Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

I was lukewarm about Flashpoint when it first came out in the comics. I wasn't regularly reading any comics at the time, but I was looking for a good jumping-on point. Luckily the New 52 allowed me to enter the world of comics and long story short, I became addicted to the Flash. I was surprised when I heard they were adapting such a recent comic into a movie, but I was excited to see the Flash get featured, so I picked up the trade paperbacks of the main Flashpoint storyline and the Flash tie-in (which ironically did not include the Flash or anything that made it into this movie). I haven't read any other Flashpoint stories, so my entire knowledge of this tale comes from the main series.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (a rather unnecessarily clunky title in my opinion) was directed by Jay Olivia and stars Justin Chambers as the Flash, C. Thomas Howell as the Reverse-Flash, Michael B. Jordan as Cyborg, and Kevin McKidd as the Thomas Wayne Batman. This is the first DC direct-to-DVD movie that didn't have legendary producer Bruce Timm involved, and you can definitely tell by the new style of animation. I'll talk more about that later, but I will say here that the cover art is no way indicative of what the actual movie looks like.

I've watched this movie probably five times now, including once with my little brother, who had not read the comics and had no idea what the story was about. So I'm coming into this from the perspective of one who has read the original story, with some insight into the "general" audience. I didn't show this movie to my mom, fearing it would be too violent for her, but I did tell her the basic story, and she was quite intrigued by it. So this movie had lots of potential coming in. Did it live up to that potential? Let's find out.

I loved the starting to this movie with Barry complaining about nobody stopping to help their broken-down car. It would have been nice had they added the line "If it were me, I would stop," but I was happy they put this scene in the daylight instead of the rain. We don't need every tragic scene to be in the rain. And if anything, it shows that this is Barry at his happiest. Even though their car broke down, he is having fun with his mom. And it helped to continue that happy sunshine right up to the death of Nora Allen. Killing her on her birthday was a wonderful, tragic blow, and this movie handled it perfectly.

We then move into the only original scene of this movie, which was included to introduce us to the Flash and his enemies and allies. It was a great chance to see a few of the Rogues here (my brother thought the Top was ridiculous, but I didn't mind). I understand that they needed to set up the Reverse-Flash as the biggest and best Flash villain, but I wish they could have done that without making the Rogues look stupid. I hated it when Flash said, "None of you are smart enough to pull this off." What? Captain Cold isn't smart enough to rob the Flash Museum? I guess I'm just a really big Captain Cold fan, and I get easily offended when he comes off like an idiot.

Allow me to take a quick moment to discuss the voice work so far. I loved Justin Chambers as the Flash, and I really loved C. Thomas Howell as Thawne, especially at the end of the movie. In the Justice League, we were treated to the immortal Kevin Conroy as Batman again, and I enjoyed the metallic effect they added to Michael B. Jordan's Cyborg voice. And let's not forget the always entertaining Nathan Fillion as the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. Vanessa Marshall was great as Wonder Woman, but I felt Cary Elwes made a much better evil Aquaman than the heroic one. Same with Sam Daly (the son of Tim Daly from Superman: The Animated Series). Sam played an excellent weak and withered Superman, but I didn't completely buy his large and in charge version. This movie had an enormous cast of characters (even after trimming down extensively from the comics) and this meant that many characters only got a couple of lines or none at all. It's understandable, but I was sad that Heatwave, Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master didn't get to say anything.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the creative way the League got rid of those bombs. My brother scoffed when Aquaman threw Top in the water ("What's he going to do?"), but two seconds later, Aquaman explained exactly what he was doing and it was pretty neat. I especially enjoyed the look on Superman's face after contained the blast in his hands. He basically said "You're welcome" without having to say anything. And the Flash's move was pretty great, too, reminding me of Naruto's rasengan (for those of you who enjoy Japanese comics). However, the Flash's line about Thawne lacking creativity is inconsistent with the comics. Thawne was a time traveler that could adjust his age. That's not creative?

We then move into my biggest problem with the movie. Before Superman whisks Thawne away to STAR Labs, he drops a little line about how the Flash isn't always able to save everyone who matters to him. This little line is apparently what inspired Flash to go back in time to save his mom. In the comics, it is explicitly stated that Thawne killed Barry's mom, and the only reason Flash would attempt something as dangerous as time travel is because he couldn't stand the thought of his mom being killed simply because he was a superhero. When you remove that aspect from the story, it makes the Flash seem a lot weaker to me. Now, those who've read the comics know Thawne killed Nora, but the general audience doesn't. At least my brother didn't pick up any hints from the movie that Reverse-Flash could have done that. I think this is a major mistake in the movie not to come out and say this. It weakens the Flash and it weakens the Reverse-Flash.

