scene shows Superman incinerating “terrorists” with his heat vision while Wonder Woman impales them with her sword and Batman drinks their blood until they stop squirming. DC’s movies of late have a bad record when it comes to depicting bloody violence — usually they overdo it in an attempt to seem edgy — but here they give it an important purpose. It’s there to show what the world would be like if Superman didn’t pull any punches — and it isn’t pretty.
From there, the plot pivots as the League is framed for a series of murders (that no one has trouble believing given how we’ve seen them take care of business) and we are taken on a journey to explore the rest of this strange new world. Supporting characters are given new roles that are sure to tickle both casual DC fans (a Stephen Hawking-esque Lex Luthor) and longtime comic readers (a sublime new take on the Metal Men). A great strength of Gods and Monsters is how it provides a purpose for every twist so that everything fits together instead of being a gimmick.
If you were itching for a story where Wonder Woman and Superman are more compelling than Batman, then you’ve found it. Batman’s story is just fine, mind you, but a Superman with the mindset (and goatee) of Zod and a Wonder Woman who has ties to Darkseid and Highfather are just so fascinating that they take the cake. Wonder Woman’s thrilling and tragic “Game of Thrones” origin is the best of the bunch, to the point where we wouldn’t mind if that were retconned to be her origin in the comics, too. The only letdown with her character is the costume. We love the Jack Kirby-inspired design, but her breastacular top is laughably revealing for a modern female superhero costume.
The voice-acting is top-notch, with Michael C. Hall giving Batman an eerie, undead monotone, Benjamin Bratt capturing the boldness of Superman with a hard Zod edge, and Tamara Taylor absolutely crushing it by spectacularly switching from powerful to vulnerable to outraged on a dime.
By now all of us are used to strange villain plots to take over the world, but this film’s climactic scheme is so out of left field and impractical that it ruins the story’s flawless pacing. Making things worse, the resolution comes without the proper consequences for the trio. We’ll just say that regardless of their decisions in the end, the trio are responsible for so many deaths that they are overdue for some jail time.
Verdict
Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett have successfully delivered a fresh and exciting take on the Justice League by turning them into dark and violent mirrors of the heroic icons we know so well. But they do so much more than add (a lot) of blood to the proceedings — they conjure up compelling new origins for Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman that, as they are revealed, show that Gods and Monsters is much more than just a story about “What if the Justice League were evil?” The ending is a bit of a letdown, but that doesn’t take away how excellent the story was up until that point, making this an animated feature where it’s more about the journey than the destination.
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