Nerdly » ‘Injustice’ Blu-ray Review

18th Nov2021

‘Injustice’ Blu-ray Review

by Phil Wheat

Featuring the voices of: Justin Hartley, Anson Mount, Janet Varney, Brandon Micheal Hall, Kevin Pollak, Anika Noni Rose, Reid Scott, Edwin Hodge, Gillian Jacobs, Oliver Hudson, Laura Bailey, Faran Tahir, Derek Phillips, Yuri Lowenthal, Zach Callison, Brian T. Delaney, Fred Tatasciore, Andrew Morgado | Written by Ernie Altbacker | Directed by Matt Peters

Inspired by Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios’ popular video game, and the best-selling DC graphic novel based on the video game, Injustice: Gods Among Us – Year One by Tom Taylor, the animated film Injustice finds an alternate world gone mad – where The Joker has duped Superman into killing Lois Lane, sending the Man of Steel on a deadly rampage. Unhinged, Superman decides to take control of the Earth for humanity’s own good. Determined to stop him, Batman creates a team of like-minded, freedom-fighting heroes. But when superheroes go to war, can the world survive?

Matt Peters, director of the final film in the New 52 series of DC animated movies, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, returns to the DC universe with a film that couldn’t be less canon than ANY of the previous DCAU movies – essentially taking slivers of game that saw superhero fight superhero and giving them the “multiverse” twist; delivering an alternate universe tale that is a break from the traditional Superman/Batman tales that have proliferated this particular series of animated features. Not that this one doesn’t feature both characters but it certainly feels a lot different from the other films in this rebooted series.

For one this is a much more violent than other recent DCAU movies. Though apparently the violence is actually toned down from the comics upon which this is based.Though even “toned down” the violence is still shocking – especially some of the character deaths. In fact the entire “blow up Metropolis with a nuclear bomb” plot is innately shocking and that’s followed by even more death and destruction at the hands of Superman!

Whilst the film is inspired by the story found in the video game of the same name, the plot and story beats are taken more from the DC Comic that came AFTER the game. Though there has been, as usual, a number of changes to that story – some good, some bad. For example the Injustice animated movie uses the idea of a multiverse as a deux ex machina at the end of the film, whereas in both the game AND the comics the multiverse is key to the story. Of course this is just ONE movie, which means that the convoluted story of the comics has been simplified into a series of violent vignettes that keep the pace up but feel sometimes vacuous.

If you like you’re violence animated and you’re superheroes incredibly flawed then Injustice is probably for you. But bear in mind the comics tell this story much more successfully…