Back to the story, Barry waking up at his desk was almost done exactly the same way as in the comics. We didn't get to see Director Singh, but we did get Forrest, who apparently has gone on a diet. Why can't anyone be fat anymore? I'm looking at you, Amanda Waller. The defining characteristic of Forrest is his weight. But he's still a great guy and a brilliant analyst despite the fact that he's constantly munching on a donut. Why did they feel they had to slim him down here?

I liked how Barry met his mom, but I really was bugged by the gay joke. This was probably supposed to be nothing more than a quick laugh and a throwaway line, but I can't get past it. Nora very quickly said Barry was gay, as if she had known/suspected this for years in this alternate timeline. I suppose it is conceivable that Barry could be gay in this Flashpoint world, but one of the first things he did was go find Iris, implying that he still loved her. I went combing through the comics to find any hint that Barry was gay, and we do see a couple of his new memories showing his parents bugging him about not dating and trying to get him to ask out Patty Spivot, but also in the comics, Barry goes to find Iris, and his mom asks if they're dating, almost as if it's perfectly natural for Barry to date a girl. I know I shouldn't be making a fuss over this — I think I'd be OK with a gay Barry Allen. I guess my biggest problem was the delivery of this joke. Instead of Nora telling Barry she knew he was gay, she could have asked if he was gay, while still assuring him that that's OK. If she asked, then the joke still would've been funny and it wouldn't make me paranoid trying to figure out if it was true or not.

Let's now move past that awkward topic and talk about the fun fight scene with Batman and Yo-Yo. I liked that they made it much longer than in the comics and that Batman used guns heavily. Nothing tells you better that this is a different Batman than by showing him with guns. Cyborg then shows up and he's about 7 feet tall (or taller). This is when the animation really became apparent for me. Generally, I felt many of the characters were too big. Flash was just a bit too muscly for me, and Aquaman and Superman were pretty much just meatheads. The evil Aquaman did look better when he was larger than life, and I understand that they wanted to show a sharp contrast between the normal Superman and the weakened one, so I can give them a pass. I actually was a fan of the taller Cyborg, even though it did unintentionally remind me of Shaquille O'Neal as Steel. One really odd thing with the animation was Bruce Wayne's lips. They just looked really weird and not at all like anybody else's. Overall, I thought the animation was serviceable. The action scenes were great and there were a few nice, subtle moments, like Superman's facial expressions while stopping the bomb earlier. I did notice that many of the background characters were unnaturally stiff at times, which became distracting on subsequent viewings. As for the style itself, it definitely isn't what we're used to with Bruce Timm, and some have compared it to the Japanese anime style. I can see a slight resemblance there, but I really don't think this movie looks that much different than the Young Justice cartoon. But then again, I'm a fan of the Japanese style, so I wouldn't be bothered by it anyway.

Back to the movie, I have to say I absolutely loved the evil Wonder Woman's entrance. She was so majestic and intimidating. I liked her cape, and I was very happy to see her helmet didn't cover her face like it did in the comics. I also loved the lasso of truth. We saw how powerful it could be for good (with Thawne) or evil (with Steve Trevor and several others). It's now rather comical to me that the old Justice League cartoon avoided the lasso of truth so much. Making people tell the truth is a very useful and powerful ability!

I haven't read the Flashpoint: Deathstroke comics, so I only know this version of the character from the main series, which was very brief. In the comics, he had Vibe(?) chained up to act as the ship's sonar to apparently look for buried treasure. But in the movie, he had Lex Luthor take over those duties to explicitly look for Aquaman's secret weapon (Captain Atom). I loved seeing Luthor included here, but I wish we could have had Clancy Brown provide his voice once more. However, the joy of Ron Perlman reprising his role as Deathstroke was more than enough to make me happy. I also liked this fight scene a lot more than the too quick one in the comics. Vibe got to be up on deck and Clayface got to take out a couple of Antlanteans before being vaporized. It was also a joy to see the two Aqualads — one sometimes known as Tempest and the other from Young Justice.

One of my biggest worries with this movie was that they'd give Barry his powers back after just one strike of lightning for the sake of time. But they didn't. Just like in the comics, they made Barry go through the ordeal twice, which really made him heroic in my eyes. After nearly dying and being covered in third-degree burns, he was still willing to try again, regardless of the pain or risk.

This movie also did a good job of anticipating when the audience would have questions. We already saw this happen with my little brother and Aquaman, and it happened again here with Superman. Right when he asked me where Superman was, they showed us the rocket crashing into Metropolis. This quick flashbacks were great, especially with Martha Wayne becoming the Joker. It would have been nice to have a bit more on Aquaman and Wonder Woman, though. Aquaman seemed to move very quickly from forming an alliance with the Amazons to having an affair with Wonder Woman, then declaring war on his former allies. I know this is a very complex story and the movie already has a fairly long running time, but I think it would have benefited to have a few more minutes devoted to this.

