Justice League: The New Frontier (2008) Online

The original comic New Frontier was a lavish, loving tribute to both the heroes of DC comics and the spirit of 1950s America, and this movie captured both almost as well. Many of the comments here that are critical of this film apparently are not at all familiar with comics of that era, and don't realize what this story tries to evoke. Some of the incongruities (Batman and Superman's costumes, the white Green Lantern) are NOT errors or sloppiness. These were depictions of the characters as they were nearly a half century ago. Remember, there were visions and versions of these heroes that existed prior to the Cartoon Network, and this is their story.

I love the Justice League cartoon, and this movies stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of that show.

I can remember 40 years ago reading DC comics that would "step outside" the regular series to explore "what if" plot ideas: what if humans advanced in 100 years to be almost as powerful as Superman, or what if the Legion of Superheroes were caught in a planetary concentration camp, or what if Superman lost his powers and became a superhero similar to Batman using Kryptonian technology (and similar plots).

This movie is based on a graphic novel using a "what if" type of idea: it's the same characters as in the Justice League comic book series (and other series characters), but with variations as necessary to develop the plot.

As long as you don't expect the usual and familiar, this movie takes the characters in interesting new directions with more adult themes.

By the way, since this is more adult you may not want very young children to view this (or at least watch it without them first before you decide to let them see it). The beginning of the movie in particular may not be suitable.

I'm always checking out these animated superhero movies, and most of the time they're very disappointing. For example all of the ultimate avenger movies, superman: doomsday etc.

But this one did not disappoint,they did a great job with it, and it's one of the best animated movies I've seen in a longgggg time.

As a fan of the justice league series, I had big expectations for this movie, and it may not have been as good as the series but it was still very enjoyable to watch.

I advise any superhero fans to watch this. I hope they continue to make more animated movies like this one.

There are a lot of things going in favor of Justice League: The New Frontier. The shear scale of the storyline, a world devouring creature who's sole wish is mankind's eradication, striking in a world that has abandoned its heroes, its brilliant, and it is EPIC. From the opening montage to the closing glimpses of the future, there really is a lot of mythos and grandeur to this storyline, and that's a big plus.

The storyline is set right in the heart of the 1950's and McCarthyism, driving the JSA to shame and retirement, and causing the public to cast a wary eye on the newly blossoming roster of heroes. Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, and the Flash are all well established at this point, however the true stars of the show are Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Martian Manhunter. Not my personal favorites, but the story for them is quite good.

The voice acting was in my opinion the greatest weakness of the movie. The problem wasn't the voices themselves, but the delivery of lines that should have given me chills fell flat. The flash especially spoke way too fast, as did Hal Jordan. The 70 minute run time should easily have been extended by several more minutes and they could have allowed the actors to actually ACT and not run through their lines at breakneck speed. Jeremy Sisto did a great job as Batman, but sadly he was given about 5 lines in the whole movie, and therefore was a truly wasted talent.

The movie also took a decidedly more mature turn than its predecessors, not to spoil key moments, but blood, death, even rape are not out of bounds in this outing, so be mindful of the children. What annoys me is that while there were more mature tones in the action, the dialog and the plot still condescended to 10 year old children. WB really needs to choose who they're shooting for, because they will alienate everyone with this approach.

Overall, for fans of DC comics, this is worth a look. GL fans in particular should be happy to see his story finally animated in full, however lovers of the core trinity (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) will be disappointed by their lack of screen time. They shouldn't have tried to hard to include some action with everyone, because everyone winds up getting short changed. The throwback costumes are a big plus though. 7/10 from a hardcore Superman/Batman fan.

There's a lot to like about Justice League: The New Frontier, but I'm afraid all of that is counterbalanced by one of the silliest stories I've ever seen in animation.

