Justice League: The New Frontier (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Justice League: The New Frontier is a DC Universe Animated Original Movie based on Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier. Following the same general story line, Justice League: The New Frontier tells of the DC characters in the 1950's, when masked heroism is considered a crime against America. That all changes when an ancient power known as The Centre rises and threatens to eliminate all life on Earth.

Like any adaptation of a long story, this movie is the bare-bones version of the story. It's understandable, really. In comics, you have a series of issues to tell an entire story. In films, both animated and otherwise, the plot has to be boiled down to just the essentials to fit in a shrunken time-span. That being said, Justice League: The New Frontier tends to omit some of the best aspects of DC: The New Frontier, while still managing to keep the story flowing in a captivating and enthralling manner.

The animation quality of this movie is fantastic. Judging from the quality of all previous DC animated series, that is to be expected. But Justice League: The New Frontier takes it a step further. The animation studio beautifully adapted Darwyn Cooke's artistic style for the animated medium. There is a nice mix of classic 2D animation with just a touch of 3D thrown in to add depth. They even went as far as including original artwork from the comic series in the main title sequence.

For the most part, the voice acting was a real treat. When you have talent like Kyle MacLachlan (Superman), Lucy Lawless (Wonder Woman), Jeremy Sisto (Batman), Neil Patrick Harris (The Flash), and David Boreanaz (Green Lantern), you expect them all to bring their A-Game. Some, like Harris, Sisto, and MacLachlan, were incredible in their roles. As a Wonder Woman fan-boy, I was especially impressed with Lucy Lawless. However, some of the roles were lacking. David Boreanaz seemed bored and unconvinced that playing Hal Jordan was worth his time. Most of the lines were delivered very flat, almost as if Boreanaz didn't start to care for the role until the end of the movie. Still, this didn't detract from an otherwise stellar cast.

The music, done by Kevin Manthei, is perhaps the best featured thus far in any DC Animated movie. Anyone familiar with Kevin Manthei's scores knows that he never disappoints. His music in Justice League: The New Frontier is no exception. He blends his typical techno-horror with just enough of the 1950's to make it fit right in. I had been hoping for an isolated film score track on the DVD, but there isn't one. However, La-La Land Records released Kevin Manthei's score on CD.

While the story follows from DC: The New Frontier pretty well, they only got the gist without getting most of the depth. The film doesn't have the nuances of character development that the books carried across beautifully. In comics, we are privy to the innermost thoughts of the characters. In DC: The New Frontier, it is an important tool for character development, plot development, and motivation. The movie chooses to forgo the thoughts, and at times, it leads to confusion and plot holes. There are moments where, had I not read DC: The New Frontier, the movie would have left me scratching my head. It would have been much improved from the simple addition of voice-overs for the characters thoughts.

As I said, the source material has to be cut down to make the movie fit into the allotted time. This can lead to some pretty big plot holes (like the explanation for why The Flash was being hunted by the government). Sometimes, information which was very important in the book is merely breezed over in such a way that casual viewers may miss it (i.e., the dinosaur island at the beginning, the plight of John Henry, and J'onn's discovery of the humans fear of martians). For the most part, however, it doesn't effect the story. The overall theme of the story remains entirely in tact (though, I did miss the casual appearances from other DC characters, such as Selina Kyle, Dinah Lace, et cetera).

Overall: While not as good as the source material, Justice League: The New Frontier is certainly an entertaining and enjoyable movie. The artwork, based on Darwyn Cooke's art, is very evocative of the 1950's. The music and the voice acting both make for one of the best DC Animated features thus far. This is certainly a movie that any fan of DC Comics, DC: The New Frontier, the Justice League, or comics in general would enjoy.

I am very impressed with these DC Animated Universe movies as a whole. Instead of doing nothing but rehashed origin stories in animated form, DC has the guts to actually animate some of it's most popular stories (starting with The Death of Superman in Superman:Doomsday, to this, and many to come). I hope they'll continue this pattern, and perhaps start animating things like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Identity Crisis, 52, and so on. Perhaps Marvel will one day follow suit.

DVD:
Packaging -
I purchased the two-disc special edition of Justice League: The New Frontier. The artwork on the front of the case and slipcase is a beautiful piece of Darwyn Cooke artwork, created specifically for this movie. The back features images from the movie itself. The case is nothing particularly special. The case itself is a standard DVD case with two discs.

Special Features -
Disc One: Two Audio Commentaries (one with the filmmakers and one with the original writer/artist, Darwyn Cooke), a 10 minute sneak peek at Batman: Gotham Knight (much like a documentary, it features interviews about Batman, his history, and the movie itself), and an incredibly interesting and enjoyable 40-minute documentary about the history of the Justice League titled Super Heroes United!: The Complete Justice League History, featuring many people involved in the comic book industry. This documentary features some key insights by Darwyn Cooke into the creation of the original comic work.

Disc Two: The Legion of Doom: The Pathology of the Super Villain (33 minute documentary about the villains of the DCU and their nature), Comic Book Commentary: Homage to the New Frontier (10 minute featurette about adapting the comic book to a movie), and three episodes of the Justice League cartoon series that accent the story of The New Frontier (episodes Dark Heart, To Another Shore, and Task Force X).

Justice League: The New Frontier is available in a single-disc DVD, two-disc special edition DVD, and Blu-Ray disc at retailers such as Amazon and any other video retailers.