Hearing Dana Delany play Lois Lane again was awesome. And the tension in her introductory scene was palpable. I would have, however, preferred that she was saved by the Resistance instead of the Reverse-Flash. Mainly because I don't think the Resistance does enough in this movie, but also because I don't buy the whole idea of Thawne allowing Lois to see him so he could lure Flash out there. I'll get to that more in a bit. Another quibble I had with Lois was how she knew everyone in the Resistance except for Etrigan. What? In all your reporting you never came across the Demon, probably the best-known character of the bunch?

Now when the Flash finally regains his powers, we come across another major problem I have. But first, another quibble. In the comics, Flash quickly explained how he made a new suit for himself. But in the movie, he just stood there and vibrated until Thawne's suit turned red. My brother asked me how he did this, showing me that they should have thrown in one line about what he did. Anyway, on to my big problem. Logically speaking, the very first thing the Flash should have done was to run back in time to try to fix the present. In the comics, they explained that he didn't get all his powers back right away, and had to wait until he was up to full speed. That makes sense to me. But in the movie, they explained that Flash couldn't time travel as long as Thawne was "co-opting" the Speed Force. That might make more sense to those who hadn't read the comics, but it's very confusing for those of us who have, as it completely contradicts everything we know about Flash, Reverse-Flash and the pre-52 Speed Force. I guess they wanted to increase the Flash's connection to Thawne here, but they wouldn't have needed to do that had they said that Thawne killed Barry's mom!

There's also a slight problem in both the comics and the movie. Flash never really gives the best reason for wanting to find Superman and the Justice League. In the movie, Flash says he wants Superman to go back in time for him. In the comics, it kind of felt like he just wanted to gather everybody together to fight in the war while he waited for his powers to return. Both motivations just feel a little weak for me. Of course, we, the audience, want to see this new Superman and we want everybody to gather together for the main battle at the end, but I think it could have been set up and justified just a bit better. If you want to go the route of Flash needing to find the Reverse-Flash, you could say that he needed to find Thawne to figure out which events he changed in the past. Maybe. I don't know. I'm definitely over-thinking this.

On to something more tangible. I wish they would have explained why Abin Sur sent his ring off into space after he crash landed. Again, I haven't read any of those comics, but the movie didn't give me any clues as to why Hal Jordan never became the Green Lantern. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy seeing him get eaten by a giant sea monster. It makes sense for Aquaman and Wonder Woman to recruit mythical beasts into their war. It was pretty fun, too.

Back to the Flash. A really nice, subtle scene was when Flash was beating up the guards off screen. Batman was smiling, but Cyborg was a little bothered. Then they turn the corner and Flash is just casually leaning against the wall. Fun stuff. I was, however, confused by the bottles and tubes of deformed and misshapen creatures. Unlike Krypto's skeleton, these weren't shown in the main series, and they seemed to serve no point in this movie. It was just a creepy, unexplained, and unnecessary added detail. But I did like how Cyborg befriended Superman and taught him what heroes are. That was a nice addition.

In the comics, there's a rather convoluted subplot about a traitor on Cyborg's team feeding information to the Amazons. Element Woman is set up as the red herring, as we see her secretly following Cyborg for much of the story. But it turns out that Enchantress was the traitor, and she was only doing it cause chaos, I guess. Anyway, Element Woman joins the team by helping them fight off the guards after Superman's rescue. She is just a really odd and annoying character, and she repeatedly offered to give juice boxes to people, even though we never saw a single juice box in the comics. I am so glad they cut her out of this movie. I hated Element Woman in Flashpoint and I hate her in the New 52. But as long as Geoff Johns likes her, we'll be seeing more and more of her.

So far, there are two things I wish the movie would've expanded on: Aquaman and Wonder Woman leading up to war, and Abin Sur sending the ring off into space. The third addition I really wanted was a rather interesting and passionate debate among the Shazam kids before the heroes visit them. They explain that as Captain Thunder, they had already visited Wonder Woman, but she slashed us his face and he barely got away. As the kids watch the destruction on TV, some of them want to go out and help, but others want to stay home. Billy gives a nice little speech about saving the world so they could still order pizza and watch movies like a family. It was great. But the movie cut it all out, and only two Shazam kids ever got to talk, while the others barely even moved. Quite disappointing.

However, the movie did give Captain Thunder an excellent fight with Wonder Woman. I really liked how sometimes the camera would sometimes focus on a different fight, but still show some great stuff happening in the background. And then Captain Thunder's death was much, much, much better than the comics. Instead of the stupid and random Enchantress breaking the spell, Wonder Woman used her lasso of truth to force him to change back. And then she killed Billy. The movie showed a little more than I would have expected, but it easily could have shown more.

