Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (Two-Disc Special Edition)

I too will try and keep this short, though I will probably fail at that goal. This was possibly my favorite, and at least tied for first among all of the Direct to Video DC Universe animated features so far. I loved the story, the music, the characters and MOST of the voice acting (I will explain below). It was a definite "auto-buy" for me and I am glad I did (and pre-ordered).The animation and character design was excellent. The story and action was very exciting. This may have had the BEST fighting scenes so far. It was almost like watching a good kung fu movie in certain scenes (more in the "flying people" sub-genre than the "old-school" just plain good fighting, but there was a lot of that too! The moves, both in blows as well as holds and throws, seemed and felt real. As a martial artist and one who loves good martial arts in movies, this was some of the best I have seen in a American animated movie).I found the music very moving and would love to have a soundtrack CD of it, Very inspiring. I found myself getting so lost in the story that the very few weaknesses got left in the dust after awhile. The voice directing by Andrea Romano was superb as usual. However, I did find some of the voice acting to be the weakest link in a very strong chain.The Good: well, James Woods performance as a very evil, dark and twisted Owl Man (Batman's counterpart on the parallel Earth is just outstanding. He gets the MVP among the voice actors in this one for me. He played it very cold and deadpan and it just worked like a charm. Creepy and scary.James Patrick Stuart's performance as The Jester (the parallel's Earth good counterpart to our evil Joker) was another great performance (albeit too short). I found myself really liking and cheering for this character, which was so weird because his evil counterpart (who does not show up in this movie at all) is fun to watch, but not someone I ever CHEER for. This guy is also nuts, but truly a good man and a hero. I really found myself buying Mark Harmon's voice as Superman after a few scenes, whereas at first it bothered me. He totally worked as Superman. Still miss Tim Daly or George Newbern a bit, but Harmon did just fine.Now for the main bad: I really missed Kevin Conroy as Batman. Unlike many reviewers here, I did not hate Billy Baldwin as the voice of Batman and I also found myself letting go and enjoying his performance, as I did with Mark Harmon. But he was not perfect for the role. Not like Kevin Conroy is. I do not understand what the motivation was to not use Conroy, except for possibly to make the movie its own thing and not connect it to any other product released so far. I still think no matter who else they cast for other roles (and I still like Tim Daly best as Superman and George Newbern second best), they should keep Conroy for Batman for all their projects. I think he helped define the DCU Animated almost as much as Timm, Romano,Walker, Dini and the other creators of those early Batman Animated series and should be used almost like a trademark.Anyway, none of the above was enough for me to give the MOVIE itself less than five stars. It is easily tied for first in my collection and may end up being my favorite over time (time will tell). And all the other voice actors did just fine.As for the DVD set: I really want to give this set 4 stars for the lack of a commentary (I have missed that on the last few and I think it is a mistake for them not to include those anymore. I hope they bring them back. IT makes the product more re-watchable), as well as a really good featurette about the movie. Now, the mostly talking heads "First Look" at this movie that was on the Green Lantern set last year was okay. BUT IT IS NOT EVEN ON THIS SET! They don't have any NEW stuff about this movie, they could at least include the 10 minute "preview" that they made for it, just as many DVD's include (or at least used to) the trailers for whatever the movie is (this is still done for certain kinds of classic movies, such as golden age classic Hollywood movies and classic kung fu movies). Having nothing about the making of this great movie on the DVD itself, is a crime to me. Now, there are some hidden locked features that you can unlock, I think if you collect the virtual cards that they have on their FaceBook page (or maybe they just show it to you there). If those are any good, that would bump it up.The talking heads featurette about the DC Universe and how it developed as a contiguous, coherent universe and the various epic Crises that have been used to explore that more is... just okay. It is interesting in parts, and as a comic book geek, I did like hearing some of the creators talking about how they developed some of these projects. But it does not make up for nothing told about the making of the movie.And including the Bruce Timm's picks from the Justice League Animated series, "A Better World", was fine, but I already have these episodes in the collected set. I can see how this might be great for those who don't yet have those sets.And the other First Looks are also okay, but again, I already have all of these on other sets. Except for the new one BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD. And that was awesome! I am so looking forward to that one! It looks very scary, dark and more along the lines of some of the darkest Batman stories, such as Frank Miller's Dark Knight stories and the recent DARK KNIGHT movie.But the thing that really bumps this up to a solid four and half stars for me (along with the excellence of the feature film itself) is the short animated film of DC PRESENTS: THE SPECTRE! That was so very cool. This idea of bringing a short subject onto the disc I wholeheartedly applaud. I actually liked it a lot when they did this with the mostly silent (no talking) Catwoman short on THE MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN DVD set. And this one is just superb. They truly captured the horror, the dread and yet still the coolness factor of The Spectre. The mystery was good for a short 13 minute animated movie, the voice acting was great (not directed by Andrea Romano! I was surprised, but they did a good job on this, nonetheless), the music was excellent and I like how they made some parts of the movie "scratchy" to make it look classic and old. It was just great.Conclusion: So, I give the set a very solid four and half stars and I always round upward with half stars. The half star missing is because of the casting of Batman, the lack of commentary and any other special features about the making of the movie featured on the disc.A must purchase for any DCU Animated fan. IF you can save some money, and don't care about the talking heads featurette about all the Crises (mostly about IDENTITY CRISIS and INFINITE CRISIS) and the two episodes from the Justice League series, you can easily get by with just the single disc set (if there is one) because the movie itself, The Spectre short and all the First Looks (including the new Batman one) are all on Disc 1). I am glad I got the two-disc set, because as a pre-order it was only about $13 shipped and well worth it. But I could easily be happy with just the first disc if I could get it for less than $10. And I did fail to keep it short, as per usual, although I hope I gave the most important stuff in the beginning for those who didn't want to read the entire review.

