Justice League of America (1997)

This was a pilot of a TV series that has not been approved. It uses to be panned as a ridiculous film with the worst costumes and visual effects ever. That is very unfair. To begin, it has a different format relatively to other comedic superhero movies, as it is a sitcom. And, although not brilliant and often silly, it works, with funny moments and some good ideas. The special effects are not very good, but you can find worse in many low budget motion pictures and in most TV series until the 90's. The idea of showing testimonials in between the story as if it were a documentary is also nice, a quite creative innovation. People use to prefer to see the same conventional formula than innovations; that is a shame. This was a pretty nice attempt, which unfortunately did not have the chance to be produced with a higher budget.

I recently saw this pilot after a friend purchased a bootleg copy online. Overall, it was not bad. The special effects were cheesy and the acting (directing) a bit campy, but it is certainly on par with other shows on TV at that time (e.g. Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules). The whole point is this: was it enjoyable? The answer is yes. Could it have lasted on TV? Probably not. Justice League left a lot to be desired, but had some interesting things going on.The show begins with the superheros being interviewed as the real characters as if they were on dateline. They talk a bit about themselves and then the show switches to the plot at hand (read plot summary on this shows info page). Certainly a unique way of character development. By the end, I was moderately disappointed in the overall execution. I did, however, feel emotionally connected to the characters and was left wanting a little more. Would that have changed in the future of the show? We will never know. If you do get the chance to see this pilot, I recommend you do. It won't be a waste of your time unless your expecting a show the caliber of Alias or Lost.

This never-aired pilot for a potential JLA TV show was almost universally derided. Mark Waid (a noted comics writer) called it a waste of an hour and a half. From all the stills from the movie which I had seen, I fully expected it to be horrible.Therefore I was pleasently surprised to find it to be a light, airy movie with plenty of nice character development. The characters only bear a passing resemblance to their comic book counterparts, but they are written with such warmth, that it didn't really matter. I found myself liking them, despite my preconceived notions about the movie.I found the characters to be well-rounded and believable (though very different from the comics), and I thoroughly enjoyed the way that they worked together.The plot could have been better, it wasn't all that exciting. Unknown villain manipulates the city's weather, the JLA have to discover who he is. The JLA did most of their work out of costume, making it more reminiscent of spy shows like "Mission Impossible" or "Charlie's Angels" than the JLA comic book.The budget for the movie was clearly non-existant. Some of the weather effects weren't too bad, but most of the other special effects were very lame. This isn't all that surprising for a pilot. What I think hurt the movie the most, and probably is what prevented it from ever being aired, were the Justice League's super-hero costumes. They were embarassingly bad. The man who played the Flash was young and in good shape, however, in the costume he looked fat and middle-aged. Atom's costume was a disaster of foam rubber that looked as if it were about to fall off at any moment. Fire and Ice had good costumes, and Green Lantern's was almost OK. They could probably have played it to better effect, if they'd had the actors perform wearing ordinary T-shirts with the logos silk-screened on them. The costumes from the movie looked comical, and I think prevented a lot of people from even trying to take the movie seriously.From the standpoint of a comics reader, its clear they weren't trying to capture the grandeur of the current Justice League as depicted in the comics and the excellent series on Cartoon Network. They were trying to depict a TV version of the Justice League from the early 90's as depicted by Keith Giffen and JM DeMathiess (and later by Gerard Jones and others). I think they managed to succeed in depicting a close-knit team of people, decidely less super than the heroes we currently see in the comics, but much more human. I liked it.

I saw the film in todays holiday progam. Frankly I have to say that There are few films that I spend with wincing that much.Everthing was painful. From the trying costumes to the even more trying dialogues. The Interview bits were not even funny or interessting. I have read Justice League Comics. The characters and how they were portrayed reminded me or the same writting and acting quality as a baywatch episode. (And I don't watch those either)BTW did I mention that the whole film was predictable as hell. Would have been nice to have a single moment that I didn't knew would happen minutes before. She freezing the wave. Tell me me this suprised you.Miguel Ferrer turning out the way he was ~yawn~ (And I like the actor from Broken Badges)aso...A waste of time.