REVIEW -- Justice League Dark (2017)

Justice League Dark is a 2017 American animated superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and distributed by Warner Home Video. Featuring the DC Comics team of the same name created by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin, the film is the twenty-seventh film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. It was released digitally on January 24, 2017 and is set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 7, 2017. The film is directed by Jay Oliva, and stars the voices of Matt Ryan, Jason O'Mara, Camilla Luddington, Nicholas Turturro, and Ray Chase. It is the first Justice League film and the second DC Universe animated film to receive an R rating from the MPAA.

Voice Cast

Matt Ryan as John Constantine
Jason O'Mara as Bruce Wayne / Batman
Camilla Luddington as Zatanna
Nicholas Turturro as Boston Brand / Deadman
Ray Chase as Jason Blood / Etrigan the Demon
Roger Cross as Dr. Alec Holland / Swamp Thing, John Stewart / Green Lantern
Colleen Villard as Black Orchid
Jerry O'Connell as Clark Kent / Superman
Rosario Dawson as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman
Enrico Colantoni as Felix Faust
Jeremy Davies as Ritchie Simpson
Alfred Molina as Destiny
J. B. Blanc as Abnegazar, Merlin
Jeffrey Vincent Parise as Rath, Father, Police Officer
Fred Tatasciore as Ghast
Brian T. Delaney as Husband, Shroud Leader
Laura Post as Businesswoman

Plot (FULL Spoilers)

A woman is rear ended in her car and when she emerges she sees a demon. It's shown the demons she is seeing are just normal people. However, the demon approaches her window and in terror she speeds off down the street. Other people are shown as demons as she runs them down in the street. She continues to run down people until her car is stopped by Wonder Woman who confronts the woman on her actions. The woman screams that she is seeing demons, and pleads if Wonder Woman also sees them. Wonder Woman surveys the carnage around her and replies, "I see only one".

A man is shown in his house confronting what he believes are demons with a shotgun. The wife with her children plead to her husband to stop, but before the husband can pull the trigger, Superman and cops enter the house to stop him. The husband pleads with Superman that demons have killed his family and have killed his neighbors as well. He tells them to check the shed to understand. Upon entering the shed, Superman and the police come across a grisly scene as the neighbors are shown hanging or wrapped in plastic, dead inside.

Batman confronts a woman on the top of a tall building. She is crying looking at her baby. Batman asks the woman to come back off the side of the building. She apologizes, saying she has given birth to the Devil. The woman sees her small baby as a demon spawn. For a moment she hesitates to give the baby to Batman, before seeing the demon spawn lash out and she tosses the baby over the side of the building. Batman uses grappling hooks to save the baby and lands on a nearby archway. A loud thump is heard and the mother's body is seen on the sidewalk. Batman apologizes to the crying baby.

At the Justice League headquarters scenes of carnage and horror are watched on-screen. The Justice League discuss the situation and comes to the conclusion that a paranormal element may be involved. Batman discusses his disbelief that these crimes are caused by magic and walks out.

Batman returns to his home where he cuts himself shaving due to an unseen force behind him. After finding the name "Constantine" written on his mirror, he emerges from his bathroom to find it written all over his walls.

John Constantine is playing poker with Jason Blood and the Demons Three. The opposing player dealing has been cheating throughout the game, changing his cards with magic. He changes his hand in a match and raises Constantine out of the game. Constantine reveals he is raising the stakes, and bets the House of Mystery. It causes the Demons Three to discuss the situation and begin a ritual to call the bet with a large spiked ruby called "The Dreamstone". The Demons Three call John and John uses his own magic to change the cards back to their original state when the demon calls.

A brawl ensues from the chaos of the card game. Constantine fights the demons until he is brought to a rather desperate situation and forces Jason Blood to transform into Etrigan, much to Jason's frustration. Etrigan proceeds to defeat the Demons Three and return to Jason's form.

Batman visits the magician Zatanna at one of her performances. Backstage Batman appears in Zatanna's dressing room and begins to ask about Constantine. Deadman possesses Batman and tells Zatanna she needs to bring Batman to John. Batman forces Deadman out of his body and Zatanna agrees to bring Batman to Constantine.

On the way to John's home, the House of Mystery, a conjured tornado is set towards the Batmobile. The trio narrowly make it in time to make it inside John's house as the Batmobile is swept away by the tornado.

Batman explains to John the recent spikes in homicide may have a magical component. During this time, John casts a spell to make Deadman visible. Black Orchid makes an appearance as a manifestation of the House of Mystery. Black Orchid finds great interest in Deadman. After some exposition on everyone present by Black Orchid, the group form gathers to share information. After a quick discussion the team is formed.

