Reaction & Review | JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2014. That movie is "JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time".

Now, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I don't know a whole lot about this movie. In fact, I kinda came across it by accident late last year when I was browsing through my local mini-mall one day, and I saw it was only selling for about a buck or two. And I figured this thing would be perfect material to cover for my annual "Tales of the Longbox" marathon. So I put on it on the schedule, and here we are, me finally getting around to covering it.

Now like I said, I don't know very much about the film itself. I do know the movie's premise is centered around time travel, hence the title giveaway. Which admittedly, is kind of an overdone concept, at least for me anyway. However, I do happen to remember watching "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox", which is definitely an amazing movie involving time travel, and is most certainly one of the best direct-to-video animated films that DC and Warner Bros. have ever made. So I do have hopes that this movie is still gonna be pretty good, even if the concept of time travel has been overdone a lot.

That being said, though, there is one thing that I do want to comment on in regards to this movie. Specifically, it has to do with it's runtime. This movie, and I could be totally mistaken here, is quite possibly one of the shortest animated films DC and Warner Bros. have ever produced since releasing these direct-to-video animated movies. How short is it? The answer...is 53 minutes long. Yeah, it's *that* short. And I honestly have no idea if that's gonna be a good thing or not. I mean, for the most part, DC has had a pretty good track record when it comes to these animated movies, even though they've been dealt with pretty short runtimes before. However, most of those usually last under 90 minutes. So when you have this movie running well under an hour, I don't know if that's gonna help enhance the movie or hurt it overall.

Really, guys, I don't know what to expect, especially given that this film is incredibly short. But hey, who knows? This movie could still be really good, and I'm hoping that it is good. Or at the very least watchable. So the only way I'm gonna find out as to whether or not this movie will be any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time".

4 minutes later

You know, guys, out of all the incarnations I've seen of Toyman over the years, I think this may be one of the rare instances where he actually looks like a wooden toy. Like seriously, his chin there looked like it had been made out of literal wood. Admittedly, it is a rather creative touch to the character, but I wasn't expecting *that* much detail when it came to his chin. Just thought I'd share with you guys.

6 minutes later

Wait, so let me see if I understand this. Luthor's body was frozen in an ice cap thanks to Captain Cold overloading one of the satellites with ice. Years, possibly centuries later, the ice cap he's been trapped in still hasn't melted or thawed off. So...shouldn't he be long dead by this point? I mean, if he's been frozen for possibly a very long time, I don't think his body would be able to survive it for *that* long, especially considering he could've been dead from hypothermia. I totally understand that I'm probably putting too much thought into this, but considering it's Lex Luthor we're talking about here, I'm hoping there's some kind of explanation as to how his body has managed to survive this long, once he gets out of the ice.

9 minutes later

So in the future, at least according to this movie, there are no flying cars nor is there anything resembling money in the future, and our two heroes from the future keep referring to cars and vehicles from the past as "teleportation pods". I get that it was suppose to be funny, but all it really did was confirm, at least to me anyway, that their future kinda sucks.

8 minutes later

So, Cheetah and Grundy, now in the past, disguised themselves as regular people in normal clothing, as they managed to convince Martha and Johnathan Kent to hand over the baby Kal-El to them by saying that it was their child to begin that they were looking for. You know, I kinda thought the Kents were a little bit smarter than this, but apparently, I was fucking wrong. You learn something new every day, don't ya?

1 minute later

OK, you know what? There was just something completely satisfying about seeing baby Kal-El punching Bizarro so hard that he goes flying. That was actually kinda funny, I will grant the movie that.

5 minutes later

You know, guys, a thought just occurred to me. So, Luthor's plan was to make sure that baby Kal-El never landed on Earth and send it back into space, thus Superman and the Justice League would no longer exist. But if that's the case, then wouldn't that also mean that the Legion of Doom shouldn't be able to exist either? I mean, if there's no superheroes that exist, then that means Luthor and the rest of the super-villains shouldn't be together either, right? I'm hoping this movie won't leave something like that hanging, otherwise, that is a *huge* fucking plothole that I'm never gonna be able to overlook!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Dear lord, where do I even start with this one? Well, I guess I should stress, first and foremost, that this movie isn't really that bad. However, it's gonna be potentially plagued by certain issues the more you start to think about them. I'll get to that in a second.

