Justice League: Gods and Monsters is a 2015 direct-to-video animated superhero film featuring the
DC Comics superhero team the
Justice League and is part of the
DC Universe Animated Original Movies. It was released as a digital download on July 21, 2015 on will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 28, 2015.
Cast:
Benjamin Bratt as
Lor-Zod/Hernan Guerra /
Superman
Michael C. Hall as
Kirk Langstrom /
Batman
Tamara Taylor as
Bekka /
Wonder Woman
Paget Brewster as
Lois Lane
C. Thomas Howell as
Dr. Will Magnus
Jason Isaacs as
Lex Luthor /
Metron
Dee Bradley Baker as
Ray Palmer
Eric Bauza as
Ryan Choi
Larry Cedar as
Pete Ross
Richard Chamberlain as
Highfather
Trevor Devall as
Emil Hamilton
Dan Gilvezan as
Pat Dugan
Grey Griffin as
Tina/Platinum
Daniel Hagen as
Doctor Sivana
Penny Johnson Jerald as
President Amanda Waller
Josh Keaton as
Orion
Arif S. Kinchen as
Michael Holt
Yuri Lowenthal as
Jor-El
Carl Lumbly as Silas Stone
Jim Meskimen as
Victor Fries
Taylor Parks as
Victor Stone
Khary Payton as
John Henry Irons
Tahmoh Penikett as
Steve Trevor
Andrea Romano as
Jean Palmer
André Sogliuzzo as Cop
Bruce Thomas as
General Zod
Lauren Tom as Lara
Marcelo Tubert as Tough Guy
Kari Wahlgren as
Karen Beecher
Plot: (FULL Spoilers)
In an alternate universe, the
Justice League is a brutal force that maintains order on Earth. Superman is named Hernan Guerra and is the son of
General Zod, who was rocketed to Earth as a child and raised by a family of Mexican
migrant farmers, leading him to become short tempered and withdrawn from humanity. Batman is
Kirk Langstrom, a scientist who has inadvertently transformed himself into a form of pseudo-vampire in an attempt to cure his cancer, feeding on criminals to satisfy his hunger after his hunger begins to eat away at his humanity. Wonder Woman is
Bekka, wife of New God, Orion, but an altercation made her leave Apokolips and eventually travel to Earth using a sword conjoined to a mother box. The Justice League's unaccountability is ultimately challenged by the world's governments following the suspicious deaths of renowned scientists, including
Victor Fries being found drained of blood in the Arctic,
Ray Palmer's car crushed with a woman's bootprint in the door, and Silas Stone burned alive by heat vision, along with his son
Victor Stone. As all suspicion falls on the Justice League, President
Amanda Waller asks that they co-operate with the Government's investigation. Wonder Woman speaks to
Steve Trevor to learn what the Government knows, while Superman invites
Lois Lane to the League's HQ, where he tells her of his goals to try to help humanity, and also reveals how little he knows about Krypton or his heritage. Batman investigates himself and discovers an email on Silas' computer, that was sent to a number of scientists including
Will Magnus, Batman's college room mate who helped his transformation. Batman asks Magnus about 'Project FairPlay', which involved all the scientists under
Lex Luthor's employ, but Magnus tells him nothing. Later Batman locates all the remaining scientists discussing the threat over their heads, when they are attacked by the assassins, who travel via Boom Tube. Despite the other League members intervening, the assassins slaughter the remaining scientists and 'Boom' out, with Magnus the sole survivor.
The League take Magnus to their HQ to recover, while Superman flies into orbit to a satellite, where Luthor now resides. Luthor reveals that Project FairPlay is a weapons program to destroy the League if necessary, while also revealing that he retained all the remaining information on Krypton from Superman's shuttle, and tells him the truth about Zod. Luthor tells Superman that Waller has the original files, and as Superman leaves, an assassin booms in and the satellite explodes. As Superman looks on in shock, Trevor shows satellite footage of the explosion to Waller, and she retaliates with Project FairPlay, which consists of troops and vehicles armed with weapons powered by red sunlight radiation.
Superman and Wonder Woman face the army at their door, as Batman stays inside the HQ, where he activates the League's force field, the idea being that once Magnus recovers, he can clear the League. Suddenly Batman is attacked by Platinum of the
Metal Men, who Magnus had disguised as his wife. With Batman restrained by Tin, Platinum revives Magnus with Nanites. He is then revealed to be the true villain of the story. The assassins are in fact the remaining Metal Men, who appear with a weapon. Magnus tells Batman that he intends to use a Nanite bomb to brainwash humanity into working as a collective. We also learn that Magnus' madness stems from when he accidentally killed his wife. She and Kirk had a strong emotional bond, which caused her to relentlessly push Will to help cure Kirk, as they both gave him the serum which turned him into Batman. He struck her one night, and she struck her head on a table and died. Magnus replaced her with Platinum and joined Project FairPlay soon after, intending to use its resources to bring humanity together in a collective mind as he feels that his actions prove that humanity does not deserve to continue if even a rational man like himself could do that to his own wife.
As Magnus prepares his weapon, Luthor suddenly teleports into the middle of the battle outside and tells everyone that he has discovered Magnus' plan. Inside, Batman seizes an opportunity to drop the force field and the League do battle with Magnus and the Metal Men. Eventually they succeed and Magnus commits suicide by disintegrating himself with nanites.
A week later, the League have been cleared, and the world views them differently. Bekka decides to leave the League to face her past, along with Luthor who wants to explore other realities. Upon leaving, Luthor gives Superman all the data on Krypton and tells him to be a 'real hero'. The film ends with Superman and Batman deciding to work through the data immediately to help humanity.ists, including
Victor Fries being found drained of blood in the Arctic,
Ray Palmer's car crushed with a woman's bootprint in the door, and
Silas Stone burned alive by heat vision.
The Verdict:
Right off the bat (no pun intended), I want to say that this film isn't for kids at all. I was genuinely shocked and amused at how far Bruce Timm and DC Comics pushed this narrative. Speaking of Bruce Timm, I'm glad to see him back in the driver's seat again for DC Comics' animated features. For those who don't know, he is the man responsible for building much of DC Comics' modern animated universe, starting from the beloved
Batman: The Animated Series to
Justice League: Unlimited. He also worked on
Freakazoid! and the short-lived
Green Lantern: The Animated Series.
After the travesty that saw
Justice League Unlimited get cancelled by Cartoon Network in early 2000s, I'm glad that DC Comics haven't lost faith in Bruce Timm's worth. His artistic style is obviously apparent just from looking at this movie for the first time, but this isn't
Justice League Unlimited. This is a darker, fresher take on the Justice League that isn't that much of a stretch from the universe that we know and love.
If you grew up with Bruce Timm's earlier works then you will appreciate all of the subtle jokes and Easter eggs littered throughout this movie, such as Crazy Ivy brought some of her "plants" to the party or all of the scientists that are getting murdered are well-known "geniuses" of DC Comics - whether they tend to be villains (Mr. Freeze/Victor Fries) or superheroes (Ray Palmer/The Atom) in the mainstream canon continuity. Lois Lane remains unchanged (outside of her new sassy appearance) - still works for the Daily Planet as it's top anchorwoman, but there's no love connection between her and Superman here. In the contrary, it's complete animosity between them. There's also Steve Trevor keeping an eye on the Justice League, with it being hinted at that he's pretty much Bekka/Wonder Woman's sex toy - which was confirmed in her mini-episode anyway. Last but not least, there's Amanda Waller acting as the President of the United States in this universe. Given the state of the canonical DC Universe, that's not much of a stretch from reality.
Out of each of the Justice League's origin stories that are scattered throughout the course of this film, I felt that Wonder Woman/Bekka had the best one out of the three, even though I thought it was a bit of a stretch that Darkseid and the forces of Apokalips would let their guard down that easily. Kirk Langstrom becoming Batman after a freak accident to cure his cancer turned him into a vampire was more ironic than interesting, but that spark of originality was lessened by the fact that his own best friend set him up to be turned into a freak in the first place. It sounds too much like the origins of Vlad Masters/Plasmius (Danny Phantom) or Michael Morbius (Spider-Man) for my taste. Superman/Hernan Guerra's origin didn't show little to no originality as Kal-El was the son of General Zod instead of Jor-El. I'll give them kudos to having him still grow up with morals - but with a darker outlook on life after being raised as an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day, Superman is the ULTIMATE illegal alien. To say that these three individuals had some dark influences on their transformations into heroes is an understatement, especially after seeing the opening sequence in the film.
The Justice League go in to stop a terrorist attack and it turns into a bloodbath instead of simply neutralizing the threats. This Justice League goes out of their way to put down these villains - FOR GOOD - by the extreme methods in combat. I was simply blown away at how little concern this Justice League had over their adversaries. That's not necessarily a bad thing but at the same time, they have instantly painted the wrong image to the world that they are trying to protect. This film does a good job of showing how this Justice League is going about crime-fighting the wrong way and how their world interprets their actions. Ironic that they can't apply this same method of storytelling to the folks who write and produce
Justice League: War and
Throne of Atlantis. If anyone needs to talk about the Justice League going overboard in combat it's in those two films. To each of the teams' credit, the Gods and Monsters batch didn't turn out as bad as I was expecting given their circumstances.
It's funny that this Justice League has an impromptu mentor in the form of Lex Luthor, who is credited as
Metron in credits. Keep note that the film never calls him this throughout the narrative but it's a dead giveaway from how reclusive Luthor is from the rest of humanity in his ongoing search for knowledge. Without seeing the prequel mini-episodes prior, I probably would have thought that Lex Luthor was trying to be Brainiac from the way that he was trying to keep and preserve knowledge for himself from the rest of humanity.
In terms of narrative, I was surprised that they went with the
Metal Men as the main villains here out of anyone else that could have been used or revamped from DC Comics for this movie. To their credit, they gave the Justice League one hell of a fight in the film's climax, but it's an absolute stretch to see the Metal Men taken
that seriously as a threat for once.
I have to admit that Will Magnus' plot is almost comical to an extent. He murders all of his fellow scientists (or rather competition) all just to want to turn humanity into automatons? And all of this stemmed from his jealousy of his former classmate being liked by the girl who he forced to marry him instead? Sheesh. I swear, DC Comics supervillains need to get therapy or something. That's just as bad as Lex Luthor becoming Superman's mortal enemy all because of the accident that blew up his lab and made his hair fall out in the old
Superfriends cartoons. If Luthor's so damn smart, why doesn't he invent Rogaine or something for men?
Rent It, Buy It, or Don't Bother?
There's some great action in this film (nothing that won't shock people from what high-standard DC Comics has set for their animation to date) and this isn't a bad story but I'm left with the feeling of wishing that Bruce Timm and his team did a little more for this premiere debut. Then again, Justice League didn't blow me away either at first, but I guess we'll have to see where this goes from here.
Most people will be happy with a
rental, but hardcore DC Comics fans will want to add this to their collections if you have everything else of Bruce Timm's work to date. DC Comics has openly stated that if fans show their support for this animated film that they will look into further sequels into this universe and even possibly a full-blown animated series.
The DVD/Blu-Ray set reportedly comes with the three episode mini-series,
Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles, that served as the prequel stories that set the stage for this film which were released online prior to the film's retail release by Machinima Inc.'s YouTube page.
