User Reviews

Start by saying what a great job DC has done with the Batman franchise. To these tired old eyes, for example, the Dark Knight animations were as good as or better than the live action versions. (Yes, I know, that is heresy, shoot me). DC struggles with the Superman entries. Maybe because so little can hurt him, it's hard to create conflict. JLA is all over the map, some work, some don't. This is the best best best ever. Has a lot of ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE IN IT, which is possibly the most obscure segue you'd expect to find in a review. The really brilliant thing is the way the writers made the story about a single character -- Flash -- and let the viewer see it through his eyes. A strong connection makes a good film. And for any fanboy of any era, the things they did with the traditional characters in this "alternate" universe are both horrifying and mesmerizing at the same time. Guarantee you will never forget what happens to poor Superman here .. forget Lex, imagine if this poor guy had been caught by the government as a baby. Wow. Best of the Best.

• We don't actually see or really know that Barry went back in time and saved his mother until the very end and that it's the reason why everything collapses. It's only very slightly hinted at in the beginning that it's what he is going to do. I personally had not read the synposis for the movie saying this is the plot because I wanted to be all surprised by the plot, and because Barry himself seemed surprised that his mother was alive etc., it took me way into the movie to figure why he ended up in the alternate reality and that he himself had gone back in time, saving his mother and then everything else happened. I don't know if this was fully intentional, but what a weird way to cover up an important plot detail when you could've just as easily shown Barry go back in time in the beginning and it would've made no difference storywise.

Also, are we supposed to believe that after all these years of Barry apparently having the ability to time travel and save his mom, that he as a responsible adult and superhero decides to go back in time to save her after his nemesis makes a threatening comment after having been caught? What the...? How about when he was a hormonal teenager more caught up by things? How about his nemesis actually seem threatening and give a solid reason for Barry to go back in time? I feel like zero of the whole time travel plot is even discussed. It's just used as a silly plot device and excuse to make all of these crazy alternate universe things happen.

• I refuse to believe the heroes could ever get so insanely sadistic because of the butterfly effect (flashpoint paradox). It's simply incredible the lengths that they go to for minimal reason, and basically their personalities are all different which in itself is weird when they were clearly in an age where their personality had already been developed when most of these events started to differ into an alternate universe. It's so implausible I just didn't feel it, and whatever death and villainous/heroic act between most of the alternate universe characters were so emotionally distant because 1) zero impact in the world we know, 2) most of these aren't near the characters we know, they're pretty much all new characters that are given no time to be actually explored.

• Too many characters. There comes a point where easter eggs are no longer easter eggs, and we're just adding a bunch of name-drops and character intros for the sake of absolutely nothing. I know most of the DC characters, I consider myself a pretty big fan and know many origins in different versions, but I seriously found myself being like "huh, am I supposed to know these?" several times throughout when a whole bunch of new people came on screen and had a scene where they got randomly killed off, and I've never even heard of most of them before. So, so much action with characters we haven't spent any (or much) time with and whom I barely know as a fan of the universe.

It's just crazy to me that they could cram in so many characters just for the sake of it. I even got excited about the whole Shazam squad being there until I realized they weren't gonna do anything. No actual fight scenes or more than four lines of short dialogue (including "Shazam!" twice), they just got killed off by Wonder Woman off-screen. Are you kidding, what plot is that? And God help anyone who might be fairly new to the DC universe, witnessing a bunch of magic kids getting introduced only to get randomly murdered without a fight. Ultimately it gets confusing, unneccessary and time that could have been spent better and more effective with the closer to main characters.

• The girlfriend waiting back home.

Are we just going to pretend that it's somehow good writing that Barry's girlfriend has zero personality? I mean, considering barely any of these characters get time for that, it's no surprise. But when Barry returned to her at the end, it really rubbed me the wrong way cus I swear we only saw her being the most uninteresting, passive character one scene at the start, then at the hand of another man, and at the end, Barry returns to his love object all home sweet home. Mm. Okay. I'd have let that pass, TFP, hadn't it been for all your other weak moments in the writing! Now, I'mma just be all pathetic calling out your laziness.

• Dialogue. I'm going to be real nice now and actually hand you some quotes to show just how bad, cheesy and cliche it could get.

Random villain: "Well, Flash. Once again, it looks like you're the bottom and I'm the top." EXCUSE ME *spits my holy tea* That'd be some Flash action we haven't seen. Lex: "I am smart, Captain. Very smart." Bro. First of all, weird flex. Second of all, your only mission was to locate and you don't even know where you are and in a minute, you have no idea what is coming for you and that all these scenes moved the story nowhere altogether. Flash: "We're alive Vic. And where there is life, there is hope." To be fair, this is later jokingly called a Braveheart speech but honestly, that doesn't even help. The entire monologue given around this could've been polished soo much to make it not be something cheesy we hear every action/superhero movie, and if the point was to make a joke about it...maybe make it a less serious tone when you're pulling it off? See, just one instance of what could've made it work. General Lane: "I'm afraid we don't have time for introduction, Captain Jordan." (Finally, they suddenly turned self-conscious and at this point, it's actually funny. Also, what happened to Jordan again? Oh right, his only role was to kill a random big sea monster that didn't turn up as a threat to Flash, his mission or anything big happening elseworlds (see what I did there?). And of course then, another string of cliche from our heroic Captain Jordan: "General Lane, all my life I have felt like something special was waiting for me. Something no one else on Earth could do. I think I just found it, so the last thing I am, is afraid." Way to go without your ring or character relevance, Lantern.