I should start this review proper, as usual, by talking about the writing. Now I'm going to assume that this movie was meant to target younger audiences, and there's honestly nothing with wrong that. Especially when you consider that most of these direct-to-video animated movies that DC and Warner Bros. release are usually aimed a slightly older audience. Now that's not to say that children wouldn't enjoy those movies either. However, considering the more complex stories that those movies tell, a lot of those aren't exactly family friendly. At least to me they're not. So to have this sort of movie existing, where it's clearly aiming for a slightly younger audience is actually sort of refreshing in a way. And I do appreciate the movie for that, because, after all, you can only be dark and complex for so long before it starts to get a little stale. So before I delve into the issues that I have with this movie, I am going to say that children will definitely adore this, especially if they're fans of, say, Batman, Superman, or even the Justice League in general. And they most likely will not notice the problems that I'm about to discuss. So I just want to get that out of the way first, because I feel like if I didn't, then some people will think that I'm just railing against a film meant for younger children for no reason, even though that was clearly not the intention.

So with that out of the way, let us finally talk about the problems I had with this movie's writing. I will say that the story here, even though it's not really original, is still decent in concept. Where Lex Luthor, during a battle between the Justice League and the Legion of Doom, gets frozen in an ice cap for about 800 years or so. And during that huge gap, his frozen state was found during some great thawing, and the ice cap that he was stuck in gets displayed at a museum, where our two heroes, Karate Kid and Dawnstar, end up discovering him. And Karate Kid, being stupid, ends up breaking him free, even though he says he held back at the last moment of breaking the ice's one weak point. Luthor then freezes both of them and discovers an hourglass, which releases the Time Trapper, a mysterious being that can send someone back in time by flipping the hourglass. Luthor does this by going back in time to reunite with the Legion of Doom and forming a new plan to stop the Justice League once and for all. Which then leads Karate Kid and Dawnstar following him back in time, to where they tell the Justice League about what he's going to do. I'll get more in depth about Luthor's plan in a second. Now I should mention that they never really brought up the issue involving his body theoretically dying from hypothermia, since he was frozen for a very long time. However, that is a minor issue in the long run, because everything else I discovered throughout the rest of the movie makes that issue look like a huge nothingburger.

Let me start with Luthor's plan here. I kinda already gave it away earlier, but basically, Luthor tells the Legion of Doom about his short time in the future to where he ends up accidentally discovering the identity of Superman. And his big plan is that he is going to send the Legion of Doom back in time to a point before Superman, as a baby, lands in the cornfield on Smallville to where he ultimately gets discovered by the Kents. And they're basically going to send baby Kal-El back into space in his ship that his real parents made for him so that Superman wouldn't exist in the current timeline, along with all of the other members of the Justice League. Now in concept, this plan sounds great. However, it starts to fall apart the moment you start to think about his plan. Now a bit of a spoiler here, Luthor does succeed in erasing Superman, along with the rest of the Justice League. Which the latter, in itself, leads into a-whole-nother issue all together, however, I'm just gonna stick with Supes here. So by erasing Superman from history, Luthor and the rest of the Legion of Doom end up changing the future. But if they erased Superman from their current timeline, then that *should* mean that the Legion of Doom shouldn't exist either, right? Well, in Luthor's case, that is indeed what happens to him. But with the rest of the Legion of Doom, we don't know what happens to them at all. The one who baffles me the most is Bizarro. Since he's just a clone of Superman, he should disappear right from the moment Superman gets erased from history. That way, we wouldn't be seeing Luthor changing the future in the Legion's favor. Granted, I understand Bizarro's backstory is rather complicated, but the very fact that nothing happened to him at *all* right from Superman's disappearance leaves even more of a plothole in regards to his appearance.

While I'm on the subject of characters, let's discuss our two heroes from the future, Karate Kid and Dawnstar. First of all, their personalities are boring as shit and neither one of them have any depth to spare. Karate Kid is just kind of an annoying prick, while Dawnstar is just the nice girl that has the powers of light. But anyway, there's something else involving these two that kinda bugs me a bit. See, as I just mentioned a moment ago, if Superman and the Justice League are erased from history, then that should also mean that there shouldn't be any superheroes from the future existing either. So why exactly do Karate Kid and Dawnstar even exist at all? If the League doesn't exist, they should follow suit, right? Well, somehow, they end up getting an idea that since Luthor went to the future to recreate it in the Legion's vision, they think that his frozen body hasn't been found yet in the current timeline. Meaning that if they found Luthor's frozen state from before he gets found in the future, then they could unfreeze him and create a time paradox to where Luthor wouldn't be able to recreate the future thus stopping his plan all together. Whether or not that happens is something I won't try to spoil here, but I am gonna say that me even attempting to explain the whole time travel plothole business was almost a feat in of itself. That said, though, I do think that if Luthor had already recreated the future, then Dawnstar and Karate Kid shouldn't be able to exist, what with the League's disappearance and all.

