BWN Nerds’ Movie Review: Injustice (2021)

We have another Nerds review, and this one on the normally vaunted DC Animated Universe! Dave and Rey decide to tackle Injustice!

It’s a fairly fresh release so there aren’t a ton of fleshed out grades on the usual sites. Makes things more interesting to see how our Nerds rated it!

• Metacritic: N/A
• IMDB: 6.2/10
• Rotten Tomatoes: Critic – N/A% / Audience – 43%

Nerd’s Take on Injustice (2021)

Dave

Ever since I was a kid, Superman has been my favorite super hero. Over the years, my love for the Man of Steel has been met with some very tepid reactions from non-Superman fans. I have heard the same tired arguments time and time again: He’s boring; He’s too much of a boy scout; He’s too over-powered; He’s too God-like; etc., rinse, repeat. I recognize that, yes, perhaps Superman is the ultimate white-meat babyface ever. I also feel like his harshest critics do not understand what makes him so great. See, it’s not that Superman is faster than a speeding bullet that makes him great. Its not that he is more powerful than a locomotive or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound either. What makes Superman great is that although he has incredible powers, he never uses them to his own advantage or to oppress anyone, even though he easily could. He could take over the world if he desired and there would be very little anyone could do to stop him. It is his restraint and morals despite this immense power that makes him so great.

But what if that were not the case? What if Superman was pushed too far and decided to turn his back on all of his ideals, turn his back on mankind, betray his friends, and became the polar opposite of what he has stood for for nearly a century? What if everyone who complained about Superman being too much of a goody-goody got their wish and a darker and quasi-evil version of Superman emerged? The newest DC Animated film, Injustice, explores this question, and so much more.

Injustice is based on the extremely popular video-game series that debuted in 2013. The games were then adapted to graphic novels and the story-line exploded in popularity. DC’s latest animated movie captures much of what Injustice is all about and what makes it so captivating. In a nutshell, here is the plot/premise: The Joker tricks Superman into killing Lois Lane, his unborn child, and 11 million people in Metropolis. It is an unfathomable loss and it pushes Superman well past his breaking point. He executes The Joker then, with Wonder Woman staunchly by his side, announces to the world that what happened to Metropolis can never happen again. Superman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Hawkman, and others then set about disarming the world and quickly ending any and all military conflicts across the globe. As this totalitarian state evolves, many other members of the JLA oppose Superman, feeling that it is wrong for him to impose his will upon the world and ignoring any and all laws and accords that might exist. Aquaman leaves the JLA to go back to Atlantis vowing to not yield to Superman’s rule. Green Lantern is called back to Oa by the Guardians of the Universe. It is Batman, Green Arrow, and a revenge motivated (sort of) Harley Quinn who become Superman’s primary opponents. Batman is every bit as stubborn as Superman in his own beliefs that the law must be upheld. It is more than a bit ironic that one of the biggest vigilantes in the history of DC becomes the poster-child for upholding the same laws that he routinely violated over his career. Suffice it to say that with the big two of DC opposing each other, shit gets real very quickly. Both sides suffer losses, especially Batman, who is likely brought back from his own breaking point by Catwoman.

So, I do not want to spoil this for anyone because I really feel it is well worth your money and time investment. What I will say is that DC does not make bad animated movies. More often than not, they are very good to great. Make no mistake, Injustice is definitely on the great side of that ledger. It is an enormously powerful movie that will definitely elicit an emotional reaction from you, regardless of which side of the fence you find yourself on as far as support. What Injustice does so well is it makes you feel terrible for Superman at the beginning, no matter if you are a fan of his or not. Then, even if you are not a fan of his, and have always clamored for an edgier Man of Steel, you will reach a point where you will realize that this version of Superman is terrifying in his own right and has gone too far. If you are like me and love Superman, watching our heroes’ steady decline is nothing short of agonizing. For all involved, there are gut punches along the way, irrespective of the tragedy of the first 10 minutes. Some beloved heroes die. I will say no more than that. By the time everything is resolved (if you can call it that) the toll for everyone is enormous and you know that the world will never be the same. From a world-changing standpoint, Injustice holds its own with movies like Flashpoint Paradox, and that is saying something.

The movie is not perfect. It strays from the source material in a few questionable places. This is nothing new for DC animation. Most of the time, it works. Less often, such as with The Killing Joke, it doesn’t. Injustice falls somewhere in between the two extremes. It is easy to understand why this was done but some of it leaves a bit to be desired. On the other hand, I read some other reviews that were critical that Injustice crammed too much into it at the expense of character development. I don’t buy that at all. We are, after all, talking about some of the most well-known characters in the history of comics. How much development do we really need at this point? With that being said, there is a lot going on here and, on occasion, the story seems to suffer a bit. But not really enough to take away from how excellent the movie is on other fronts.

The timing of Injustice, coming just as Marvel’s What If came to an end seems to be more than just a coincidence. Injustice is a massive exploration into a DC version of a What If type of situation. It is clearly not canon, but is clearly based off of canon. It explores a possible alternate reality where if just one variable or another is flipped, the consequences are devastating. It asks and answers the question: What if Superman went bad? It is very dark and there is not much hope to be found in the movie. There is no happy ending to be found. In the end, everyone loses to some extent. That sounds extremely bleak and it is. But it is one of the most powerful super-hero-based stories you will ever see brought to life. I would not recommend this to the casual fans out there or the bandwagoners. But, if you are a hardcore fan of the characters, the video games, or the graphic novels, this is something you truly have to watch and experience. In the end, that is the best word to describe Injustice: It is an experience unlike any other in DC animated history and, for the right type of fan, it is an essential watch.

