I'm pretty surprised and confused to see everybody going on about how supposedly amazing this movie is. To me, this is entirely middle-of-the-road with nothing special about it, besides for how hyper-violent it is at times.
Basic plot is that Flash has accidentally changed the time-line because of his selfish need to save his mother, and now the world is at war, everything is wrong, and he has to put it right.
I will say that the animation is pretty great here, some of the best that the DC Animated Movies have done. However, a lot of the character designs are horrendously ugly. Aquaman and Superman look like hideous mutated freaks, with frankly deformed faces. Characters like The Flash who really ought to look sleek and fast just look like over-muscled steroid abusers. And as for Wonder Woman's face, good god I have no idea what the designers were going for there, it's just bizarre, with the tiniest mouth imaginable, and massive yet dead-looking eyes.
The plot has been done many times before in other films and shows, especially with superheroes. The only thing that really sets this apart from the rest is the aforementioned hyper-violence and mass death. There's a lot of death, gore, blood splatters and previously heroic characters being portrayed as horrific murderers... even when that makes no sense. For instance, Wonder Woman is now a brutal warrior queen who hacks innocent children into pieces, with little-to- no regard for human life. This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I get that this is supposed to be an altered time-line, but the events she goes through really don't in any way explain her entire personality and morality being so radically different. I just can't see Wonder Woman being this way simply because of what Aquaman did to start this war. Same goes with Aquaman who, again, has an entirely different personality and morality set, despite literally nothing occurring that would make him like this. It all feels far too forced and in-your-face.
About the only interesting character, really, is Batman. In this world, Bruce Wayne was killed in the alley instead of Thomas and Martha. Now, Thomas Wayne is Batman and Martha is Joker. Sadly, the movie really doesn't do anything interesting with this concept besides the implication that Martha's the Joker now (which is handled in a rather silly way) and Thomas Wayne being a murderer and nihilist. There is a good moment that has Thomas give Flash a letter to give to Bruce, a sort of final goodbye and note of love from him. This is probably the most emotionally effective moment of the film, but then it's immediately back to the "everybody dies" motif that the movie follows.
There are a lot of scenes in this movie that really don't need to be here. An entire sequence is dedicated to showing Aquaman's troops invading a boat with a collection of random DC characters, only for pretty much everyone to die. It serves absolutely no purpose to the story and is just there to have more death and gore. If we had instead used that time to explore either Aquaman or Wonder Woman's motivations, and see what actually lead them to become who they are in this world, then the film could have been a lot better in that regard. As it is, it's just a neat but ultimately useless bit of padding, and it's annoying that there are so many scenes exactly like it. That's ultimately what this entire world is in its entirety, just one long obstacle that Flash has to overcome. There are a lot of sub-plots and minor characters who are ultimately entirely pointless to follow as it's all just a temporary world that Flash is going to replace anyway, and the movie does little to make you care about any of it. The biggest question for me is, why is this even called Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox when the Justice League have nothing at all to do with the story overall, and are only really in it for five minutes at the start?
Overall, this really has been massively over-hyped in my opinion, unless you're really into "world gone wrong" stories and want to see a bunch of characters with little-to-no development or established personalities get slaughtered in various ways. Not a bad movie, but certainly not as good as people make it out to be.
Basic plot is that Flash has accidentally changed the time-line because of his selfish need to save his mother, and now the world is at war, everything is wrong, and he has to put it right.
I will say that the animation is pretty great here, some of the best that the DC Animated Movies have done. However, a lot of the character designs are horrendously ugly. Aquaman and Superman look like hideous mutated freaks, with frankly deformed faces. Characters like The Flash who really ought to look sleek and fast just look like over-muscled steroid abusers. And as for Wonder Woman's face, good god I have no idea what the designers were going for there, it's just bizarre, with the tiniest mouth imaginable, and massive yet dead-looking eyes.
The plot has been done many times before in other films and shows, especially with superheroes. The only thing that really sets this apart from the rest is the aforementioned hyper-violence and mass death. There's a lot of death, gore, blood splatters and previously heroic characters being portrayed as horrific murderers... even when that makes no sense. For instance, Wonder Woman is now a brutal warrior queen who hacks innocent children into pieces, with little-to- no regard for human life. This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I get that this is supposed to be an altered time-line, but the events she goes through really don't in any way explain her entire personality and morality being so radically different. I just can't see Wonder Woman being this way simply because of what Aquaman did to start this war. Same goes with Aquaman who, again, has an entirely different personality and morality set, despite literally nothing occurring that would make him like this. It all feels far too forced and in-your-face.
About the only interesting character, really, is Batman. In this world, Bruce Wayne was killed in the alley instead of Thomas and Martha. Now, Thomas Wayne is Batman and Martha is Joker. Sadly, the movie really doesn't do anything interesting with this concept besides the implication that Martha's the Joker now (which is handled in a rather silly way) and Thomas Wayne being a murderer and nihilist. There is a good moment that has Thomas give Flash a letter to give to Bruce, a sort of final goodbye and note of love from him. This is probably the most emotionally effective moment of the film, but then it's immediately back to the "everybody dies" motif that the movie follows.
There are a lot of scenes in this movie that really don't need to be here. An entire sequence is dedicated to showing Aquaman's troops invading a boat with a collection of random DC characters, only for pretty much everyone to die. It serves absolutely no purpose to the story and is just there to have more death and gore. If we had instead used that time to explore either Aquaman or Wonder Woman's motivations, and see what actually lead them to become who they are in this world, then the film could have been a lot better in that regard. As it is, it's just a neat but ultimately useless bit of padding, and it's annoying that there are so many scenes exactly like it. That's ultimately what this entire world is in its entirety, just one long obstacle that Flash has to overcome. There are a lot of sub-plots and minor characters who are ultimately entirely pointless to follow as it's all just a temporary world that Flash is going to replace anyway, and the movie does little to make you care about any of it. The biggest question for me is, why is this even called Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox when the Justice League have nothing at all to do with the story overall, and are only really in it for five minutes at the start?
Overall, this really has been massively over-hyped in my opinion, unless you're really into "world gone wrong" stories and want to see a bunch of characters with little-to-no development or established personalities get slaughtered in various ways. Not a bad movie, but certainly not as good as people make it out to be.