The team visits a friend of John's named Ritchie Simpson. Outside Ritchie's house shroud spirits await to collect his soul. Constantine banishes the shrouds after some banter between them. The door opens revealing Ritche who is very surprised to see them, most of all, Batman.

It is revealed John has a past with Ritchie that gave him some kind of magical cancer. Ritchie's frustration with John is overcome by Batman's mention that innocent lives are at stake. Ritchie gives John the magical artifact in his possession that he thinks will allow him to probe the mind of the man who killed his neighbors, who is currently being held in a hospital.

Zatanna and John enter the man's mind together while Deadman possesses a nurse who stumbles upon the group. While inside the man's mind, Zatanna and John discuss their past and, possibly, their future. At the hospital, a demon made of living feces is conjured out of the bathroom with a loud entrance from the toilet. A horrible smell emanates from the bathroom throughout the hospital. A nurse walks to the bathroom to investigate, when an arm of feces reaches out and drags her to her death inside the bathroom. The monster of feces bursts out of the bathroom and begins to move down the hall, scattering hospital staff while killing a nurse, dissolving him down to his bones. Deadman exits the body of the nurse he was inhabiting, and begins to follow the feces monster down the hall. Deadman jumps into the body of security guards who are hopelessly shooting the monster, pushing another guard out of the way and saving both their lives. Chasing after the feces monster, he attempts to do the same for another guard without success. Batman confronts the monster, slowing it down with a mix of the hospital sprinkler system and a defibrillator machine. Meanwhile John and Zatanna witness the beginning of the hospitalized man's descent into darkness, being possessed by a dark figure.

Deadman continues to possess various hospital staff to save themselves and the hospitalized man. The feces monster manages to grab the man, and begins to devour him and the entrance into his mind. John and Zatanna narrowly manage to escape before the feces creature consumes the man while they exit his mind, where Zatanna proceeds to destroy the monster.

Returning to Ritchie's, the team finds him about to die, with the apartment nearly destroyed and Jason Blood standing over him. Batman revives Ritchie with a shot to the chest, but he quickly falls into a coma. Blood attempts to flee the scene but is captured by Constantine. Interrogating Blood, he tells the team that he did not attempt to hurt Ritchie, but was looking for a way into the House of Mystery to find the Dreamstone. Blood recounts of a time when, as a knight of Camelot, Destiny came to conquer the lands using the Dreamstone. Blood fought against him, but was killed. Merlin summoned Etrigan to destroy Destiny, offering him freedom in return. Etrigan battled Destiny and mortally wounded him, but Merlin bound Etrigan to Jason Blood, anticipating that Destiny was not truly destroyed.

Ritchie awakens and names Felix Faust as his assailant before falling back asleep. In order to locate Faust, Constantine and the team go to find Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing agrees to transport them to Faust's observatory, but declines to join the group's fight. Infiltrating Faust's lair, the wizard battles the team, but ultimately is defeated by Zatanna using a magical artifact. However, Faust is found to have no involvement in hurting Ritchie.

Back at the House of Mystery, Ritchie awakens and seemingly destroys Black Orchid, revealing himself to have the other piece of the Dreamstone, and assuming control over the House. Ritchie reveals that he had been using the Dreamstone to keep his cancer in remission, but is killed when the Dreamstone brings Destiny back to life. Destiny declares himself a god and destroys the House. Zatanna saves the group, passing out from exertion. The Justice League tries to fight Faust, but he makes them perceive each other as demonic threats. Etrigan attacks Destiny, but is separated back into Jason Blood and Etrigan. Constantine summons Swamp Thing, who agrees to fight Destiny, as Batman and Zatanna disable the Justice League. Destiny defeats Swamp Thing by taking Alec Holland's corpse from his body.

Constantine tricks Destiny into bringing him and Deadman within his protective shield, allowing Deadman to wound Destiny, before Constantine, Batman, and Blood destroy Destiny's body, leaving Ritchie, whose cancer kills him shortly after. Blood succumbs to his mortal wound from centuries before.

Zatanna agrees to join the Justice League, while Constantine declines. The two return to the now rebuilt House of Mystery, agreeing to have a drink together.

The Verdict

Man, that opening bit with the League stopping all of these mass-murderers set the tone for this "dark" film for sure. Still not the blood bath that Gods and Monsters was, but pretty damn close though.

One thing that's glossed over here that was mentioned briefly in Justice League vs. Teen Titans is that Superman is vulnerable to magic, so that's why the main League members weren't too versed in the conversation of magic. Outside of maybe Wonder Woman and Hawkman, they are the only members equipped to deal with such matters - at least in this iteration of the League.