Set mostly in the 50s and featuring the DC hero fashion of that period the paranoid US government have blackballed all superheroes, claiming that they have something to hide beside their identities and dismiss them as Commies. The Flash is even ridiculed because of his RED costume. But soon they will have to come together again to fight a common enemy when (and I'm not kidding) a large floating, living island of dinosaurs called The Center plans to wipe out humanity.

I've read hundreds of comic books in my life and that is seriously the dumbest crap I have ever heard. Every other part of JL: TNF is far superior to this 'Center' nonsense, so it's such a shame that the main plot drags it down. I especially like the story about the Martian Manhunter and the Flash. Most of the JLA get a look-in but these two have the most substantial plots.

The animation style will be familiar to those who are fans of Warner/DC cartoons such as Batman and the 50s production design creates a nice atmosphere.

But that idiotic plot...

I've collected and read since 1959, and being the consummate comics fan, I've seen all of the incarnations, followed all the Secret Crises and plot lines and threads, and what I missed, my best friend collected and we shared.

Adaption of the concept: 10. What did the McCarthy Era cause for the superheros, and would the "Common Man" plan be used as we saw?

Adaption of the characters: 9. The only reason for this is the divergence from the "new" comic reality that the WWII Wonder Woman was in actuality Queen Hippolyta.

Adaption of the comic: 7.5. It would have been better if some of the side plots were developed, and had the Losers been more explained. The last bits of King Faraday were not jarring per se, but would have gone a lot more to explaining what was going on had the Losers been developed out in the story. However, the inclusion at the beginning of the author's final moments helped clarify a lot that was scattered in the original mini-series.

Adaption of the story: 8. Hal Jordan's 'discovery' should have happened at the beginning, as indicated. Wildcat's fight should have been shown along with the various side characters, along with the Challengers of the Unknown (Ace Morgan named alone explains nothing). Likewise, Captain Nathaniel Adam, Ray Palmer and others who were merely named without explanation, as well as the Blackhawks and Green Arrow...there was only a mention of Hourman without explanation, and we needed a bit more than a "Hawwwkk-AA-AAA!" to carry on...

But...there _was_ a "Hawwwkk-AA-AAA!"...and an Arrow Plane...

And Batman at the end, putting it all together for even the most brilliant scientific minds (though I would have preferred to see Adam Strange released from Arkham Asylum...).

Put it all together, and for me, who has seen every incarnation of the JSA/JLA/JLE/JLI/JLU...

This was a masterpiece of reconstructive ret-con. Superbly done, relying heavily on a fundamental comic book knowledge, but loosely enough that people can at least identify who the characters are and their purpose.

The closing scenes were ripped from the books, and beautifully handled, and while I'm not sure if that was his voice or a clever impersonator, it was the masterstroke to the masterpiece that completed the epic.

To those (some of whom have already posted) who will whine and kvetch that "this is not the JLA I know"...

You're absolutely right; this isn't any JLA that I knew of before reading the books or seeing the adaption, and I've been reading them long before many of you appear to have been born or even knew of Happy Harbor, Maine.

But as "Origin Stories" go, this is one of the best to be presented, and will hopefully open the pocketbooks of viewers to watch and encourage the rich history within the Golden Age, Silver Age, and Modern/Crisis Age of Comics to be brought to "life" in animation.

I just snagged the collected serials of BATMAN from 1943 in their entirety, so I'm off-line to enjoy that.

Now, if only Lucas would exercise his options to bring the Blackhawks to the silver screen...

This is a fantastic film, retaining the style and flavour of the original tale, and for me bringing back a real sense of the earliest Justice League stories and the original heroes of the DC Silver Age.

Reading some of the other reviewers they seem to want the glitzy shiny polished versions that have been popularised these days, but I've got to be honest - these stocky built characters beat out the ballet dancer heroes of today in my book. And the feel of Jack Kirby through especially the latter part of the film.

The story itself does a great job of integrating the Golden Age Justice Society days and the Silver Age Justice League days. A worthy piece of work, and I hope we see more of these special projects from the Warner animation department (and Bruce Timm!)