• Now that I'm in this pettiness, I might as well bash that here's another instance of showing just how ridiculous Superman is as not just a hero, not just as any type of character, but as a character seriously existing. Holding in a nuke explosion with his bare hand around it, his palm and the guy wearing the nuke in his belt completely unaffected? Hah. *Blows* Aquaman into a wall like he is nothing but a snowflake in the wind (while himself remaining the size of E.T.)? Cool story bro. Caught in a lab his entire life so that he looks like Jack Skellington with his unhealthily thin alien body flying around, yet remains this invincible superhuman with one thousand apple-sized bullets popping off his skin thicker than Wonder Woman's newly carved Mera tiara? Hand me some kryptonite, please.

His bare appearance continues to be one that can win about any fight, a guy so over-powered that they constantly have to come up with excuses as to have him leave and be moody by himself, not joining the fight. As much as he is a deadly popular and iconic character that people are going to hate me for saying this, the only thing entertaining by this insanely superior dude is their creativity of how they are going to leave him out as much as possible. And I mean... They did leave him out for most of the duration and even gave him no real purpose showing up at the end, so hey... Could be worse.

+ The alternate Batman origin is simply amazing. I wish it had been explored much more because it was definitely a highlight and a good plot twist making for a deeper side character arc.

+ Overall the visuals were pretty decent outside the big action scenes where more colours and interesting visual choices come to show. At the end, we get some very dynamic ones and the visuals when Flash ran through time to stop himself were simply gorgeous and made me *almost* forgive that we saw none of this at the beginning...almost.

+ Speaking of the beginning, it was a very promising emotional start to the story. It was well put together, and despite being no unusual superhero backstory, it was a great dive into Flash's core and the core of this story.

+ Wonder Woman slayed Aquaman. This was satisfactory. No, I'm not a sadist. I love both characters equally. But Aquaman, if you gonna pop some Wonder cherry, and your crazy ex try to kill the woman you've apparently just fallen in love with for some reason... You've got to expect some backlash (*cough* end of the world) if you didn't even protect Wonder or try and reason with her. Like, grow up. Stop flushing Paris down the toilet and threaten Princess Diana. You disrespected your first Queen, you really gonna do it to the next one as well? Bye mate.

Ultimately, I was quite excited to watch the movie after all the amazing reviews, and this beyond mediocre story caught me off-guard. No offence meant in this review in any serious manner anyway. If you are an ultimate DC fan more than me who know slightly more than the basic fan, you care more about excessive easter eggs, action and violent character deaths than *any* of the writing behind it (except a flash of Flash's backstory and an alternate of Batman's), and you want some decent pretty dull mood visuals with a few very good explosions of colour etc., this is for you.

I love the "Flashpoint" comics and was pretty excited to see that DC was going to adapt those comics for their latest animated feature. I personally think DC is killing it in the animated movie department so my hopes were pretty high.

This is one of the best Justice League animated films they've produced. The story is great, the animation and action is awesome! The voice acting keeps the tradition of being top notch (Kevin Conroy is here for Batman, enough said!) and if I was forced to find a complaint, it would be that I thought the character design of Aquaman looked...strange.

Little was changed from the pages and I liked it. DC continues to pump out great animated movies.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox is more of a Flash film than a Justice League movie. It centers around the Flashpoint comic storyline where Flash goes back in time to save his mom basically pulling a Back to the Future and changing the future. In the Flashpoint universe the Justice League was never made. Green Lantern isn't Hal Jordan, Deathstroke is part of a gang of mercs, Aquaman and Wonderwoman are having a full out war, Cyborg is working for the government, Bruce Wayne is dead and instead his father Thomas Wayne is Batman and his mom is Joker, Superman was found by the government instead of the Kents, Shazam is with a bunch of other kids who kind of have powers, and The Flash doesn't exist. This movie takes the original comic that all Flash fans love and turned it into an animated masterpiece, and even extended a bit of the lore revealing that Aquaman and Wonderwoman were in a relationship before Aquaman was revealed to have a wife and Wonderwoman thinking he's cheating kills her, basically starting their whole war. With great acting, and taking something already amazing and making into something more amazing. It also makes people want to read the original comic. After finishing this movie I binged the comic. Flashpoint Paradox is perfect for people who want to know about Flashpoint but don't feel like reading every 100 page issue that was created for it. DC may not be able to create live action movies, they can definitely make animated ones. I'm about to say the obvious though. THE BOOK IS BETTER

Flashpoint was a 2011 crossover comic revolving around Barry Allen/The Flash going back in time to prevent his mother's murder, unaware of the consequences that would be in store (SPOILERS AHEAD):

1.)Bruce would be murdered instead of his parents, Martha would suffer an emotional breakdown and would become the Joker, and Thomas Wayne would become Batman.

2.) Kal-El would never meet the Kents, and would spend his life in a lab.

3.) The Atlanteans and the Amazons would be at war with each other, destroying the world along the way.

4.) The Flash wouldn't have his super-speed.

All of the details from the comic were adapted beautifully, the acting was done perfectly, and this is the best DC animated film since The Dark Knight Returns.

The biggest reason I say this is not for children is because it is excessively violent. The story is a good one about Flash going back in time where his mother's death never happened, and how that changed everything for the worst instead of the better. I had to knock off some points though, because for being an animated film the violence is over the top. Granted I know it was needed to an extent because of the story they were trying to tell, but it was difficult to watch the heroes that I grew up with brutally murdering people. For instance, they have Wonder Woman cutting off the head of Aquaman's wife, and then holding it up like a trophy. Batman throwing a female criminal off of a building with the intent to kill her, and then getting mad at Cyborg because he saved her. Superman using his heat vision to sever Aquaman's right arm. Other lesser known heroes getting shot, having arrows go through their heads, etc. They had a few bad words, but they didn't detract. The amount of violence though for an animated film was a little too much for me.