Let's talk about the violence real quick. I heard quite a few people complain about the violence and say that this movie isn't appropriate for children. They're absolutely right. This movie is rate PG-13, which means that the intended audience is for people over the age of 13. This movie found out just how much violence they could put in a PG-13 movie, and they went right up to that line. But they never crossed that line, in my opinion. I felt the violence was necessary to give the story the respect it deserved. And actually, the comics were much more violent than the movie, especially the Legion of Doom series, which really made me feel uncomfortable at times. But anyway, for those parents of young children complaining about this movie, I suggest finding some more age-appropriate material for your kids. There's plenty of it out there. PG-13 means PG-13. This movie is not appropriate for children, and neither is The Dark Knight or Man of Steel.

Time for another quibble. Amidst all the fighting, an unusual amount of love was given to Grifter, leading my brother to question whether he was more prominent and important than Deathstroke and Lex Luthor. My only answer for him was that Grifter was created by Jim Lee, who is DC's co-publisher, so either he, or some of his followers felt Grifter deserved a death scene befitting of Boromir. Seriously, he got an arrow shot through his head, and he still turned and shot one last Amazon! Just a bit too much for me.

But now on to some good stuff. I loved the fight with the Reverse-Flash. It really showed off how fun a couple of speedsters can be. Plus, this fight was a million times better than what was in the comics. And then the cherry on the sundae was Thawne's wonderful taunting. I love how he says, "Oh, Barry ..." He is deliciously evil.

I also loved Cyborg's death with Aquaman tearing him apart piece by piece. Superman blasting off Aquaman's arm was great, too, especially since it came right when my brother complained that Aquaman wasn't taking any damage. I do wish, however, that Superman would've hit both Aquaman and Wonder Woman as he did in the comics. But the two villains did have a great final moment with Wonder Woman killing her former lover and holding him in her arms as the Captain Atom bomb engulfed everything in sight.

Batman killing Reverse-Flash was a great and amazing moment in the comics. But he used a sword. In this movie, he killed him with the gun that killed Bruce. Infinitely better. Yeah, I suppose we didn't need to see Thawne's brains, but the added weight and significance made up for it. I then liked how Flash was injured so it made it difficult for him to do what he does best — run. The movie climaxed with us cheering Flash on, almost wanting to physically push him to run faster. It was very well done. And I think certain omissions here helped clean up the story and keep the movie's momentum building.

In the comics, Flash doesn't immediately go back in time. He first visits his mom one last time and expresses doubts about wanting to change the past. He's still holding on to some belief that he can fix everything and still keep her alive. But she takes a courageous stand and tells him to let her die to save millions upon millions of lives. It was a nice, touching scene in the comics, but I feel it really would have bogged down this film's ending. It also would have made Flash seem kind of weak. He'd already seen tons and tons of people die, but he's still not convinced that time travel is the best solution? Especially right after Thawne mocked him for wanting to save him mom more than anyone else? No, the Flash shouldn't need to receive any confirmation from his mom on this decision. This was the best solution and the only solution. So, as sad as it is to lose this scene, I do think it was best for this movie to cut it out.

Now, the whole point of Flashpoint was to set up the New 52, and they made it pretty obvious that Flash returned to a new world. The movie didn't need Pandora, but I would have liked a couple of more hints in addition to the new costumes. By the way, I hated the Flash's New 52 costume. The yellow stripes were way too thick and prominent. They're supposed to be thin seams that only light up when he moves at super speed. Oh well. The final montage of the Flash running was great, even if it was in distracting computer animation. Having him run on the helicopter's propeller did make me very excited, though. My brother thought that was stupid, but I just told him to shut up. :)

The final post-credits scene was also very nice. The first thing I thought while reading Justice League #1-6 was that this would make a great movie. And DC apparently thought the same thing. This gives me hope that we'll enter into a new phase with these animated movies, where they're all connected in the same New 52 continuity. Up till now, all the direct-to-DVD movies have pretty much just been stand-alone adaptations of prominent comic story lines. It would be nice to see this new Justice League movie to usher in a new era of adapting recent stories into movies. Naturally, I would love to see a movie of Gorilla Warfare, but Court of Owls, Rotworld, H'el on Earth and Throne of Atlantis could also make great movies. This may just be wishful thinking on my part, but it's fun to dream.

So altogether, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was a very nice, very entertaining movie. I did have a few problems with it, mostly with the Reverse-Flash not killing Barry's mom, but all the good that this movie did outweighed that. This was the Flash's first movie, and he was awesome. We got to see a lot of his villains, plus tons and tons of other DC characters that had never been on screen before this. It was also a delight to be reunited with so many classic voices. The fighting was amazing, even if some may have understandably felt it was too violent. The story was very faithful to the source material, and even improved upon it in some cases. There were a few areas I would have liked to change, but ultimately, this movie made me too happy and excited to give it anything less than a perfect score.

Final score: 10