The Blu-Ray version of this movie has a lot of plusses and very few minuses. Rather than go into the story at length as others have done, I'll concentrate more on the features of the disc. Besides, who wants to give the story away, right ?Suffice to say that the theme is pretty straightforward with Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, and the episode doesn't link up to any other storylines in the DC Universe that I am aware of. If you are DC Comics aficionado, don't be confused by the title and think it has anything to do with the 1980's "Crisis On Infinite Earth's" storyline which attempted to tie up the many different multiverses in the DC universe with different Flashes, Green Lanterns, etc. This storyline revolves around a single solitary parallel Earth and the superpowered entities residing on it. The Justice League, with the 'good' Lex Luthor from the parallel Earth, have to cut down to size a crime syndicate run by JL-type superheros (note the 'Goodfellas' accent on Ultraman).PROS: The Blu-Ray quality is excellent. I watched the movie on my 720p plasma HDTV and a brand-new Sony 460 Blu-Ray player. The picture is sharp border-to-border and the audio quality is excellent. If you are on the fence for getting a new Blu-Ray player, this disc as well as GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT should convince you to finally spend the money. The DVDs play fine, but the improvement in audio and video quality - especially if you have a TV larger than 50" and/or an audio home theater system - is noticeable. The Blu-Ray is putting out about 3-5x as much data per second in operation as a standard DVD, and you can see and hear the difference.Finally, the 1975 TV pilot for "Wonder Woman" (remember when a 75-minute movie fit into a 90-minute time slot without a ton of commercials?) is included and Lynda Carter looks great in HiDef. Ditto the never-aired (?) pilot for the "Aquaman" spin-off from "Smallville."CONS: The voice animation is fine, but it is tough getting used to new voices coming out of your favorite characters after you've been used to certain actors and actresses for 8 years on the earlier cartoon series and movies. I wouldn't have minded a few more time-traveling 2-parters from Justice League Unlimited in the bonus episodes (I guess they don't want to give away the store and give you no reason to purchase them elsewhere, right?). The storyline in CRISIS is pretty traditional and has no link to either of the two Justice League TV series.The bonus Justice League episodes are very appropriate for CRISIS. You get two 2-parters: "A Better World" which features the Justice Lords (a parallel version of the Justice League) and the key incident that led to their creation. This storyline ties in very well with the Cadmus arc storyline in Justice League Unlimited and if you like alternate-universe storylines, you may like that story more than CRISIS itself. The other 2-parter is "Twilight" which was the final episode(s) of Justice League before it became Justice League Unlimited. These episodes have relevance to Brainiac's entrance in the Cadmus episodes as well as the re-appearance of Darkseid at the conclusion of JLU. My only quibble here is that the 4 episodes were not upgraded to HiDef before being put on the Blu-Ray. Since the originals were not HD quality, any upgrade would never look or sound as good as CRISIS but the drop-off is noticeable. There's also some minor glitches in the credits at the end although thankfully they don't seem to crop up during the episode itself. Almost looks like they rushed the inclusion of the standard-def TV series onto the Blu-Ray without looking to upgrade the quality. Let's hope for some HD remastering in the future.The Blu-Ray version also includes the `free' digital copy for use on your iPod or PC and which can be burned for a regular DVD copy for your traditional DVD player in the home, car, etc. Take note of the expiration date (February 2011 for mine) to unlock the digital copy. And remember that if your PC crashes or you buy a new PC, the digital copy will NOT transfer/unlock on your new system so burn or store a copy elsewhere if you want a copy for posterity.I am giving this 4 stars instead of 5 only because I think that while the storyline is OK, it is nothing spectacular. In fact, I think that a continuation of the ending of JLU with Darkseid's return or some of the other bad guys from Justice League might have made more of an impact (let's hope if or when they bring back Darkseid that Michael Ironside is once again doing the voice). Conversely, I think that GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT did an outstanding job in re-telling the traditional Hal Jordan-Green Lantern birth while also introducing some new angles and elements to the story to keep it fresh.All-in-all, CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS is a fine Blu-Ray addition and worth the purchase price. In the future, however, I'd like to see more of a link-up to the great storylines, episodes, and story arcs created in Justice League and JLU. Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie did spectacular work in the earlier TV series and it would be a shame and a waste not to rely on them for future DTV releases. Remember, the first "Star Trek" movie was a flop and it wasn't until "Wrath Of Khan" reached back to the 1960's TV show that the franchise was resurrected. Timm and McDuffie should take advantage of the critical acclaim they received for their work on the earlier cartoons and not be afraid to 'reach back.' And as with PUBLIC ENEMIES, getting the phone numbers for the original voices can't hurt, either.

