Original Theatrical Release: February 28, 2012
Director: Lauren Montgomery
The Justice League is a team of powerful superheroes dedicated to protecting Earth from all manner of supervillains and other dangers. Batman (Kevin Conroy), the most human of the Justice League, has created contingency plans to defeat each individual member of the famed superhero team. Vandal Savage (Phil Morris) has plans of world domination and decides to send Mirror Master (Alexis Denisof) to sneak into the Batcave and steal all of Batman’s files, including the weaknesses of the Justice League. This results in Batman, Superman (Tim Daly), Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg), Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Martian Manhunter (Carl Lumbly), The Flash (Michael Rosenbaum) and Cyborg (Bumper Robinson) all having to fight for their very lives as Batman’s contingency plans prove all too effective.
Taken from the Tower of Babel story line, the events in this film mostly mirror those found in DC Comics, with some differences. However, with only 77 minutes to tell this story, I think they managed to do a good job, overall. Still, some fans of the original material might feel like this doesn’t adequately translate Mark Waid’s original writing. Movies will almost always lack the depth of their source material, so it’s best to treat them as separate entities if you can.
The animation was very slick and stylized. The voice acting was consistently very good, and it was nice to see the Legion Of Doom go up against the Justice League. You could get a sense of the classic rivalries between the characters even without knowing all of the years of back story behind them.
DC seems to really have a handle on all of their animated features – I will give them that. DC characters are sort of larger than life and tend to lend themselves more to animated adventures, where Marvel characters tend to be more gritty and aside from characters like Spider-Man, are more suited to the big screen.
With that said, in this (too) short animated feature, you will find copious amounts of action, danger and adventure…and you will feel that the League really is close to being defeated, because they are…and it’s because of one of their own members. (Thanks a lot, Batman…)
JOE Rating: ★★★★
Trailer for Justice League: Doom
The Average JOE Review Blog 
I think the issue of it being too short is the same issue I’ve had with the DC animated movies I’ve watched. They all seem to clock in right around 75 minutes and the story can feel rushed because if it. Batman Year One, especially, I felt like they were rushing from plot point to plot point to fit it all in. I just watched The Dark Knight Returns Parts 1 & 2 last night though and they definitely benefit from being split in two.
That sounds about right, from the ones I’ve seen. I was thinking of watching Batman: Year One soon. Maybe I’ll do that since you’ve prepared me for the time-crunch they like to do, haha….then I’ll check out Dark Knight Returns sometime after that. Thanks for the input, sir.
DC’s animated shows and movies of the last decade are almost universally fantastic, though I completely agree that they would be better-paced without the time constraint. Pretty sure the 75-minute limit has to do with their being made for TV and straight-to-DVD — miniscule budget, especially compared to theatrical films.
Relatedly: I watched the 2009 Wonder Woman movie the other week, and it was pretty close to perfection (except, again, too short). If DC could just put out a major release of that plotline with a rewrite for the big screen, they would make many, many happy fangirls.
Ooh, I’ll have to watch that one. I always liked Wonder Woman’s character when they pushed her more toward a sort of “Thor” level of mythology that Marvel uses.
The problem I see with DC right now is that they’re trying too hard to catch up with Marvel. Marvel’s been doing successful live action films since the first BLADE movie – well before X-MEN. Now, all of a sudden – DC is pushing out a bunch of live-action crap. GREEN LANTERN was terrible as a live-action film but I bet it would’ve been decent animated. MAN OF STEEL was likewise pretty bad….and really, it has a lot to do with how fantastical those heroes are (aside from story problems, etc). This is why all the Batman films did so well. He is pretty much a regular human so most of the time there’s no need for fake-looking CGI or Green Screen.
Should be interesting to see if they can redeem themselves with the upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film. I’m not holding my breath, though. They should’ve given Wonder Woman her own flick. Aquaman, too.