Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Three

It amazes me how Jeff Wamester still keeps his job as a director for DC animation department at WB. For many years he made abysmal animation effort for the brand so much that it feels like a new normal. WB DC animation used be regarded in such a high manner it saddens to see such works.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a really weird, but nonetheless important and culturally significant event for comic books history. It never seemed like an easy job to transfer it in animation or live action medium. So for it to succeed it had to at least be gorgeously animated and story wise fulfil the main themes of comics narrative.

But what we got here is a lazy, non coherent work, which removes the most interesting parts of the story and fills in the gaps with terrible animation sequences, a lot of exposition and a bunch of parts that could've been cut out altogether. At the end we get a product that is so boring, that I've fallen asleep a couple of times and had to rewind it.

I was never a really big fan of the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, but I did respect the original authors and how they managed to fill in so much in one story. Having that material should've helped to at least make a coherent story for animation, but what we got is a cheap spit to the face of animation industry, especially for those animators who previously were so successful and hard working in DC department. It's just a shame that after all this time fans got to see the worst kind of imagination of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

I'm not versed in the source material at all outside of common knowledge for fans of the shared universe, so my enjoyment of this film is for the film itself. That, and the Tomorrowverse overall. Were I an avid reader of the comics and knew Crisis well, it would not surprise me to find myself disliking this far more.

But as a trilogy, this conclusion really wasn't so bad. It was greatly helped by brief visits to well-loved shows in the past, all in its original art style no less. The nostalgia train hit me so hard I couldn't help but instantly like this film a little more the second it came on screen. This movie also had some decent moments unrelated to old heavy hitters. While it wasn't the best of the franchise, I still enjoyed it for what it is.

However, the main issue with these recent films is that hardly any of them are complete stories by themselves. It's all tied to other entries that came before it. If this only happened for the trilogy I wouldn't judge so harshly, since parts 1, 2 and 3 are literally in the title. But we also saw this for films that preceded it, transforming these into episodes of the same story and not separate, though inter-connected movies. This happens when there's too much crossover which blurs the entire arc into one amalgamation. Instead of cool references here and there where the audience can get excited at recognizing something for having seen previous installments, thorough knowledge of the continuity is expected of the viewer which easily becomes drag when seemingly the same story has been occurring for a long, long time. Perhaps this was intentional due to it being infinite earths and all. If so, the intent is appreciated, but left wanting in practice. Or maybe their assumed audience are all DC diehards, in which case this isn't great storytelling.

It also has to be mentioned that some scenes are poorly done. It's hard to describe but the quality throughout the trilogy, as well as many of the films before it is noticeably inconsistent. You've got moments that are excellent while others are so low-effort it's amazing they're in the same movie. Don't know what's happening in the animation studio but it seriously affects the end result in a negative way.

I'm a DC fan. These characters are among my favorites in any franchise. This means I'll continue to watch whatever DC puts out. Having said that, Tomorrowverse was disappointing overall. Too much reliance on previous entries aside, with very few exceptions it wasn't until this film that our heroes started feeling like the people we know and love. Then, suddenly, it's over. Quite a bittersweet send-off. There's something missing, but by this point I'm somewhat glad it's done.

I thought Part 1 was actually a pretty good beginning, it had an emotional heart with the Flash and set things up well.

Parts 2 and 3 however, a lot of the time it felt like they were treading water. It was hard to connect with a lot of the characters, and felt kind of poorly paced.

It had plenty of good moments, but perhaps they didn't work in cohesion.

Not sure how I feel about the Batman: The Animated Series being erased either to be honest. I don't think that'll stick.

The visuals were solid, but hampered by the lack of budget these films have.

Ultimately scrapes through with a pass for me, and thank DC for your series of animated movies. If they have to end, at least they ended with Kevin Conroy being Batman.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths and a trilogy long awaited by DC animated film fans are over.

I like that in this conclusion there are several versions of the same characters with the same importance, and even a couple of sequences that show versions that cross the barrier of the DC animated cinematic universe.

The story is entertaining to watch, because it really is a plot on epic scales, but the solutions are very simplistic. Unfortunately, and I don't know if this is really the original story or not, it bothers me a lot that the story requires so many unjustified sacrifices as a deus ex machina and that Superman is so irritatingly available to sacrifice himself. Yes, he is DC's greatest hero, but this story goes beyond the man of steel. The character cries out for attention that he no longer has and it doesn't work that he is in the position of leader either.

Regarding the edition, I think I would have liked to see a condensed movie of up to 3 hours long instead of watching 3 parts of 90 minutes. There are shortcomings in the editing of the entire project that could have been easily fixed by removing unnecessary script lines and overly long sequences.

All in all, I had fun, but it could have been much better in many ways. Let's hope that the new animated universe maintains the quality or even surpasses it in James Gunn's hands.

I waited until I had finished Part 3 before rating and reviewing because it is folly to view these as three separate movies rather than as a series.

Had just a little more care been taken, I believe this trilogy would have been cinema-worthy. The artwork looks like Archer, the pacing is terrible; Part 1, a story where the Flash races through alternate dimensions, should have crackled with energy. Instead, it has gaps of leaden silence, where stilled cells linger more than a beat too long. There are serious continuity issues, where it is impossible to tell where characters physically are in the 'multiverse', and I kept thinking I had missed a section of storyline.

It is interesting what DC have tried to do, here (even for the third time) using a storyline to repair what was a greedy boardroom decision, and the mature, subdued tone is appropriate. Additionally, the voice cast are fantastic, and this is the final chance to hear the Conroy/Hamill partnership. But, if this was such a big deal for the DCAMU, an extra three months of work would have raised it from an oddity to an epic.