DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013)

Written In February 2014

 Geoff, Jay, DC Editorial, that’s NOT how time travel works, you morons! You go back in time and change something, things are only different from the point you changed. For example, Star Trek 2009. Nero goes back in time and attacks the USS Kelvin, causing Jim Kirk’s father, George Kirk, to pull a kamikaze in effort to save the remaining crew of the ship, including his currently in labor wife. That makes it so that the characters and situations are all different than they were in Star Trek: TOS, and subsequently, certain characters from then on may never exist or not be the same as we know.

For all we know, Jean Luc Picard could go from this handsome devil

to this freak of nature.

Now let’s all hope and pray no one’s crazy enough to actually do that, but you get my point. But, while TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager may now be totally different from how we remember, Star Trek: Enterprise, love it or hate it, will remain exactly as it was.

With that in mind, if Barry Allen went back in time to save his mother, if his mother’s death took place AFTER the landing of Superman’s ship, and the murder of Bruce’s parents, THOSE DETAILS WOULD REMAIN THE FUCKING SAME!!!!!! YOU STUPID FUCK! I’m not one to outright criticize the intelligence of the creators of a story, but if the people behind this story genuinely think this is how time travel works, then they are not smart. This story ran from May of 2011 to September of 2011. At the time, how many great Time Travel stories had we seen? We’d seen Star Trek 2009, we’d seen the Terminator series, we’d seen 12 Monkeys, we’d seen Back To The Future, we’d seen Star Trek IV, we’d seen a lot of time travel movies. And for the most part, they all had some pretty clear rules. In fact, here’s an example of some time travel stories.

So why on earth, did they throw that out of the fucking window? Three words mother bitches.

Yep, if you hate the New 52, you can blame Flashpoint for it! Oh but wait until you get to Justice League: War, it’ll be worse!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

While visiting his mother’s grave, Barry Allen, known as the Flash, is alerted to a break-in by Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, Heat Wave, Mirror Master, and Top at the Flash Museum. Defeating The Rogues, he discovers that they have been hired by his archenemy Professor Zoom as part of a plan to destroy Central City. With the help of the Justice League, Barry foils Zoom’s plot, but Zoom’s taunts over the death of his mother still haunt Barry as he departs.

The next day, Barry discovers that the world has radically changed: his powers are gone, his mother is alive, his wife Iris is married to someone else, and the Justice League does not exist. Aquaman and his Atlantean forces have sunk most of Europe, while Wonder Woman has led the Amazons in conquering Great Britain, and both forces are now at war after an attempted alliance between them led to an affair between Aquaman and Wonder Woman, and in the latter murdering Aquaman’s wife Mera after a confrontation. Cyborg has assembled a team to eliminate both parties and approaches Batman to join them, but his refusal leads the government to scrap the plan, and instead recruit Hal Jordan to pilot an extraterrestrialspacecraft to bomb the Atlanteans.

Barry visits Wayne Manor, but is attacked by Batman—who he realizes is not Bruce Wayne but his father Thomas. Attempting to explain things to the elder Wayne, Barry retrieves his costume from his ring, but Professor Zoom’s costume appears, causing Barry to believe Zoom is responsible for the timeline alteration. Barry convinces Batman to help, and Batman helps him recreate the accident that gave him his powers, but Barry is severely burned.

In London, Steve Trevor attempts to extricate reporter Lois Lane, but is discovered by the Amazons and killed. The Amazons hunt down Lane, but the local resistance rescues her. Meanwhile, in the remains of Paris, Deathstroke and Lex Luthor are attacked and killed by Aquaman’s forces while tracking the energy trail of Aquaman’s new weapon, which is powered by the captive Captain Atom.

At the Batcave, after realizing that his memories are changing, Barry asks Batman to recreate the accident again. The second attempt results in success and Barry’s powers are restored, but he discovers he cannot travel through time because Zoom is also using the Speed Force. Barry recruits more allies, beginning with Superman, who is a prisoner of the U.S. Government after his ship crashed into Metropolis. With the aid of Batman and Cyborg, they liberate Superman, who is empowered by Earth’s yellow sun for the first time and fends off the facility’s security then flies off in fear and confusion. Barry collapses as his memories continue to change.

