Justice Society: World War II

6/10

In this film, the Flash (voiced by Matt Bomer) accidentally runs so fast that he ends up back in time in World War II where he encounters the Justice Society. 

JSWWII starts off promising enough. The JS members all have their personal stories, a few interesting things are thrown at us, and you get that old school war-era comics feel.   

Unfortunately, come the halfway point the whole thing becomes lackluster. The conclusion to the characters' arcs, though having weight feel a bit by the numbers, and you realize that they just do a lot of talking. Plus, everyone feels like they're going through the motions of the animated DC film formula.

The film loses the focus on the Nazi threat and the WWII theme that movie is supposed to be about. We end up with a villain that is terribly underwhelming and with hints at a background of his that is never actually revealed. 

The lack of originality to the ending really gets to me. Not one but two elements from the finales of two early 2010 DC animated films appear here and feel almost stolen. 

It doesn't help that since this movie takes place in the Forties, the movie resurrects a long forgotten plot point from the original forties' Wonder Woman run: Steve Trevor (Chris Diamantopoulos) constantly trying to get WW (Castle's Stana Katic) to marry him. This element doesn't age well. They give Trevor a better reason for this here than in the forties, but it still feels unhealthy. Also, out of the old forgotten plot elements, why bring back that one? I mean classic Wonder Women comics had the Amazons riding kangaroos. I want to see kangaroo riding, gosh darn it! (In fairness, there's a lot worse they could go with. The Wonder Woman comics don't age well. Practically every issue of William Moulton Marston's original run involved bondage and that is not an exaggeration.)

I have no complaints with the visuals. This uses the same rotoscope-esque animation style in Superman: Man of Tomorrow and it still looks pretty slick and good, especially for a made-for-DVD/streaming film. The credits go with a retro look that I liked.

Overall, I wouldn't say this movie is bad, but it ends up being forgettable. It doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the many other animated DC works.