DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)

Written In January 2015

 Let me save us all some time and cut this review short.

Are we done now?

Fuck you Louis CK! You don’t have to review movies that aren’t worth talking about!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

After the events of Justice League: War, Ocean Master and Black Manta have declared a war against the surface in retaliation of the aftermath of Apokoliptian-tyrant Darkseid’s planetary invasion. Queen Atlanna seeks out her other son, Ocean Master’s half-brother Arthur Curry, a half-human with aquatic powers with no knowledge of his Atlantean heritage, to restore balance.

Living with powers he doesn’t understand and seeing the danger around him, Curry takes steps to embrace his destiny, joining the Justice League, and with his new teammates he battles to save Earth from total destruction.

Here is my open letter to DC’s animation department, you made this

This

This

And This

And then you just started making this crap?

I refuse to believe you are giving me anything close to your best, c’mon DC! You are better than this! You don’t owe me or anyone else anything, because at the end of the day, your live action films and your video games will easily make more money than these projects, but please, for the sake of making a product you can genuinely take pride in, step up your fucking game!

"PSST!"

What is it non existent voice that I’m making up to segway into a point?

"Look at this!"

Okay, let me read this. Let’s see, we’ve got:

Batman Vs. Robin: “A loose adaptation of Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls series with Jason O’Mara, Stuart Allan, Sean Maher, and David McCallum reprising their roles from Son of Batman.” That sounds good so far. I’ve read Court of Owls, that’s some pretty awesome material, what else have we got? “With Jeremy Sisto, Kevin Conroy, and Weird Al Yankovic as Talon, Thomas Wayne, and The Dollmaker respectively.” Alright, who’s behind the camera for this one?

*heavy sigh* Jay Olivia is directing, of course this was too good to be true. But who’s the irrelevant hack writing? *looks back* Oh, we’ve got J. M. DeMatteis, he wrote some of my favorite episodes Justice League Unlimited, take a look at this guy’s credits! Yeah that looks kinda cool, I mean, it’ll probably suck at worst and be okay at best, but at least I have something worth being disappointed about! Good God, these movies are making me so pessimistic. C’mon DC, give me something that’ll wash that away, give me something that-

What?

No, it can’t be!

Is it?

IT IS! YOU GUYS DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW GREAT THIS IS! Alan Burnett and Bruce Timm basically co-created the entire original DC animated universe with Paul Dini! And Sam Liu co-directed Crisis On Two Earths and Year One with Lauren Montgomery, and also just plain directed Hulk Vs. and Planet Hulk! THIS IS FANTASTIC NEWS! DON’T FUCK THIS UP DC!

Okay, enough of that optimism and hope for the future, let’s get into why the present is sort of eh.

PROS:

• Matt Lanter, best known as the voice of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Clone Wars, does a pretty good job here as Arthur. He definitely makes him likable and gives him a certain charm, and he sells some of the more silly moments like when he’s drunkenly voicing his sorrows to a restaurant lobster that’s about to cooked and boiled.
• Sumalee Montano does an adequate job of voicing Mera, I don’t really know the character all that well so I can’t say if she should sound the way she does, but all I can say is she did a decent job. Nothing memorable, but that beats the hell out of being terrible. If you wanna hear something more memorable, listen to her portrayal of Katana on Beware The Batman.
• Jerry O’Connell takes over for Alan Tudyk here as Superman and I gotta say I think he sounds more like the classic Supes than Alan did, admittedly Alan wasn’t playing the classic Supes, but I like the classic Supes better. He seems like less of an arrogant douchenozzle than last Superman, so I like him more.
• This Wonder Woman has improved and THANK GOD FOR IT! She’s less obnoxious, she doesn’t spend her time pointing her sword randomly at people, or tossing her lasso of truth onto people who just say they don’t like her, it’s a RELIEF! And honestly, Rosario Dawson does a pretty good job of voicing her. Much improved over Michelle Monaghan, God love her.
• Nathan Fillion, Jason O’Mara, Shemar Moore, and Christopher Gorham are all pretty good as Hal, Bruce, Victor, and Barry respectively. They all do the same good work they did in their previous credits, let’s move on.
• The only time that this movie really impressed me was this dream sequence where a human Victor was out jogging with this beautiful woman, when suddenly he’s confronted by an empty version of his Cyborg armor, it tells him it’s time to go and Victor pleads with it to give him more time. This movie very briefly makes you think it’s about to do something interesting and then… it doesn’t. But it was nice to think so, even for a minute.
• I think we may gotten ourselves a cameo from Steel, isn’t that awesome?
• The Wonder Woman/Superman romance is done much much MUCH better this time! It still feels forced, but I think this time they’re playing it more like “these are two people who are afraid of being alone, so they pretend to be in love.” As opposed to “These people are totally in love!!!!” And honestly, I think if they played with that more than the movie’s 72 minute run time would allow it could be a lot more interesting, the idea that these two are brave enough to fight monsters and alien armies, but they haven’t the courage to admit to each other they aren’t in love and may have feelings for other people like say...
  
  
  
  
  I’m just saying.
• The Lex Luthor stinger at the end was pretty cool, I must admit.
• Harry Lennix does a good job as Black Manta, damn shame he was the bad guy they had to kill in the end.

CONS:

• Sam Witwer is a really great actor, in fact he does a wicked Emperor Palpatine! But his talent is wasted on this annoying character. Ocean Master is a terrible villain, I really wish it was Black Manta that got to be the villain at the end. But maybe he had to be killed instead because Orm is easier to manipulate than David.
• WHO THE FUCK DECIDED IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO KEEP MAKING BILLY BATSON A FUCKING ANNOYING SHITHEAD?!?! HE’S A GOOD KID! QUIT MAKING HIM SO DAMN ANNOYING FOR FUCK’S SAKE! 
• Juliet Landau does not make for a very good Lois Lane.
• So much of the stuff in Atlantis is telegraphed, you know what’s gonna happen as soon as the characters are set up. Atlanna is going to insist on not going to war, while Orm and David continue to set up for one, at some point Atlanna is going to reveal that she knows what they’re doing and then before she can enact disciplinary action for their treasonous behavior one of them will murder her. And guess what happens? Exactly that! It’s really fucking stupid! And it’s really fucking bad writing! Work on that!

All in all, this movie is a decent way to waste time. If you’re a hardcore DC fan, give it a watch. If you’re a hardcore animation fan, give it a watch. If you’re a big Aquaman fan, give it a shot. Otherwise, I wouldn’t say this is something you need to see. I’m gonna give Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, a 6 out of 10.