Along with a quick moving story line, mature themes and strong character work, this is a movie with heart. It never pauses, and rarely misses a beat as it tells its story. The person who said its a mockery, really should go back and read the comics of the period, this had the best art since Fleischer did Superman, and it all works. Loved seeing Batman in his original costume, and Superman and Wonder Woman as adults. It was absolutely fantastic, wish for more work and good tidings in Future enterprises.

The story focuses mostly upon Hal Jordan as he becomes the Green Lantern. The dark themes of McArthyism and a thing called the Center that is destined to destroy us all is typical of the comic, but had not been seen in any of the cartoon ventures thus far.

Let me say it again. This is the best DC animated project since Mask of the Phantasm!

Next! IDENTITY CRISIS!

Synopsis: This animated feature is set in the 50s during the era of cold-war paranoia with a population that doesn't trust superheroes and a government that doesn't trust anyone. There is a malevolent force which has watched humanity grow in strength and violence and it has decided it has to eliminate it. Also included in the plot are shortened versions of Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern's origin stories.

This film's setting is really used to great effect and the heroes have a classic Golden Age look about them (though their attitudes remain anachronistically modern, especially Wonder Woman). I'm sure there references to many of the other DC characters that I'm just not very familiar with.

Overall the main story was fairly routine. There may have been just too many characters and the story tried to do too much. Aquaman got one line and I don't think Green Arrow even got that. Even though I liked it I think it's going to mainly be one for the comic book fans

After the short but highly entertaining and surprisingly deep "Superman: Doomsday", we have "Justice League: The New Frontier", advertised as a adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel of same name. I've never read the graphic novel so i shall not go into the differences between the print and on screen portrayals of this epic tale, though many other reviews claim it is quite a faithful adaptation.

The story is an intriguing but short one. Superheros in the 50s are frowned upon by the people and the government, Cold war paranoia is at an all time high, and into that melting pot comes "The Center": an evil entity bent on destroying human kind. I like how there is a element of mystery that builds to the climax as the movie goes along. The decision to leave the origin of "the center" ambiguous was a good one for which i applaud the producers.

Another excellent decision was to not just mimic the look of cold war era superhero comics, but the feel, dialogue and even music of that era's movies and TV shows. Green Lantern and Martian ManHunter are given the most character development and portrayed really well by the voice actors. For example, You can really feel for Hal Jordan as his pacifist ideals are challenged by the dire situations he is put into. It is easy to connect with the characters and to lose yourself in the wonderful set design, well written dialogue and thought provoking themes. The film seems to be social commentary about discrimination, conflict due to differences and fear of such differences perpetuated by the media and governments of that time. The moral, that if humans were to put aside their differences and work toward a common good, is a timeless one that would even apply to our society today

On the other hand, Justice League: New Frontier is far from perfect. For starters, the producers made a similar mistake that Marvel Animation did with their "Ultimate Avengers" movie: Too little time was spent on too many characters. You never get to feel a sense of threat from "The Center" and aside from Hal Jordan, the other Justice league characters never get enough screen time for the audience to relate to them or to the ideas and mindsets that they embody. So much so that when tragedy strikes later in the film, there isn't as much emotional impact as there could have been. The voice acting, though very well done, lacks variety. All the male characters sound almost alike aside from the Flash.

The time-frame of the movie jumps a lot too. Apparently the movie takes place over the course of a couple of months(I don't think Martian Manhunter was able to land a job as a detective overnight or Hal Jordan was able to train as an Astronaut in a day). However, due to the short length of the movie and a lack of exposition as to the time frame(throwing in "a few months later" between the 1st and 2nd act would have helped a lot"), the plot seems to unfold over the course of only a few days, leaving many apparent plot holes in its wake.