This movie has great fights, a great story, a great ending, a great very-ending, great cinematography, and so on; a Great DC Movie! I enjoyed everything about this film, and also had great cinematography. It's also nice to see a Lex Luthor that is not a lunatic. I also really liked Owlman, because it shows a version of Batman that turned to the dark side. An Excellent DC movie.

This is a really good adventure set within the DC Universe. It utilises a storyline that was to be part of the animated saga, set immediately prior to Season 3 ( Justice League Unlimited: The Complete Series [Blu-ray ]). However, with the cancelation of that series, the story went unused. Here, it's adapted into a standalone direct-to-video film. A sequel was made -  Justice League - Doom  - which draws on the same characterisations and has the same voice actors. Additionally, the  Young Justice: Complete First Season (2pc) / (Dts) [Bluray] [Region A] [NTSC] [US Import ] is set within the same universe.The story here involves an alternate Lex Luthor - from a different dimension - journeying to the Earth of the Justice League. He asks for help, as his world is ruled by the evil Crime Syndicate. Freedom, liberty and democracy have been supressed ... instead of doing good, those with powers have become bad in this other dimension. Luthor has designed technology to traverse the dimensions, and he wants the Justice League to stop the Crime Syndicate. Superman agrees, and take the others with him ... all except for Batman - who refuses to go. The Dark Knight explains that there's enough to do here, on their own world, without trying to sort of the crime problem on alternative Earths.The Justice League are, for the most part, successful in battling their evil alter-egos. But one villain - Owlman - eludes capture. He's the alternative Batman. And as soon as he discovers the technology of crossing over to other dimensions, he wants it for himself. With it, he seeks to find Earth-Prime - the original dimension. And he aims to destroy that Earth, thereby shattering the multi-verse and destroying all Earths. And so Batman has to stop him ...This is an action-packed adventure, featuring lots of superhero battles. If you are a fan of animated Justice League films then I fully recommend it. And if you enjoyed the animated series then you'll discover how Wonder Woman gets her invisible plane, and how the Watchtower acquires its transporter technology. Overall, it's a lot of fun. Justice League Unlimited: The Complete Series [Blu-rayJustice League - DoomYoung Justice: Complete First Season (2pc) / (Dts) [Bluray] [Region A] [NTSC] [US Import

There are so many geek related shows. You have DC and Marvel and their output focuses on live action. I used to ignore the animated adventures a short I considered them lesser quality.I couldn't be more wrong.Live action films are restrictive in nature. Some can "jump the shark", with the special effects. On an animated feature it's all on the table.This is another great animated adventure. It gives a great story and goes places that live action could not go.Another great DC adventure for the collectionion!

For those who live in France and are unlucky with the Warner Policy with European edition of DC Animated, this one is freezone, and with french subtitles.Very High quality edition, with tons of interesting bonus.The Very good choice, highly recommended for DC fans around the world.For me one of the best DC Animeted!Pour ceux qui vivent en France, et sont donc malchanceux quant à la politique d'édition des DC Animated, en France, de la Warner, je recommande fortement cette édition totalement multizone, avec des sous-titres français.Le meilleur choix pour un fan de DC, des tonnes de bonus et l'un des meilleurs film d'animation DC pour moi.

