‘Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths – Part Three’ Review
Features the voices of: Jensen Ackles, Troy Baker, Jonathan Adams, David Kaye, Meg Donnelly, Geoffrey Arend, Zach Callison, Gideon Adlon, Will Friedle, Stana Katic, Darren Criss, Ato Essandoh, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill | Written by James Krieg | Directed by Jeff Wamester
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths – Part Three, picks up from the closing moments of Part Two with a distraught Supergirl (Meg Donnelly; Team Toon, The Winchesters) killing The Monitor (Jonathan Adams; Elemental, Reign of the Supermen), an act that somehow sends everyone into The Bleed, “an unstable dimension that exists outside The Multiverse, truly neither here nor there.”
That means it’s hidden from the Anti-Monitor (Ato Essandoh; Outpost, Millennium Crisis), and it’s also extremely unstable. How unstable you ask? Ten minutes into the film and what’s left of Earth – 1’s downtown Metropolis is being overrun with dinosaurs. It seems the various Earth’s pasts, presents and futures are in a constant state of collision. Nazis, armed with weapons confiscated from supervillains including Scarecrow’s fear toxin, show up in Earth – 2’s Gotham City.
While the hallucinations spawned by the toxin are effective looking, some of the dinosaur scenes are extremely cheap looking and, along with scenes of people being bitten but not bleeding, make what should have been an exciting opener fall flat. Worse, we’re told at length there aren’t enough resources for everyone, but we see Supergirl and Batgirl (Gideon Adlon; Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, Sick) eating doughnuts. Surely if everything needs to be tightly rationed, there are better uses for flour?
Eventually Batman, (Jensen Ackles; Supernatural, Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One) scours The Bleed for John Constantine (Matt Ryan; DC Showcase: Constantine – The House of Mystery, Constantine) whose powers seem to be the only thing effective against The Anti-Monitor, they just have to figure out which Earth he’s passed out drunk on. They don’t however have to find The Anti-Monitor, because he has somehow managed to find a way into The Bleed.
All of this should be exciting, but Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths – Part Three never really manages to take off. Director Jeff Wamester (Justice League: Warworld, Green Lantern: Beware My Power) and writer James Krieg (Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy) certainly have great source material to work with.
They also have a cast that includes a final performance by the late Kevin Conroy (Justice League vs the Fatal Five, Batman: Assault on Arkham) as Earth-12 Batman and, fittingly, Mark Hamill (Batman: Killing Joke, Star Wars) as Earth-12 Joker, reputedly the last time he’ll voice The Joker. That’s on top of those I’ve already mentioned and, among others, Alexandra Daddario (Texas Chainsaw, Mayfair Witches) as Lois Lane, Katee Sackhoff (The Mandalorian, Night of the Animated Dead) as Poison Ivy, and Lou Diamond Phillips (Young Guns, The 33) as The Spectre.
Despite all that, there’s never any real sense of suspense or danger. Superbeings fight, planets explode and space is literally ripped open, but it has little impact. Even worse are attempts at emotional scenes like Aquaman (Liam McIntyre; Bring Him to Me, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay) rushing home to die with his family. Rather than evoking pathos, it’s just sappy and pathetic.
A large part of the problem, as it was with the previous chapter, is the attempt to fit in such a huge cast of characters, even The Losers get a cameo this time around. Rather than concentrate on the most compelling characters and events from the original comics, the script keeps interrupting them for a quick appearance by yet another character who isn’t particularly important to the overall story. If Warner Bros. really wanted to cover so much ground, they should have done this as a limited series for cable and given it all proper coverage.
But they didn’t, and between the lacklustre storytelling and uneven animation, Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths – Part Three brings a disappointing adaptation of a landmark storyline to an end, not with a bang, but a whimper.
** 2/5
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three is available as a 4K/Blu-ray Streelbook, as well as on VOD and Digital Platforms from Warner Bros.