Animation-wise, it seems to be a step down from Superman:Doomsday. Though still keeping the angular and simplistic character design aesthetics of the previous movie and other DC animated series, the animation is stiffer and not as smooth as the previous animated feature. In fact the animation is fairly inconsistent with some scenes looking as bland as some of the poorer quality episodes from animated TV series. The big fight scenes are generally underwhelming with little sense of "epicness". I'm sure the directors were going for a grand scale battle the likes of Independence Day or Star Wars during the climax, but either due to budgetary constraints or lack of director's experience, the climactic conflict was no where near as great as it could have been.

A underdeveloped plot, too many characters, mediocre and inconsistent animation coupled with an overly short movie length(75 minutes for that many characters and plot threads is really cutting it too close) ended up overshadowing the great acting, intriguing story and social and political themes that this show tried to convey. All that potential, marred by poor execution and time constraints.

This is what fans have been waiting for. This film did an excellent job of following Darwyn Cooke's vision of the JLA as well as provide great continuity to the DC Universe. As for the negative comments about the characters from one certain naysayer. Get educated in the mythos before you critique it 1. That was superman's original 'S', read the damn books before you criticize. Understand the character's roots first.

2. Hal Jordan was the original Green Lantern from Earth. Jon Stewart is the third. The JL series is not DC Dogma.

3. They followed Bob Kane's Batman to the umpteenth degree. From the first issue he appeared in up to where Robin is introduced.

Overall, this is the best film DC has ever produced, I'm keeping in mind Richard Donner's Superman and Tim Burton as well as Chris Nolan's Batman films. As far as the comics go, this film is the best.

I also appreciated the followup to the issue of the JSA where the heroes were confronted by McCarthy to give up their secret identities, and quitting saving an ungrateful nation. The Red scare despite red being part of the trinity of colors on our own flag. After WWII America becomes less and less American, and this movie played off that. This movie couldn't have been told at a better time.

GOOD WORK DC! Hope the momentum keeps going up.

The movie had a lot of promise, especially in the beginning but the story seemed a little rushed, and the movie primarily focused on two characters The Green Lantern and the Flash, Superman seemed kind of dull, Batman's character sounded like an old man, and everybody else was there just for show. The movie was poorly done and nowhere near the quality of the Justice League: Animated Series, which had much better voices and an actual story instead of random meaningless action sequences. Sure their good, but they have to have some meaning behind them. Plus the mysterious appearance of Aquaman at the end that was just to much. Very disappointing effort.

The voice talent cast is incredible. The story is nicely adapted. The pace is excellent. And the animation is OK.

Justice League: The New Frontier is a retold origin story for the Justice League. Plot heavy, and very consistent with its source material, this band of Golden and Silver Age heroes come together almost reluctantly to defend the earth, and to reclaim the American way, in response to an ominous, bizarre threat called "The Center".

The origins of Jonn Jonz and the Green Lantern are very nicely woven into this plot-heavy story. JLA: The New Frontier also incorporates much more character development than the average animated feature -and this is greatly enhanced by the amazing voice talent. Jeremy Sisto's Batman blew me away.

The only real flaw, from my perspective, was the rather stiff, traditional, animation. Nevertheless, this is a good fan film and worth seeing.