Justice League Crisis on Two Earths is yet another in a long line of both DC and Marvel mini-movies that seem to be popping up with increasing frequency these days and is about average for the breed. (i.e. - pretty good.) The hook this time is an alternate earth on which the Justice League has been practically wiped out and our Justice League is recruited by an alternate good guy Lex Luthor to save them. Simple as that.The animation is good, but not stellar and the plot at times is pretty ridiculous even by DC Universe standards. And unlike some of the more recent DC movies like Supergirl's origin in Superman/Batman Apocalypse or the Wonder Woman movie; I never really could connect with the storyline and it's characters. I'd rate the plot and character development at a 3.However when it comes to action, this movie does exceed in spades! From the beginning with Lex Luthor's escape to our world; it's one battle after another with super heroes battling super villains at a drop of the hat. And there's something really neat about Superman versus Ultraman or Superwoman versus Wonder Woman. It's non-stop action. Overall, I'd rate the action a solid 4 stars.Like all these DC & Marvel Bluray movies; this disc is loaded with extras. There's a 10 min. short on The Spectre which has been done art nouveau style complete with scratches and spots. It reminded me of an old Bogart film. There's also a 30 min. documentary on the effects of 9/11 on the DC Universe from Identity Crisis to Alternate Universes. And in addition, trailers on Under the Red Hood, Superman/Batman Public Enemies, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern First Flight. And as usual, these are not your normal trailers, but extended mini-documentaries that range from 8 to 12 minutes long!As a further bonus, they throw in the pilot episodes for the old Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series (I'd forgotten just how cheesy that series was) and a pilot for an Aquaman series that I assume never got any further. And much better, four episodes from the old Justice League Unlimited TV series including the two-part series "A better world" which had a Justice League from an alternate Earth come to ours to take over. But they had gone down a different and darker path. It's almost as good as this movie.The movie itself is a 1080P 16:9 widescreen. But unlike most DC BD movies, this one has no DTS high definiton audio. Instead it uses the same English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track as on the DVD. There are no other audio tracks but it does include French and Spanish subtitles. It sounds fine.Overall, I'd rate this movie a three for the storyline, four for the action, three for the sound and four for the extras. So I'll call it a four.J. A.

I've always been interested in the whole Mirror Universe thing, and different series like DC Comics and Star Trek have done a really good job with it, so when I heard about this movie coming out, I knew I wouldn't be able to let myself not see it.I had my reservations, though. I had read Grant Morrison's graphic novel "Earth 2" which focuses on our JLA against the CSA, and while that was rather well done, I knew how muddled up the history of DC Comics is (for whatever reason, they feel they have to redo everything every decade or so and make things even more confusing than they already are). This movie's writers had a lot of alternate evils do go through and work with, but fortunately, they didn't disappoint.Both our guys and their darker reflections were brilliantly depicted, right down to their voice actors. Mark Harmon (most famous as the lead of the TV drama NCIS, Gibbs) carries the strength and heart to play Superman, while Josh Keaton (currently known as Peter Parker in the Spectacular Spider-Man series) and Vanessa Marshall, who are usually smaller-time, comedic voice actors add a humorous, colourful flare to The Flash and Wonder Woman. Jonathan Adams seems to be channeling Carl Lumby as the Martian Manhunter, but manages to do a good job giving you both a familiar feel and a touch of something new to the character. William Baldwin as Batman I was iffie on when I first heard it, however it grew on me over time, as did Chris Noth's Luthor. I guess since this version of Batman was a bit more cerebral than standard versions, Baldwin's calm portrayal was suitable and added almost a sympathetic edge to it that even the great Kevin Conroy sometimes lacked.I won't go through the villains (or anti-superheroes, or whatever you want to call them) actors, since none of them have a particularly large range of dialogue, except for one, who I will discuss: Owlman, the opposite Batman, played by James Woods. I was iffie on this one, too, even though I like Woods, but again those ifs were for naught. Like Baldwin's Bat, Woods' Owl is a very calm, cerebral character, and a calm, quiet, focussed voice was all he needed. If the actor involved had been growly and screaming all the time, that effect would have been ruined.Since I've just shot out two honking paragraphs on the actors alone, I'll be sparse with the story (it'll also keep me from giving anything away). It was good, had a nice flow, and didn't overdo the action or bore us with backstory and dialogue when it wasn't needed. And like many Mirror Universe stories, a lot of the fun comes from the sheer absurdity of each hero and villain's counterpart. For instance, when you realize who the Mirror US President is, your jaw might not drop, but it should at least hover, and the Mirror Jimmy Olsen? Well, if your jaw doesn't drop there, I'll be shocked.There are some flies in the ointment, of course. One of which is while J'onn the Martian is in the Mirror Earth he becomes somewhat "attached" the President's daughter, which would be fine, if it didn't come off as a random bit of romance simply added in for romance's sake. Also, although this doesn't bother me so much, it may bother others, this movie does have a rather more finite ending than most comic book animated movies. Nothing earth-shattering or anything (...poor choice of words, given the context), just not what many of us are used to.Regardless, the movie is worth seeing, at least renting, if not buying. Heck knows it beats the pants off of Public Enemies.