Barry is taken to Billy Batson’s home to recuperate, and learns that Jordan’s attack has failed and that the final battle between the Amazons and Atlaneans has begun. Barry convinces the superheroes to help stop the war and they depart for Britain aboard Batman’s jet, only to be shot down upon arrival. Batson and his siblings combine into Captain Thunder to fight Wonder Woman, while Barry, Cyborg and Batman occupy Aquaman. Batman is wounded. Zoom reveals himself and explains that Barry is responsible for this alternate timeline: Barry traveled back in time to save his mother, fracturing the fabric of reality. Wonder Woman uses her lasso to force Captain Thunder back into Batson and kills him; Superman arrives but cannot save Cyborg from Aquaman, who then remotely detonates his Captain Atom-powered bomb. As the explosion tears across the landscape, Zoom mocks Barry but is killed by Batman. The dying Batman urges Barry to run, giving him a letter addressed to his son. Barry races back in time and stops his earlier self but again fractures time, creating a second alternate timeline.

Barry awakens at his desk and finds that reality is apparently back to normal. After spending a moment with Iris at his mother’s grave, Barry visits Bruce Wayne to tell him about everything that occurred. Barry gives Bruce the letter from his father, and Wayne thanks Barry then runs off. In a post-credits scene, a Boom Tube opens in space above Earth and a horde of Parademons emerge.

Remember back in my Batman/Superman: Public Enemies review, where I said there were more cons than pros? This is another one of those reviews.

CONS:

• HITCHCOCK! WHAT YOU DO NOT SEE IS MORE DISTURBING THAN WHAT YOU DO SEE! WHAT DON’T YOU GET ABOUT THIS JAY! The reason why the scene where the Joker is holding a knife in Gambol’s mouth in the Dark Knight is so fucking creepy isn’t because he’s gonna murder this guy, it’s because he’s playing with him before he does it. And when he does it, we don’t see him slice open the guy’s face, we see one of his thugs reacting to it. This is what makes the scene scary. The reason why the original RoboCop is so great, is because the violence is intentionally ridiculous. It’s supposed to be funny. This? This is like Frank Miller directed the movie. Gratuitous Violence=Intense & Hardcore. Violence for the sake of violence isn’t scary, intense, or in any way a positive for the film, it’s just gross and unnecessary.
• Kevin McKidd is unfortunately miscast for the role of Thomas Wayne in my honest opinion. Also, I don’t get the point of casting a non-American actor to voice an American character. Accents and voice acting are hard enough for a lot of actors on their own, but to do both, it’s not easy work even for the best of actors and you can hear Kevin’s having a hard time here. But him being Scotsman voicing an American is not why he’s miscast. No, he’s miscast because when I think of Kevin McKidd, I think of him as a very classy guy. I mean I know him from a couple of roles, he played the Chief of Surgery at the hospital on Grey’s Anatomy, a Roman soldier on Rome, and the fucking Sea God in Percy Jackson & The Lightning (which is a horrible movie as well). This guy to me, is known mostly for being characters who are sophisticated. Not so much, filthy violent drunks who gave up being a surgeon to own casinos and piss his life away killing crooks.
• I love C. Thomas Howell, I’ve loved this guy ever since I watched him on Criminal Minds. If you’re just now getting into that show, please, watch the episodes with his character George Foyet/The Reaper in them, they are a must if you have even the most REMOTE interest in the series. Now the reason why I’m talking about something I like so much in the cons right now is… Because he’s C. Thomas Howell isn’t very good in this movie. I’m really sorry C. Thomas, I love you man! But you sound like Josh Keaton playing a generic “I’m the bad guy!” voice. I don’t think it’s your fault though man, we’re not given an explanation as to why Prof. Zoom hates Flash so much, you’re not given good enough material, and voice work is hard to do for a lot of actors.
• This was my first introduction to Michael B. Jordan, and I can’t make heads or tails of it because somebody thought it was a good idea to put effects over his voice. Why? Bumper Robinson and Khary Payton had no effects on their voice, and those guys are both voice actors by trade. Why put effects over the guy who isn’t a professional voice actor, it’s not gonna make them sound better.
• You have Ron Perlman as Deathstroke and Dana Delany as Lois Lane, and you give them both only two scenes. WHY?!?!?! If you’re gonna go to the trouble to bring these two into your movie use them God Damn It! Don’t completely fucking waste them by giving them minimal scenes and nothing that cool or interesting to say.
• Steve Blum as Lex Luthor? Okay, I love Steve. He is the best Wolverine in animation, and the second best Wolvie overall in my opinion. I grew up watching him in Megas XLR8 and Big O, he was terrific in both of those things! I know he can do more than just play a hotheaded brash arrogant cocksure character. But Lex? That’s just weird. What you couldn’t afford to waste Clancy Brown’s time too?
• Is there any reason why you went to the trouble to bring Nathan Fillion in Hal when you did almost nothing with the character? These are all great actors you’ve brought in to voice characters they’ve done great work as before, why waste their time by not giving them bigger roles or calling them in for small ones? Also, for some reason, I find Nathan’s presence here distracting. I’m not sure why.
• Diana claims to have killed Arthur’s wife in self defense. Bullshit. When a fight ends with a beheading, it has ceased to be self defense.
• Why are Arthur and Diana both being so open legged? I don’t believe that Arthur would cheat on his wife, and I really don’t believe Diana would approve of a man cheating on his wife, especially not with her. What is the point of this affair?
• Oh yeah, so we can explain our pointless war between the Atlanteans and Amazons. And why did that happen? It can’t be for vengeance since Arthur just proved he has no fucks to give about his wife, since he slept with another woman in their fucking bed! No pun intended.
• A war between Atlantis and the Amazons is actually a really cool idea! A universe where Bruce Wayne was killed instead of Martha and Thomas, prompting the former to go insane with grief and become the Joker while the latter became Batman to stop her; amazing idea, I’d love to see it! These ideas ARE FUCKING WASTED!
• The idea of Captain Marvel, oh no, I’m sorry Captain THUNDER, being multiple kids I really don’t get. Oh, and by the way.
  
