Let’s Just Be (Super) Friends | JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time Review

<p>Warner Brother’s direct-to-video Justice League movie hearkens back to a simpler time when the heroic group was better known as the<em> Super Friends<&sol;em>&period; Similar to the setup of <em>Batman&colon; The Brave and the Bold<&sol;em>&comma; <em>JLA Adventure<&sol;em>s takes its cues directly from the long-running TV series with matching character designs and mannerisms&period; The PG attitude of superheroes in a plot that trades in the grim&sol;dark tone for light adventure was certainly a welcome change of pace in the current crop of DC Comics projects&period; But while encapsulating the spirit of<em> Super Friends<&sol;em>&comma; <em>JLA Trapped in Time<&sol;em> also makes the mistake of trying to retain the writing style&period; Thus&comma; what could’ve been a sensational video for the wee DC Comics fans turns into a bland reminder of why Super Friends still had its moments of lameness&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The story starts out promising enough with the Legion of Doom attempting to over-freeze the polar ice caps causing the water levels to dramatically decrease&period; The heroic Justice League descend on the scene to save the day with some good old fashioned justice&period; All the characters have wonderfully retro designs and have sly banter between punches&period; When the fight is over&comma; Lex Luthor ends up being lost to the ice of the arctic&period; It isn’t until several years later that his body is found encased in ice and&comma; for some reason&comma; is kept on display in a museum of supervillains&period; This has to be one of the worst museums since there seems to be zero security guards and all the villain weapons on display are in perfect working order&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After being freed by a crack in his icy coffin&comma; Lex arms himself with Captain Cold’s freeze gun and takes interest in a special time travel artifact &lpar;also in working order for being in a museum&rpar;&period; The artifact harbors the supernatural time villain known as the Time Trapper who bends to Lex’s whim if it results in his freedom&period; Naturally&comma; Lex decides to use these powers to go back in time and prevent the Justice League from ever being assembled soon after he was frozen in ice&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081558&sol;Time03&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignleft wp-image-65360 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081558&sol;Time03-300x168&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Time03" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"168" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Only two superhero kids in training from the future can stop this madness&colon; Karate Kid and Dawnstar&period; This is where the movie starts to fall apart as these two characters are our leads for the entire story&period; And&comma; wow&comma; are they bland&period; Karate Kid is an overzealous martial artists who doesn’t think before he attacks and Dawnstar is a pacifist who isn’t too keen on using her light abilities for force&period; They’re polar opposites that end up learning from each other with development you can see coming a mile away&period; If this were a 22 minute episode for just these two scamps&comma; it’d be a decent if not forgettable story&period; But at almost an hour&comma; it drags on far too long with hardly any action&period; Not only do we get very little of the superheroes you’d expect to see in the Justice League &lpar;Superman&comma; Batman&comma; Wonder Woman&comma; Aquaman&comma; The Flash&rpar;&comma; but the majority of the plot involves discussing the dynamics of time travel for far too long&period; Trim out that fat and you have an episode used to pad out the episode order for a JLA TV series&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081605&sol;lod2&lowbar;zps50d24e46&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignright wp-image-65359 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081605&sol;lod2&lowbar;zps50d24e46&period;jpg" alt&equals;"lod2&lowbar;zps50d24e46" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"167" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The few moments when the iconic superheroes are on screen are the few moments that actually feel like a real Justice League movie&period; At one point the League must combat the Legion in past Smallville attempting to prevent baby Superman being discovered by the Kent family&period; It’s delightfully absurd with plenty of one-liners and some great bits with Solomon Grundy and Cheetah pretending to be the married couple reclaiming the young Kryptonian&period; Scenes like those come so close to being genuinely stellar that I let out a big sigh everytime the story focuses back to Karate Kid and Dawnstar&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I wouldn’t mind these characters so much if they were slowly brought into the fold to develop some better personality&comma; but we’re pretty much stuck with them from start&period; It really does feel like one of the lesser <em>Super Friends<&sol;em> episodes reserved for the C-listers&period; It doesn’t help that there is also a cameo in the film by the three useless characters in the history of <em>Super Friends<&sol;em>&colon; Wendy&comma; Marvin and Wonerdog&period; What were their powers&quest; Nothing&period; What were their talents&quest; Solving simple riddles and puzzles as if they were part of Batman’s summer camp&period; The episodes they appeared in were also about an hour long so there’s another painful reminder&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081611&sol;jla-adventures-trapped-in-time2&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignleft wp-image-65358 size-medium" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;05081611&sol;jla-adventures-trapped-in-time2-300x175&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jla-adventures-trapped-in-time2" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"175" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The saddest thing about this whole ordeal is that I seriously wanted to love this lighter take on DC Comics characters&period; I appreciate the PG-13 DC Comics direct-to-video films for what they are&comma; but it’d be nice to see some more titles you could watch with the wee ones&period; Kids love these characters so they should get to see them as more adventurous than grim and dark at least for one film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While this attempt does deliver on the tone&comma; it’s unbelievably dull for the truckload of exposition required for a time travel scenario&period; Plus&comma; nobody wants to pick up a Justice League movie with the A-listers on the cover only to spend the entire film following forgotten characters&period; After watching this film from beginning to end&comma; you’ll be reminded of why these characters were forgettable to begin with&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;