It’s All Constantine’s Fault

DC has a history of taking their popular comic storylines and turning them into animated movies. People want to see the stories they love in new forms, so this all makes sense. Sometimes it turns out reasonably good movies, like All-Star Superman or Injustice. Sometimes the results are less impressive, such as was the case with Batman: The Killing Joke. There’s no doubt, though, that having the name of a famous storyline applied to an animated movie helps to boost the sales of the movie. People want the biggest stories told in new mediums.

And, well, there’s no story bigger than Crisis on Infinite Earths. This was the mega-comic crossover that not only relaunched the whole DC comics line in the 1980s, but also proved that mega-comic crossovers could sell comics. Crisis on Infinite Earths was a massive sales success, and fans absolutely ate it up. DC has used the concept to make multiple other crossover events, they’ve adapted it to television as part of the Arrowverse, and now, via a three-film event, DC come out with a new version again.

I heaped praise on the first two parts of this three movie event, thinking that the first film was a great introduction into the massive crossover’s story, while the second film gave us solid character studies of the main players. I felt that these were the first truly great films in the DC TomorrowverseA fresh start for DC's direct-to-video animated films, this is the successor universe to the DC Animated Movie Universe, promising bright new stories for DC's classic stable of heroes.. All DC had to do, then, was stick the landing and they could have had one of the best adaptations of all time. They could have stuck a flag in the sand and said, “hey, this is how you do it. This is the version of Crisis on Infinite Earths.” All it would take was one last good film to cap the previous two good films, and we’d be all set.

And, wow, did DC really botch this last movie. This was not the ending we wanted in any way, shape, or form.

The issue with Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 3 is that, clearly, all the real story for the movies was in the previous two films. This third film picks up right at the end of where the second film left off, with the heroes all looking up at the massive figure of the Anti-Monitor as it prepares to launch an antimatter wave at Earth. But then, because Kara nearly destroyed the Monitor at the end of the previous film, the Monitor here decides to unleash his eons of energy into his massive ship and move all the remaining Earths away into a pocket universe, keeping them safe.

That’s great, but this pocket universe, the Bleed, has its own physical rules, and it caused time and space, past and future to bleed together. The Earths all remain, but they’re running out of resources and, within months everyone could be dead anyway. Worse, someone leaks the location of the Bleed to the Anti-Monitor and it allows the villain a chance to slowly start ripping his way in, destroying the Earths one by one. A solution needs to be found, some way to damage the Anti-Monitor and deliver a killing blow to the beast. Without that, all hope for all the Earths will be lost.

While this sounds like a lot, what it actually amounts to is about thirty minutes of actual plot, with a whole lot of padding shoved in around it. The film breaks down into two types of scenes. In some sections, where the plot is found, we see characters standing around each other, talking about what’s going on, explaining everything to us in extended bouts of technobabble. The other sections have action that is barely even related to the plot. This is how we get scenes like the heroes all showing up on one Earth to battle dinosaurs that have come through a time rift. Or a scene where all the heroes go to a version of Earth stuck in the Old West, and the heroes have to beat up a bunch of desperados. Why? Because the movie needed an action beat and the story didn’t have a good way to work one in cohesively.

What this leads to is a very boring, very pointless third film that lacks any real energy. It’s hard to get excited about action sequences that lack narrative thrust. We need action, but it should be tied to the events of the story. It’s hard to care about a bunch of characters standing around, talking at each other. Explaining the plot is sometimes necessary; doing it in such a way where you can show us, instead of telling us, what’s happening is better. But, most of all, it’s hard to care about a bunch of Earths we barely know.

The conceit of the film (and this whole trilogy) is, of course, that the various Earths are getting obliterated one-by-one by the Anti-Monitor. We see him wipe countless Earths away. Everyone in the film is so shocked at how many lives are lost, but this is a “tell” moment. Them reacting isn’t the same as us feeling. We don’t care about the countless Earths because there are so many of them, with so many people we don’t know. One Earth is about to be destroyed, and it’s the homeworld of an AquamanRaised by his fully-human father, Arthur Curry has a history even he didn't know about until he grew: that he was the half-human, half-Atlantean son of the once-Queen of Atlantis, and was destined one day to be it's rightful ruler, the Aquaman.. He sacrifices himself, going home to be with his wife and son right before the antimatter wave hits. That’s an emotional beat that works… but we also don’t really care because, soon after, another Aquaman is shown on screen. Every Earth has an Aquaman. Why does this specific one matter?

The previous two parts of this trilogy managed to avoid this problem by focusing on specific characters and making them care about their journey. Instead of trying to get us to worry about every Earth, we were tuned in on a handful of characters. We cared about the story because we cared about them. This third film, though, sidelines most of those characters. BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. is knocked out for portions and then takes a backseat for other characters the rest of the time. Supergirl is so shocked at what she did in Part Two that she’s basically catatonic for most of Part Three. And Psycho Pirate, the nominal villain of the second film, spends the entirety of this one locked in a prison, going nowhere. So much time was spent on these characters only to cast them aside so we could focus on, what, the big picture? Well, the big picture sucks and I want my characters back.

The one time the film truly feels like it comes together is, ironically, when it’s not even focused on its own story at all. The Tomorrowverse was the animated movie universe that came after the DC Animated Movie UniverseWhile DC Comics was amping up production on this big "MCU-killer", the DC Extended Universe they were also quietly putting together another shared movie continuity, the DC Animated Movie Universe. This series was more closely related to the comics, directly adapting a number of famous storylines to, arguably, better effect than the live-action movies could.. That long-running series ended with the destruction of Earth at the hands of Darkseid, and the Flash running backwards through time to reboot the universe. As is then shown here, that event led to the creation of the Tomorrowverse and, because of that, the creation of an infinitely spawning Multiverse, which is why the Anti-Monitor exists and why all the destruction is happening. It’s explained to us, yes, but it’s shown via flashbacks, with John ConstantineAlso known as the "Hellblazer", John Constantine is a detective and con-man who has skills with the dark arts and a penchant for taking on demons. and Batman commenting on it. This section works because it shows what happened. It lets us into the moment. It makes us feel in a way the rest of the movie did not.

It also has Matt Ryan as Constantine once again, and he’s always great in the role. If you want to spice up a DC adventure just bring in Matt Ryan’s Constantine. That’ll do the trick.

It’s funny, in a way, just how connected this universe ended up being to the previous universe. It’s even funnier when you recall that the DCAMU started in an unrelated film, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, which was then retconned in as the previous universe before that universe that then led to this universe. DC can’t help but reboot their reboots into reboots, and considering the original end of Crisis on Infinite Earths back in the comics in the 1980s, I think you can already tell where this series is going.

All of that is interesting, but it doesn’t help this film all that much. This third part is a real letdown. Instead of focusing on characters, the film gets tied up explaining its plot. Instead of giving us moments that matter, the movie drops in random action to break up all the talking. Nothing feels earned, nothing has emotion, and nothing makes us care. I really liked the first two parts of this trilogy and was on board to watch it going out with a satisfying bang. The series goes out, that’s for sure, but in the end there’s actually nothing satisfying about it. It’s a drab and dreary film that gets so caught up tying everything up, even from a universe before this one, that it can never actually focus on anything that truly matters.

Oh well. Maybe the next time DC adapts Crisis on Infinite Earths they’ll get it right. And if not, I’m sure we’ll see yet another version some time after that. And again… and again…