Speaking of the League, the JLA added Jon Stewart Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Martian Manhunter into their ranks since the time gap between this film, Justice League vs. Teen Titans, Batman: Bad Blood, and JL: Throne of Atlantis. Some filler on how that happened would have been appreciated. I get that they are creating their own universe with these "mature" direct-to-video home releases, but I wish someone would give them a budget for a regular animated series - even more so for Justice League: Gods and Monsters.

To say that Batman is the one who decides to investigate these mass-murderers deeper than mere coincidences, he ends up being just the eyes of the Justice League and more importantly, the audience in this film. Batman is merely a cosmetic accessory to this movie. He barely contributes ANYTHING to the whole discussion of magic in this plot. Outside of comedy relief moments, they could've focused this entire film just on John Constantine and his dysfunctional team. I guess Batman is there to remind everyone - no matter what team affiliation - that there's a use for mere mortals.

There is no Enchantress (Dr. June Moon) in this iteration of JL Dark. I'm guessing they already had one powerful spellcaster/sorceress with Zatanna so they didn't want to muddle it up right off the bat. John Constantine is played by Matt Ryan (who played the titular character in the Constantine short-lived TV series) while Zatanna is played by Camilla Luddington (voice actor and motion capture model for Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot and Rise of the Tomb Raider), who both played those roles wonderfully, so I can't complain on that front. I did miss Lacey Chabert voicing Zatanna at first, but I can understand that we're going with a more mature post-New 52 version of Zatanna in this continuity. I swear between seeing the few episodes of Constantine on SyFy channel I have seen on a whim in reruns to seeing this film, I wish I watched more of that show when it was on air at the time. Seemed like Matt Ryan had a knack for playing this character as I liked his charm and delivery from start to finish in this. The film focuses a bit too much on Zatanna and Constantine's relationship, at the cost of under-developing everyone else in this narrative.

That fact is proven by how the rest of the members of this impromptu team are Swamp Thing was pretty much an afterthought here while Etrigan was pretty much the unsung hero, even though I liked Deadman here more than I thought I would have. I'm still trying to figure which iteration of Swamp Thing they are going with here - old school or New 52 as this animated stuff since JL: WAR has been leaning towards more with New 52 mythos for the League members. I don't know why they didn't go with the old Justice League Unlimited voices for Etrigan and Deadman, but the actors here were fine for the most part.

I have to admit that I always enjoy a modern take on Felix Faust as he's a pretty cool DC villain as shown in the JLU stuff after being regarded as a goof for most of DC Comics history (no thanks to the Superfriends era stuff painting that picture...), but I was relieved that he wasn't the central villain here as he's NEVER the brains behind anything, just a means to an end. Faust served as a pretty cool mid-level boss for this team prior to the film's climax against Destiny that showed off the potential of what each member of team had to offer in combat.

The film's true villain, Destiny, was an odd one to wrap my head around since I'm used to Doctor Destiny looking more like Skeletor from Masters of the Universe crossed with the Red Skull, not Skeletor crossed with Count Marzo. God, I'm showing my age with these Masters of the Universe references, huh? It was pretty cool to wrap his origin story along with Etrigan's while tying his modern day iteration to Constantine and Zatanna's relationship.

I have to be honest, but it seemed redundant to do another villain after Justice League vs. Teen Titans and Batman: Bad Blood where the League or misc. allies are being controlled by an outside force. They are reusing that trope as much as Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes did in it's final season. As a result, it makes the finale a bit dry - and I don't mean from Etrigan's fire breath or the fact that Destiny ripped out Alec Holland from Swamp Thing's body. I have to mention that it was pretty hardcore that dude ripped Etrigan and Jason Blood from being bonded to each other too. I wonder what they are going to do with Etrigan and Swamp Thing without their human hosts then? I honestly don't know since I don't follow this end of DC Comics, so I'm really intrigued on what they will do from here if DC decides to do more with these characters. We know we'll see Zatanna again since she accepted Batman's invitation to the League, but no one else took him up on that offer. Hell, we didn't even get a post-credits teaser like the other films in this line-up.

(Sighs) At least we know that Teen Titans: The Judas Contract is up next later this year. 

Watch it or Don't Bother?

Go ahead and watch it. Why not? DC is still ahead of the game over Marvel in terms of these direct-to-DVD animated outings, especially with this shared universe that they started with Justice League: WAR. While I was hoping for a little more here, this is off to a great start to what could be even better down the line in this shared animated universe, much like with the new iteration of the Teen Titans in this continuity. John Constantine fans will be happy to at least hear Matt Ryan reprise the role here, despite the cancellation of his live-action show.

Justice League Dark felt like one of DC Comics' weaker animated adventures in this continuity, but still has some entertaining moments to hold your interest from start to finish as it was a joy to see these lesser known DC heroes get their chance to shine in the limelight. I just wouldn't go out of my way to purchase any of this DVD/Blu-Ray releases at launch at full-price though.