Features the voices of: Roger Cross, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Gorham, Camilla Luddington, Shemar Moore, Jerry O’Connell, Jason O’Mara, Matt Ryan, Sachie Alessio, Stuart Allan, Ray Chase, John DiMaggio, Taissa Farmiga, Liam McIntyre, Tony Todd | Written by Ernie Altbacker, Mairghread Scott | Directed by Matt Peters, Christina Sotta
Like most people – and I am basing this entirely on the box office – I am more of a Marvel person than DC. But I definitely am not loyal to either side. DC have produced plenty of great live-action movies but I was intrigued how they would fare with an animated adult movie.
Ending a fifteen movie story arc, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War is DC’s Endgame as we see the Justice League regroup after the decimation of Earth and attempting to finally defeat Darkseid.
Not having seen any DC animated movie before this (or many animated superhero movies at all) I went into Justice League Dark: Apokolips War with a very limited knowledge of anything that was happening and many of the characters. And I wouldn’t say this is the best way to watch it. Despite this, if you want to go into the movie like I did, there’s still plenty to enjoy.
At an hour and a half it’s not long at all but the time absolutely flies by and it feels like it’s non-stop action, although this isn’t completely true. There is an effort to gove some back-story and depth to the characters even if they have limited screen time. There are many many characters involved here, including but not at all limited to – Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Shazam, Wonder Woman, John Constantine, Harley Quinn, Flash – I could go on and on. It is quite difficult to keep track and it feels like some characters are on screen for a matter of seconds. But that said, there’s plenty of characters that I loved seeing. Not knowing much about him, I enjoyed John Constantine as one of the leads. He feels like a breath of fresh air compared to other superheroes, and his very British sayings are great. Other highlights included Superman (a much different side to him), Louis Lane (similar to Superman – something different), King Shark and Captain Boomerang were a lot of fun and Darkseid is pretty great as the big bad villain. I will say one thing though, and I have no idea if this is a controversial opinion, but I don’t really like the Harley Quinn character. She’s just quite annoying.
Action-wise there’s a lot going on in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War too. There seems to be endless fight scenes. And as this is Justice League Dark I shouldn’t have been surprised at quite how brutal and blood-filled the fights were. Bodies are ripped apart, lots of people die and characters are beaten again and again. There’s some great fight sequences and when it needs to feel ’epic’ it manages to do so. There’s some good humour on it all too, generally from the usual suspects and mainly adult-orientated, making me laugh on several occasions.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (and that spelling annoys me more than it should!) made me want to watch those fourteen movies that came before it and that’s one of the biggest compliments I can give it. I did feel like I was watching Endgame without seeing any other Marvel films, which isn’t ideal. So even though I enjoyed the movie, I think I would enjoy it even more with some background knowledge.
This is epic, emotional and exciting, all the things a big superhero movie should be. It had a kind of nineties animation-feel to it, it’s full of big characters, violent fights and great-looking animation. Fans of DC will absolutely love it!
**** 4/5
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War is available on digital download and on DVD, Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray Steelbook & Blu-Ray Minifig from today, May 18th.