Film Review - Justice League: Doom (2012)

Banded together from the remote areas of the world are 7 of the most sinister villains of all time: The Legion of Doom, dedicated to a single objective: The Conquest of the World, only one group can stop this global threat: The Justice League.

Justice League Doom is simply terrific in almost every way, the first reason is that it feels like a feature length film of the first two seasons of the animated series which most of the team behind this movie worked on also, I thought of some of the great multi part storylines the series had like "Twilight of the Gods", "In Blackest Night", "Wild Cards", "The Savage Time", "Starcrossed" and "And Injustice for All...".

But there are three key reasons this film really works:

The first is the cracker of a script by Dwayne McDuffie (sadly to be his last before his death in 2011), it has a real understanding of the characters, it uses its heroes and villains very effectively and it always has time for some great character moments amongst the wildly imaginative action scenes, McDuffie wrote some terrific stories for the animated series and its enormously sad he's gone, may he RIP.

The second is the voice acting, all the regulars from the animated series return but this time we see some changes: first of all Tim Daly returns to voice Superman and what a joyous occasion it is as it was his absence from the role in the series that held it back from being truly great and it's a joy to hear him here, second Nathan Fillion takes up the role of Green Lantern and it's an inspired choice for the part, I found him to be much better than Ryan Reynolds was in the live action film and lastly we see Bumper Robinson as Cyborg, a fun character in his own right that plays a key role in the film.

And last but certainly not least is the animation, it's simply fantastic as its fast and fluid and at times it gives the film a very cinematic feel, I wish I'd been able to see it on the big screen instead of at home as its hard to imagine a future live action Justice League movie being any better than this was in terms of combining great action, strong characterization and exciting animation.

And so, Justice League Doom is absolutely worth the time to watch it, it's exciting, fast paced, cinematic but always finds time to explore its heroes and villains and in terms of film productions both live action and animated it rarely gets better than this, 5 out of 5.