Written by Cleveland Oakes, February 2nd, 2017, at 7:49 p.m. Tweet to @Oakes945
Dark Times
Brought to you by the team of Director Jay Oliva. Supervising Producer James Tucker. Lastly character designer Phil Bourassa. Justice League Dark is not your regular Saturday morning cartoon. Carrying an R rating, this movie is meant for an older crowd.
In the same fashion, Constantine and his Justice League fight demons from the pits of Hell. Correspondingly, if you are looking for capes and tights in this movie, look elsewhere.
While the Justice League protects the Earth from threats that arise from the mortal realm; it’s up to the Justice League Dark to combat threats of a magical nature.
When the number of homicides rises around the planet Earth at an unnatural rate the Justice League comes to the conclusion the threat is magical in nature.
Even though he is dubious that magic is the real culprit, a tip soon leads Batman on the trail of John Constantine. Despite his doubts, Batman comes to believe that Constantine is the one man that can save mankind from it’s waking nightmare.
Call for Dark Men
Batman and Constantine are soon joined on their quest by Jason Blood/Etrigan the Demon, Zatanna, Deadman, and Swamp-Thing. Despite the fact that Batman is featured heavily in all of the promotional material for Justice League Dark; this film clearly belongs to Zatanna and Constantine. Â Unfortunately for most fans with only a trivial knowledge of DC, this B list of characters may fail to overwhelm.
Nick Turturro is one of my favorite actors of all time. However, his portrayal of Deadman was one note and tone def. Deadman was the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. A comedy element that was jarring and fell flat in most places. His one liners and zingers were out of place and lame.
Surprisingly most of the film’s lighter moments revolved around Batman. An example of his quick wit when asked by a magical creature how he does he cope with so much darkness in his soul he simply responded, “I have a butler.”
Of special note was the fact that Matt Ryan reprised his role as Constantine from the ill-fated NBC live-action television series. Matt’s portrayal as always was spot on. Camilla Luddington also turned in a great performance as Zatanna.
To Lead Us to Salvation
In conclusion, Justice League Dark is an adequate film with some great ideas. The film is serious, be warned there are heroes who are genuinely in peril in this film. Do not walk into this movie believing everyone will get out alive.
This had the potential to be a much better film if the production team knew they were going to be allowed to release it as an R-rated film. Unfortunately, while the film is dark and edgy, it is still a watered down product that was initially conceived for a wider audience. It was R-rated by accident and not be design.
I found myself wondering several times why was this movie rated so severely? It’s almost as if the R rating is just a marketing tool to drum up sales of an otherwise run of the mill movie. A typical anime has more blood, guts, gore, nudity and violence. My only wish is that the team could have been consistent with their grown and sexy, dark side of the DC Universe theme.
Nevertheless, while not the strongest entry in the Waner Bros. Home Entertainment animated movies library it is a worthy addition. My final score is a 7 out of 10.
