Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)

With all the dark versions of the JL in other cartoons, this story is refreshingly light and optimistic. Set in the late 1950s/early 1960s, it retells the origin of the JL, or rather creates a new origin with a villain called the centre.This film includes most of the characters that existed for DC at the time, including Adam Strange, the challengers of the unknown and Blackhawk. Some viewers, not familiar with DC's history might find these characters confusing and distracting.It must be said that The Centre, when it appears, is a major disappointment. After so long a build-up, I was expecting more than a flying island, that seems to be a nod towards Krakoa, the sentient island who brought the new X-men together.There are certain longueurs in TNF, particularly around Hal Jordan being made Green Lantern, something which outstays its welcome for me although GL has always been a favourite character of mine.But this film has a charm and enthusiasm which is unusual among modern day superhero works.

I really liked justice league cartoon series, and movie in 2010, but this was like some extremely bad horror movie, with dinosaurs as main antagonists, attacking everything that moves, and so called "heroes" cut, shoot and blow them apart like some jam pies, splitting their blood all over ground, I admit I wasn't expecting an adult movie, but this was too much, even for a 18 + in a matter of fact, I wouldn't recommend people under 30(!!) watch it, it just blew my mind( in bad way) animation, voice acting, action scenes are decent and nothing special, character faces aren't detailed at all(only basic elements there are like eyes, noses etc) there is no logic in character actions,(like it would be logical to save some dinosaurs as species) but they all are so cruel, so bad, so ignorant, it's just too much so if you don't like superheroes tearing dinosaurs apart by their genitals don't watch it... -100 out of 10

The time is the 1950s: full of Cold War tensions, McCarthyism paranoia plus the beginnings of both the space race and the Civil Rights movement. Imagine that caught in the middle of all this are superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and potential ones like test pilot Hal Jordan, Barry Allan aka The Flash or the Martian Manhunter who hides away as Detective John Jones to name a few. Now imagine that a mysterious primordial being known only as the Center threatened to wipe humanity off the Earth and led these heroes to come together to form the Justice League? All these elements come together in the animated DVD film Justice League: The New Frontier.The film features a phenomenal cast of voices for its characters. They include Kyle MacLachlan as Superman, Lucy Lawless as Wonder Woman, David Boreanaz as Hal Jordan, Miguel Ferrer as the Martain Manhunter, Neil Patrick Harris as the Flash, Phil Morris as government agent Faraday, Brooke Shields as aerospace executive Carol Ferris and Kyra Sedgwick as Lois Lane. There's only one mis-casted voice in the form of Jeremy Sisto as Batman whose voice seems rather odd for the role. Yet overall the voice cast all breathe a huge amount of life into their characters and properly compliment the animated versions of their characters.As mentioned above, this is an animated film and it is all the better for it. Animation is all too often written off as being just for children but this film is far more then just that. The animation allows for the film to be visually retro yet exciting. This retro feel is not only in terms of how characters look with nods to the comics of the 1950s but with the design work that match the era well. The film has a PG-13 rating which means it has a bit more blood, mild language and violence then one might expect to see in an animated film though it should still be okay to watch with kids around. Perhaps the best example is one of the film's best sequences: its epilogue which combines JFK's "new frontier" speech with a montage of DC comic images and a stirring piece of music from composer Kevin Manthei. In short, the animation is a strength not a weakness of the film.Last but not least is the story. Adapted from the acclaimed graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke, the film puts these superheroes into the 1950s and watches as they live through, and are effected by, the events of that time such as the beginning of U.S involvement in Vietnam (when it was still known as Indochina). McCarthyism paranoia and the beginnings of both the space race and the Civil Rights movement. Yet no superhero movie would be complete without a super-villain and action sequences and this film has both. Its villain is the Center, a mysterious primordial being who slowly makes its presence known as it works towards humanity's destruction. The film features a lot of action including a Korean War dogfight, Flash saving Las Vegas, an attempted Mars mission, battles with dinosaurs and all that's leading up to an epic climatic battle off Cape Canaveral. This combination of fact and fiction works to create a truly an epic tale.While it may be animated, to be perfectly honest I'm not sure a live action version could improve the film. With its combination of a phenomenal voice cast, retro design work, superb animation and an epic story. The result is a superhero film that is head and shoulders above many of its live action counterparts in the genre. If you want to see your favorite superheroes in a new light, then look towards The New Frontier.

After the short but highly entertaining and surprisingly deep "Superman: Doomsday", we have "Justice League: The New Frontier", advertised as a adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel of same name. I've never read the graphic novel so i shall not go into the differences between the print and on screen portrayals of this epic tale, though many other reviews claim it is quite a faithful adaptation.The story is an intriguing but short one. Superheros in the 50s are frowned upon by the people and the government, Cold war paranoia is at an all time high, and into that melting pot comes "The Center": an evil entity bent on destroying human kind. I like how there is a element of mystery that builds to the climax as the movie goes along. The decision to leave the origin of "the center" ambiguous was a good one for which i applaud the producers. Another excellent decision was to not just mimic the look of cold war era superhero comics, but the feel, dialogue and even music of that era's movies and TV shows. Green Lantern and Martian ManHunter are given the most character development and portrayed really well by the voice actors. For example, You can really feel for Hal Jordan as his pacifist ideals are challenged by the dire situations he is put into. It is easy to connect with the characters and to lose yourself in the wonderful set design, well written dialogue and thought provoking themes. The film seems to be social commentary about discrimination, conflict due to differences and fear of such differences perpetuated by the media and governments of that time. The moral, that if humans were to put aside their differences and work toward a common good, is a timeless one that would even apply to our society todayOn the other hand, Justice League: New Frontier is far from perfect. For starters, the producers made a similar mistake that Marvel Animation did with their "Ultimate Avengers" movie: Too little time was spent on too many characters. You never get to feel a sense of threat from "The Center" and aside from Hal Jordan, the other Justice league characters never get enough screen time for the audience to relate to them or to the ideas and mindsets that they embody. So much so that when tragedy strikes later in the film, there isn't as much emotional impact as there could have been. The voice acting, though very well done, lacks variety. All the male characters sound almost alike aside from the Flash. The time-frame of the movie jumps a lot too. Apparently the movie takes place over the course of a couple of months(I don't think Martian Manhunter was able to land a job as a detective overnight or Hal Jordan was able to train as an Astronaut in a day). However, due to the short length of the movie and a lack of exposition as to the time frame(throwing in "a few months later" between the 1st and 2nd act would have helped a lot"), the plot seems to unfold over the course of only a few days, leaving many apparent plot holes in its wake.Animation-wise, it seems to be a step down from Superman:Doomsday. Though still keeping the angular and simplistic character design aesthetics of the previous movie and other DC animated series, the animation is stiffer and not as smooth as the previous animated feature. In fact the animation is fairly inconsistent with some scenes looking as bland as some of the poorer quality episodes from animated TV series. The big fight scenes are generally underwhelming with little sense of "epicness". I'm sure the directors were going for a grand scale battle the likes of Independence Day or Star Wars during the climax, but either due to budgetary constraints or lack of director's experience, the climactic conflict was no where near as great as it could have been.A underdeveloped plot, too many characters, mediocre and inconsistent animation coupled with an overly short movie length(75 minutes for that many characters and plot threads is really cutting it too close) ended up overshadowing the great acting, intriguing story and social and political themes that this show tried to convey. All that potential, marred by poor execution and time constraints.