But setting aside that, like I said, our characters are all shallow and weak, and that includes the villains. Most of them don't really get enough screen time. The ones who mostly stand out, not counting Luthor, are Solomon Grundy and Bizarro Superman. Both of those characters are what kinda saves this thing from being completely shallow, since they are literally the best ones in here. Luthor is pretty much the same character he's always has been. The Justice League themselves are also pretty damn shallow as well. None of them really stand out, aside from Robin acting like a bratty teenager who's been put in timeout by Batman. Oh and, for some reason, Cyborg's dialogue has some really forced in football puns. I know they were trying to be clever in the fact that he use to play football, but it just mostly sounded kinda like shit. On that note, there is also the ending, which I won't try to spoil either, but it leads me to believe that they were trying to tease a sequel. Which, I have no idea if that ever happened or not. And if it didn't, then that just raises more fucking questions that already makes this time travel plot more convoluted that what it already is.

So yeah, if this hasn't been made any clearer, the writing in this movie is honestly not that great. Now again, I understand that this movie was probably made for younger children, and, like I said, they're most likely not gonna notice the problems that I had with this movie. However, if you're over the age of, say...10 years old, then you're gonna start to pick this story apart really quickly, and you might end up hating it because of how clumsily utilized time travel is used in this movie. That said, I can't say the whole film isn't a bad experience, and I'm gonna start with the acting. For the most part, the acting here is pretty solid. Almost everyone here sounds great...except for one. That one exception is who they got to voice Batman, AKA Diedrich Bader. To put it simply, guys, he was just a *terrible* choice to voice Batman. Because the more I heard it throughout the movie, the more I just kept hearing his own voice rather than him trying to sound something like Batman. Now yes, I am one of those people who likes to see other actors have a voice for Batman other than Kevin Conroy, however, Bader was a *horrible* choice for this role. And because of that, he just phoned in what he thought was an impersonation of Batman, but instead, was just a shitty impersonation of himself. Mind you now, his shitty performance doesn't completely ruin the film since Batman is barely on screen anyways, but it is something worth nothing, since Bader phones in the worst showing of this entire movie. The rest of the cast, though, like I said, turn in a pretty good showing. And even though Karate Kid and Dawnstar definitely lacked personality and depth, their actors were still able to turn in decent showings. So I gotta give credit to them for trying to put on the best performance that they could, despite the somewhat lackluster script that they were given.

Animation here is really good. But then again, this is pretty much almost the same kind of quality animation you would find in most of DC's other direct-to-video films. Now do I think it's as good-looking as, say, "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox" or "Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay"? Personally, no. However, being that this movie is only 53 minutes long, I'm surprised they were able to obtain a really good quality of animation for what they had to work with. The color pallets are utilized very well, and just about everything else in terms of how the characters move is also done really well, too. But again, I wouldn't expect nothing less when it comes to animation from Warner Bros. of all studios. And as for the technical stuff, the sound-mix here is mixed fine, and the music is also fine, even if the score is pretty bland and generic.

So ultimately, guys, when all said and done, can I recommend "JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time"? If you have kids, then yes. I would totally recommend it for children because of what I mentioned earlier. They won't notice the problems that I had with this film, so it's gonna be a non-factor for them. Especially if they're fans of the Justice League, then I would absolutely recommend it wholeheartedly. But for older audiences, um...well, if you're able to shut your brain off for about 53 minutes by not thinking about the time travel plotholes, and if you can find it dirt cheap like I did, then sure, go for it. The biggest positive I can give this thing, overall, is the fact that it's less than an hour long. So if you want to watch something that'll be a quick watch, then all by means, go right on ahead and check it out. But if you're looking for something interesting and different when it comes to these particular animated films, then you can probably just skip this. There's nothing ultimately special about this movie when it comes to it's plot and characters, and the movie itself is just really kind of bland overall. If you want a better movie that has the same kind of concept and is also more complex with it's story, then I obviously can recommend "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox" more than this. But that's just my own personal opinion. That being all said, there is one other positive to this movie and it's a recurring theme that's tied into these direct-to-video releases by DC and Warner Bros. Most of these direct-to-video animated movies that are released on DVD and Blu-ray usually has some kind of bonus cartoons attached to it. And in the case of this movie I watched on DVD, this thing has 2 bonus episodes of the "Super Friends". You know, the show that lasted 12 years? Yeah, that one. And I have *never* seen a single episode of this show before. So, I'm gonna go and watch those 2 episodes right now because I have a feeling that they're gonna be better than the movie itself. So that's what I'm gonna go do next after I get done typing this review up.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.