Studio: Warner Bros. Genre: Adventure •
Scifi •
Animated Street Date: February 26, 2008 Director: Dave Bullock Number of Discs: 2 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Cast: • John Heard
• Kyle MacLachlan
• Neil Patrick Harris
• Brooke Shields
• Lucy Lawless
• Kyra Sedgwick
• Jeremy Sisto
• David Boreanaz
• Phil Morris Running Time: 75 minutes Format: DVD Specs: Video: Widescreen 1.78:1 Color (Anamorphic)
Audio: ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 PORTUGUESE: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, Portuguese Special Features: Comprehensive Documentary Super Heroes United!: The Complete Justice League History
Exclusive Sneak Peek at DC Universe's Batman Gotham Knight
Audio Commentary 1: Featuring the Talented Filmmakers of New Frontier, including Executive Producer Bruce Timm, Supervising Producer Mike Goguen, Voice Director Andrea Romano, Director David Bullock, Screenwriter Stan Berkowitz and DC Comics Senior Vice President/Creative Affairs Gregory Noveck
Audio Commentary 2: Featuring Comic Book Writer and Artist Darwyn Cooke
Revealing Documentary The Legion of Doom: The Pathology of the Super Villain
Featurette Comic Book Commentary: Homage to The New Frontier
3 Bonus Justice League Episodes: Dark Heart, To Another Shore and Task Force X Version: Standard Review: The first film from the new DC Universe label comes out of the bull pen swinging for the fences.
In all honesty I really wanted to leave this review to Erich; he’s like a PDA of super hero geek knowledge and that is EXACTLY who this movie was made for. Sure I know more than the average human about the JLA and could probably demolish most people in a super hero trivia contest…but Erich is like Rain Man when it comes to DC Lore. But when it came time to assign someone to review this I thought back to some of the toughest reviews I’ve had to do, and every single one of those were something I had oodles of knowledge and passion about, they were tough to untangle myself from to write about in any comprehensible way. So as a favor to both the readers and to Erich, I’m taking this one on.
First allow me to bring you up to speed; this movie has nothing to do with the Justice League cartoons or any other DC cartoons that have come before it. This is based on a Darwin Cooke’s graphic novel of the same name and does not take place in the present day DC Universe. Basically this is a retro cool JLA origin story.
As the movie begins we are introduced to our villain, The Centre, who isn’t so much defined in bodily form as just being an evil entity out to rid Earth of you..err..us pesky humans. Which sucks for us, since we are in the middle of our cold war paranoia era and are not keen on the idea of super powered beings roaming free.
First up for some origin story goodness; Hal Jordan. 'Bout freakin time they got Hal back on TV as the Green Lantern! Jordan is shot down as the Korean War ends and ends up taking a detour from his dream of being a test pilot.
Next up we have Martin Manhunter, who has been brought to Earth by accident it seems.
Now for the big guns; Superman does a pop in with Wonder Woman who has gone all man hating butch and is helping a gang of female freedom fighters. We find out a bit about the previous Justice Society falling apart and that Batman is a fugitive.
Each of the heroes is forced to face their own ideals and convictions as The Centre builds in power. The great thing about this story is that while each of the heroes can and does operate on their own, they come together with quite a bit of hesitation, while some of the bad guys are not so black and white. It leaves a great level of intrigue and keeps things from getting stale. A bit complex for the kiddies but they’ll still enjoy the cape and costume moments enough to give it a try.
When they first announced the voice casting, some choices honestly left me scratching my head; some felt natural while others just seemed absurd, but as always Andrea Romano knows what she’s doing. There isn’t a voice in the bunch that feels out of place.
Seeing this gives me hope that perhaps one day we’ll start seeing some of the best graphic novels getting the animated treatment. Who doesn’t want to see Red Son, Batman Year One, or Arkham Asylum animated? Maybe instead of rushing live action projects to the big screen they’ll start putting these on the big screen to help fill the void and take more time with the live stuff… but then maybe I’m dreaming.
New Frontier is a great start to a beautiful relationship between graphic novels, the screen, and the fans. Buy It Now: Rating:
