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While DC may not be up to par with Marvel when it comes to live action movies, I think it's safe to say that almost all comic fans would agree that they reign supreme when it comes to animation. DC Universe's 7th film, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, continues the line of great work that DC has been releasing as of late.
The film actually has a pretty interesting back story. Originally, this story was written as a movie to be released between the end of Justice League and the beginning of Justice League Unlimited, cartoon series which ran from 2001 - 2004 and 2004 - 2006 respectively. If you are familiar with either show, you will see towards the end of this movie how this would have been a good way to bridge the two series.
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Trailer
The idea of a multiverse has been around for a long time in the DC universe, both in the comics and in the animated cartoons. However, the story behind this movie is loosely taken from early Justice League comics which introduced the Crime Syndicate, a group of superheroes who exist on a parallel earth. They are basically the antithesis to the Justice League of our world. Despite the origin of this story being based around a group introduced in the comics, the actual story line is an original and not based off of any one comic in particular.
Despite being fairly short, though all DC Universe movies are, the film manages to create an original story that deals with a large variety of characters and pretty much does all of them justice. The movie starts out with The Jester (think anti-Joker) and Lex Luthor fighting members of the Justice League. It becomes obvious fairly soon that these are not the same heroes/villains from our earth, but are actually beings from a parallel universe.
Through out the film, Lex, with the help of our earth's Justice League, tries to save his planet from the Crime Syndicate, who are trying to control their world through brute force. I really enjoy how they portray the Crime Syndicate almost like a mob family in that each one of their members has a "family" of villains that work for them. In the beginning of the film they argue over things such as turf and power among the group. It makes the group seem much more interesting than if they were just some random group of people thrown together.
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll stop the summary here. While this isn't the best film in the world by any means, it is definitely a good watch for a fan of DC. I would rate this above Superman: Doomsday and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. I think this film excels because of the fact that it is an original story, and it doesn't have to try and adapt a comic into an hour long film. The only reason I didn't rate this film higher is because there wasn't anything that really made me say "WOW!" It was definitely a good film, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure it's one that I could watch over and over again.
Lastly, if you're as much of a Batman fan as I am, you may be slightly disappointed in his absence in the first half of the film. I'll just say to stick with it, because he plays a much bigger part towards the end!!