• Child Murder? You really had to bring in, fucking, CHILD MURDER?! I understand the scene with Bruce, that’s well done, because it shows one parent getting angry and attacking the person who just killed his child, and the other crying her heart because she’s just lost her baby. But KILLING BILLY BATSON!?!?! That’s bullshit! There is no fucking reason you had to SHOW a little boy getting killed! I am not outraged by this as a critic or a fan of Captain Marvel, I am outraged by this as a person! You don’t get to show Wonder Woman, a character meant to symbolize independent thought and bodily control, being a fucking child murderer! You don’t get to do that! Fuck you both! Geoff Johns for creating that scene and Jay Olivia for allowing it to happen twice!
• I should be crying my heart out during that scene where Bruce reads the letter from his father at the end, but I’m not, because KEVIN CONROY, drops the ball. You can see Bruce is crying, and when he tells Flash “You’re one hell of a messenger.” He gives a really flat delivery. Why? If the guys in tears, let him be weak for a moment, have his voice croak. Let him be choked up. But instead, it’s just another Kevin Conroy performance. Andrea, were you sick that day? Did someone else voice direct that scene and go uncredited?

PROS:

• Justin Chambers, also from Grey’s Anatomy, gives a really good performance as Barry Allen here. I also like that he doesn’t sound like Justin Chambers. I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy directly, my mom used to watch it, and my sister still does, so I wound catching a lot of it, so I recognize the guy’s voice pretty well, so it’s definitely a good thing that I can’t recognize his voice here.
• Sam Daly makes for a worthy successor to his old man Tim Daly. Also, please do checkout their youtube channel, their comedy is hilarious. Especially their spoof on Dark Knight Returns with Kevin Conroy as a guest star!
• Danny Huston plays General Sam Lane in this movie, and he does a pretty good job, although I swear I was wondering whether or not he was Tommy Lee Jones the whole time.
• Dee Bradley Baker turns a surprisingly good performance as Etrigan The Demon!
• There’s an Atlantean scientist in this movie who basically built a nuclear bomb powerful enough to level the entire planet, and he has something of a Robert Oppenheimer complex about the whole thing, because he realizes that through this device he’ll have the ability to end life on such a massive scale and that terrifies him. I kinda dig that, but I always liked my WW2 related history. History in general really.
• While’s she given the worst and most out of character Wonder Woman material I’ve ever had the displeasure of viewing, Vanessa Marshall still does a pretty nice job as Wondy.
• I kinda liked the first part of this movie, going from the flashback to Barry and his mom on the side of the road with a broken down car to about when they take Reverse Flash away.
• The score was pretty good.

All in all, whatever potential this movie had, it was flushed down the drain by this creative team. I’m gonna give Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox a 4 out of 10.