First with "Superman-Doomsday" ,and now with "The New Frontier, DC has translated two of its better story lines wonderfully onto the screen. "The New Frontier" takes place in the early '50's. The war with Korea over and the threat of communism a constant topic of conversation. The JSA (Justice Society of America) has been disbanded. Superman remains the all-American poster boy, Batman the brooding dark knight. Wonder Woman a surprising turn as the true Amazonian she is with blood on her hands. The film focuses mainly on Hal Jordan soon to be The Green Lantern. His numbing confrontation with a Korean soldier at the outset of the film was genuinely shocking. The antagonist is an unseen entity called "The Center". This enemy has psychic powers as well as enormous other-worldly powers as well. Hal Jordan becomes a test pilot and is then introduced to a secret space project with him and a companion "Ace" as his co-pilot. the Martian Manhunter gains the second most screen time here. Tired of the inhumanity on our world he attempts to stow away on Jordans Mars mission without success. Superman comes to the rescue as the mission fails shortly after leaving Earth. Hal Jordan meets up with Abin-Sur as he is handed the mantle of the Green Lantern for the Earth sector. All past differences between the government and superheroes are cast aside as they fight side-by-side to subdue their common enemy. The animation is wonderfully crisp, and a true "retro" feel is present. The animation work on The "Flash" is neat and truly a joy to watch. The voice-over speech by JFK at the end is such a wonderful coda to this film...a few hairs raise on the back of the neck as JFKs' words play on and images of superheroes and their enemies scroll by...a great achievement for DC. Only a few minor complaints. I hope their is a sequel so we can see more characters fleshed out. This is definitely a comic readers movie. Only a true fan would be able to identify some of the tertiary characters such as "Adam Strange" or to a lesser extent "Green Arrow". I think they could have solved this easily by introducing the characters before the film along with their aliases..it would have been a great help to the casual comic fan. Overall I would gladly watch this again and again. A delightful piece of movie-making. This is definitely NOT a kids movie. Their are a few "s.o.b.s'" tossed around as well as some nasty violence against some of the creatures and the movie is unashamed to show blood. I would be cautious to show this to anyone under 10 or 11 years of age.

If you liked JLU you will like this Movie, and if you are a guy who knows a little more about comics than gautham_puttur from India you will love The New Frontier..

This Movie is to a 100% taken over of the Graphic Novel written by Darwyn Cooke. The sequences are greatly animated and so are the voices of the actors. A nice made Silver Age Story which is taken place in bee tween 1953-1960 (the original date when the jla came out)..

The Movie shows a martian who's hiding as a man named Jones. It shows a though Amazon who fights for the rights of women. It shows the greatest coolest detective in the fictional World. it shows the original looks of the Dc characters from the 60ties Comics.

For every comic fan out there in the world, The New Frontier is a movie you must watch

I wish I had done research on the movie before I bought it. The artist who developed Wonder Woman should be drawn and quartered for what he did to her in this movie. . .she looks like a man with huge melons strapped to her chest. The story line is confusing and uninteresting, and the voices fall flat. Although the concept may be more true to the 50's, my heart was won over by the Millennium version, and I don't want to go back. If you truly LOVED the Justice League series, for it's stylish art style, it's quick wit and flowing dialog, I can't imagine how you suffered through this embarrassment. I am ashamed that I gave these people even one dime of my money.

The fast and furious action moves the plot along quite well and Keith David does a very nice job on the introduction. Ultimately the outsourced Korean animation and low production values hurt the project. They also seemed to try to pack in way too much exposition, but I suppose this was necessary especially for viewers unfamiliar with DC lore.

I enjoyed Justice League. The special features on the DVD that dealt with the history of the Justice League were particularly interesting. Compared with any number of A-list animated films this movie just doesn't stack up though. The average movie goer might find some enjoyment with Justice League: The new Frontier. There is decent writing mixed in with the usual comic book weirdness. For comic book geeks this will score a few points higher.

The New Frontier looks good, but that's just about it. Flamboyant eye-candy with no substance. On visuals alone, I give it a 3 out of 10.

The story tries to be compelling, but it isn't. It tries to be complex, but ends up a muddled mess of seemingly unrelated scenes leading up to a very anti-climactic climax.

The characters are all interchangeable cookie cutter super-heroes ala the Superfriends, and none of them are given sufficient screen time to do anything, with the exception of Hal Jordan. To a person who hasn't read the graphic novel, the whole thing must seem unbelievably confusing. Adam Strange, Blackhawk, and Green Arrow are never explained, they just show up. Who's the guy with the jet-pack? Why is Aquaman in it for three seconds? How Darwin Cooke ever won any awards with this story I'll never know...I would suggest to DC that the next time they want to make an animated movie, use some better source material.