Rating; 4.5/5

Rey

This week we have the pleasure of reviewing Injustice, which is a movie that I’ve been looking forward to seeing since I heard about it.  Having been a huge fan of the video game that it’s modeled after, my interest was immediately high.  The original Injustice game was one of the first times that a major comic property or storyline came from that medium, and the hook of it was one that surprisingly hadn’t been used before – what if Superman decided to be evil.  And where the game created the idea, the animated movie doubled down and surpassed.

I’ve made it no secret that I’m not a Superman fan.  I find him too rigid, uninteresting, and ridiculously overpowered.  As long as he’s in this solar system, he has absolutely no weakness except for a ridiculously rare ore from his home planet.  He’s also the personification of good.  Villains call him the big boy scout for a reason.  This idea of who Superman is and what he stands for is completely turned on its head in Injustice.  At the beginning of the movie, he finds out that Lois Lane, his wife, is pregnant.  He immediately goes to help Batman to save the day just to tell him that he’s having a baby – an extremely boy scout-ish thing to do.  As the day goes on, The Joker and Harley Quinn kill Jimmy Olsen and take Lois Lane hostage.  As soon as Superman finds out, Batman sends a message to the rest of Justice League to bring all hands on deck to find her.  While looking for her, Flash is killed as he uncovers what Joker has been working on.  He’s stolen Scarecrow’s fear gas and synthesized it with Joker toxin.  And unfortunately, he laced it with Kryptonite and sprayed this on Superman.  So as Superman sees Doomsday and proceeds to fight him with all his might and takes him to outer space, Batman helps him realize that he actually just killed his wife Lois and his unborn child.  As he realizes this, a bomb hidden in a clock tower in Metropolis tied to Lois’s heartbeat goes off and destroys the city.  This is just the FIRST FIFTEEN MINUTES!

Throughout the movie, Superman begins to take his grief out on his friends and fellow superheroes, but most importantly, he takes it out on the public.  He immediately kills Joker, which turns Batman against him.  He then proceeds to try and help people by stopping all crime, attacking regimes and countries.  This goes further as he tries to go to Arkham Asylum and have Cyborg boom tube the villains there to a special, unreachable prison.  Batman brings Nightwing, Green Arrow, and Arrow’s hostage turned sidekick Harley Quinn, to stop them, but Damien Wayne has already told Superman’s group.  After a big fight with Superman telling Batman that he doesn’t know what he’s lost, Damien accidentally kills Nightwing.  Immediately, Batman loses it in a way you don’t see him lose it, with Catwoman being the only thing that holds him together.

It’s important to talk about Wonder Woman’s influence on Superman in this movie and as a whole.  Diana is the voice in Superman’s head pushing him to go on his quest of “saving” the world, not seeing that he is delving further and further into becoming a tyrant.  It takes Superman killing a bunch of teenagers dressed like Joker in a rave for her to realize that she and Superman have gone too far.  At this point, Superman has told the United Nations that he controls everything and his reach will be around the whole world to keep it safe.  The US Government conspires to kidnap Jonathan Kent to have some leverage over him, but Diana is able to find Mirror Master and help find him.  After he’s found, Batman, Catwoman, Green Arrow, Huntress, and Harley conspire to steal the Red Sun cannon from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.  They make the President send military submarines out as a distraction, but when Batman’s group gets to the Fortress, they see Jonathan there.  He tells them to leave, but Superman, Wonder Woman, and Diana catch them.  After a huge fight, Green Arrow attempts to shoot a Kryptonite arrow at Superman, which he knocks away but inadvertently kills his dad.  At this point, heroes have been killed, villains have been imprisoned, and Superman has accidentally killed his own father.  Batman’s group narrowly escapes as Superman is on the verge of losing his mind.

Batman then uses Plastic Man to sneak into Superman’s prison and release the only person who has the technology to possibly stop him – Mr. Terrific.  Thanks to Nightwing being reincarnated as Deatman the ghost, both heroes are able to escape Cyborg.  Also, after accidentally killing Nightwing, Damien Wayne has joined Superman’s cause and has attempted to bring Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Shadows into Superman’s circle.  This turns out to be a huge mistake as Ra’s al Ghul has created Amazo with the hope of taking over the world now that there is no real power thanks to Superman.  While this fight is going on with Superman, Diana, and Cyborg trying to stop Amazo, Mr. Terrific, Plastic Man, Harley, Batman, and Catwoman are trying to set up a special portal which ultimately allows them to go into the multiverse and get another Superman from another world.  This Superman fights the main Superman until the other world’s Lois comes out.  She convinces him to stand down and realize the error of his ways.  Finally, Superman’s internal conflict is over and the movie is over.

Injustice touches every emotion possible.  It’s impossible to not feel for Superman after losing his wife, son, and father.  But you quickly see where his grief turns to madness.  And you understand why he is the Big Boy Scout.  It’s because he has to hold back to stay human.  Joker stole his humanity and his hope, and ultimately, turned him into a madman that couldn’t be stopped.  It’s a fantastic movie and a fantastic story.  It’s maybe the best Superman story I’ve ever read.

The only issue is that the story from Injustice the game is just a bit better.  For the sake of time, I won’t break it down here, but just know that the game ends with Superman in the Red Sun prison, but still under the belief that he was right and the world needs his protection.  So because of that, I can’t give this movie a full on 5, but it’s damn close.  This is another feather in the hat for DC animation, as their movies usually are excellent.

Rating: 4.75/ 5

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Injustice (2021): 4.63/5