Justice League: Throne of Atlantis Review

This is a sweet ass picture!!

Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back again with a new review! Aquaman: For decades, he's the superhero that's been the butt of a lot of jokes in the general media outside of comics thanks to the bad rep he has as being 'That guy that talks to fish.' But in recent years, the people at DC have been doing their damnedest to make Aquaman a credible hero and I would say that he's been a bit of a hit among comic readers, but he still lacks that general audience appeal. So with Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, the latest entry in DC's animated movie library, you'd think that a lot of time would be taken into making the best movie possible for what could be a brand new introduction to Aquaman.

Let's jump into Justice League, Throne of Atlantis and see where this movie goes wrong...

Synopsis:

Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight...

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis is an animated adaptation of the comic book story line with the same namesake. It takes place some time after the last Justice League animated movie: JL War. After Darkseid's invasion, the king of Atlantis has been killed, and the Atlanteans ain't taking that sitting down. Thus they begin a war, headed by Ocean Master to get revenge on the people up on the surface for doing this. Meanwhile, the Queen of Atlantis (along with the Justice League) must track down her son Arthur Curry, who we all know as Aquaman, so that he can take his place on the throne. 

The Good: The action, nothing makes my inner kid happier than seeing Superheroes punching things, and boy do things get punched. With Aquaman characters being introduced in this movie, you have very cool fight scenes that involve water and aquatic life, special mentions goes to Aquaman and Mera. Mera's fight scenes herself felt a lot like I was watching a water bender from Avatar: The Last Airbender; and there's one scene with Aquaman where...it's too awesome to say it here in this blog.

Also, Atlantis itself looks gorgeous. There are a couple of times in the movie where there's a wide shot of the city and it looks great. It has that perfect underwater city look that Atlantis should have. I hope when the future live action Aquaman movie comes out, they take notes from this movie.

The Bad: I believe one of the biggest faults of this movie was that Arthur (A.K.A Aquaman) wasn't the central character in this movie. To those confused by this, let me further elaborate. Despite what the title of the movie and the trailers would have you believe, Aquaman doesn't really add much. He's more a background/secondary character and the League is pushed to the front, and in my opinion, it should have been the other way around.

The main plot of this movie revolves around the problems in Atlantis and where the underwater city goes heading into the future, and it tries to make Arthur out to be this bridge between the people on the surface and the Atlanteans, but it fails at doing so. It doesn't really take the time to fully establish Arthur as a character, instead it just sums up his origin in a few sentences and one pointless scene. If you ask me, the first scene of this movie should have been Arthur's dad meeting his mom, then we get a fast forward of her leaving Arthur and his dad, then we get some time later where Arthur slowly discovers his powers. 

Instead, we get two useless scenes that develops the forced relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman...

Speaking of forced relationships, Arthur and Mera. In the movie, Mera just LOOKS at Arthur once and suddenly she's all: "Yeah, I'm in love with this guy." and by the end, they're more or less a couple and she has no problem with being his queen. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it, but that's only a small nitpick in a larger pool of problems.

The cast from Justice League War is gone and replaced with a new cast, and if you ask me, this was a change for the worse. Almost EVERYONE in this movie sounds completely devoid of life, it's like they're just voicing characters just to pick up a paycheck.

The plot of this movie is also VERY generic. The plot can be summed up perfectly like this: 'Bad guy wants to destroy the world. Heroes have to stop him. The end." Which I'm sure everyone reading this will be saying something along the lines of: "Isn't that what ALL superhero stories are at the end of the day?" To which I say yes you're right, but this movie's plot feels just so bland and rushed, there's no character that really stands out, and that is especially the case with the villain of the movie. I even called out some of his actions before he even committed them in the movie. 

Conclusion: Before I started this review, I was going to say that Throne of Atlantis was more of a generic movie than a bad one. But as I sit down and really reflect on it, it kind of is bad, The story isn't all that great with pointless subplots that don't really add anything to the movie, the villain's generic, the voice acting is really phoned in, and the guy that SHOULD have been the main focus was relegated to being nothing more than a glorified sidekick. It's a real shame, because I was actually looking forward to this movie, but it was just disappointing. I went in this knowing next to nothing about Aquaman, and I'm going out pretty much the same. To all those reading, don't watch Justice League: Throne of Atlantis. Just read the comic story line, that's what I'm gonna do...eventually, and eventually in my time is like three years from now...

Till next time Ladies and Gents, I'm the Shaman of Animation saying: STOP REUSING YOUNG JUSTICE MODELS WARNER BROTHERS!!!

Every time I think I'm over YJ getting cancelled, you guys re-open the wounds!!!

Take care...