This morning, I did the June Swoon 3 film for the day and it was on HBO Max. It was an animated Justice League movie called Warworld. I did not find it great, but it did reveal to me something that I did not know. There was another Justice League animated film out and available on Max which was based on one of the classic DC Comics storylines ever told: EYG Hall of Fame series, Crisis on Infinite Earths.
A wall of anti-matter is sweeping across the multiverse, destroying everything in its path. The Monitor (sort of like DC’s Watcher) recruited heroes from across all different worlds in an attempt to prevent the multiverse’s complete annihilation.
One of the most fun part about watching this movie was seeing the background heroes recruited to stand behind the main heroes. I saw everyone from Metamorpho to Hawk & Dove to Swamp Thing. These were just there for Easter eggs as none of them earned speaking roles.
Barry Allen (Matt Bomer), aka the Flash of Earth One, was one of the main characters as he had been in several previous films, introducing the concept of parallel earths. We saw Barry in multiple places during his own timeline as well as on different earths, such as Earth 3 with the Crime Syndicate. If you know about the original DC Max-Series, you know Barry Allan played a vital role in that story, and so it is effective that he is front and center in this one.
The animation of this film remains to be of a lower quality than one would expect from this type of a project. With animation that we see in weekly shows such as X-Men ’97, a feature length film should be better than what we get here. Still, it is watchable, but it just does not make me stop and be amazed at the shots.
The voice cast is once again assembled with some great voices. Along with Matt Bomer as Flash, there are Jensen Ackles, Darren Criss, Stana Katic, Meg Donnelly, Zachary Quinto, Jonathan Adams, Aldis Hodge, Jimmi Simpson, Ike Amadi, Alexandra Daddario, Nolan North, Lou Diamond Phillips, Matt Ryan, Keesha Sharp, Matt Lanter, Ashleigh LaThrop, Erika Ishii, Liam McIntyre, Zach Callison and Ato Essandoh.
This adaptation does a decent job with providing a story that works for the most part. This is an enjoyable film, and a much better one than the Warworld one that preceded it. It also did a decent job of being a part one, leaving us with a cliffhanger, and yet feel as if we got a complete story for the first part. On to Part Two!
3.8 stars