John Byrne's Man of Steel, or Frank Miller's Batman: Year One come to mind...or even The Killing Joke.

Any of those would make excellent films. The New Frontier, sadly, does not.

I can't really see why should a film like this comes out in 2008 The story dates way back to the fifties but that's not the problem -at least for me. My real problem is why should the producers use techniques and graphics from 50 years ago . Sometimes the "heroes" look ridiculous. Not to mention that some of the Heroes that are sen on this film aren't even named. OK , I know Superman, and Batman but some of the rest (for instance Green Lantern) are left un-introduced . I admit I am more a Marvel fan than DC but I thought I knew most of the famous DC heroes.My girlfriend was keep asking me questions that I had no answer for If I was watching a film from 1950 I would probably be excited, but after watching the 2 Avengers movies, Iron Man and Dr Strange form Marvel I think that watching The New frontier was a complete waste of my time

I am totally disappointed

I really liked justice league cartoon series, and movie in 2010, but this was like some extremely bad horror movie, with dinosaurs as main antagonists, attacking everything that moves, and so called "heroes" cut, shoot and blow them apart like some jam pies, splitting their blood all over ground, I admit I wasn't expecting an adult movie, but this was too much, even for a 18 + in a matter of fact, I wouldn't recommend people under 30(!!) watch it, it just blew my mind( in bad way) animation, voice acting, action scenes are decent and nothing special, character faces aren't detailed at all(only basic elements there are like eyes, noses etc) there is no logic in character actions,(like it would be logical to save some dinosaurs as species) but they all are so cruel, so bad, so ignorant, it's just too much so if you don't like superheroes tearing dinosaurs apart by their genitals don't watch it... -100 out of 10

I absolutely hated this movie.

The animation quality was extremely poor, this is a movie, and the animation quality is worse than even the old Batman animated TV series from 10 years ago. Surely they could have done a much better job if they cared at all. The character models were so bad, they made everything look simple as per the DCU animated universe style which usually looks very good but they lost the style and personality of the characters and they all just end up looking so bland, Martian Manhunter is a good example of how bad it is, even the Flash and Batman look almost generic animated character with a costume.

The voice acting was similarly poor, batman's voice made me wince every time he spoke.

The story wasn't very interesting to me, and all the pro USA propaganda was complete cheese.

It is sad how DCU animated universe can go from being the very best in animated entertainment to how bad it is now.

i may be in the minority her,but i found this animated movie disappointing.it's basically about the origin of The Justice League but i didn't feel it was worthy of an origin story.i also thought it was slow,an i didn't like the story.there isn't a lot of action in this one,and there's no real threat to the world.there is a threat of sorts,but i think it was lame.there isn't much in the way of character development either.i do think the voice talent was right on in this one,though.i felt the characters and their voices really suited each other.i have no idea if this origin story reflects the actual origin from the comic book,since i haven't read the comic.i just know that the movie was lacklustre.for me.Justice League league:The New Frontier is a 4/10

When I saw the cast list for The New Frontier I was really quite blown away. From David Boreanaz to the late great Miguel Ferrer to Neil Patrick Harris, Lucy Lawless, Kyle MacLachlan, John Heard & Jeremy Sisto.

Sadly that's where the quality ends. It's animated and scored fine, but it's story is overly convoluted and an utter mess.

Set in the 1950's and including all your Justice League favorites the timeline makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and really put me off.

Certain characters like Batman have barely any presence in the film at all and may as well not even be in it.

I know I'm a harsh critic but this is a contender for the worst DC animation I've seen.

The Good:

Excellent opening

Great cast

The Bad:

Timeline is bizzare

Why do all the characters look the same?

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Seeing Miguel Ferrer and John Heard in the same thing makes me a sad panda. RIP

Again I must mention having watched Batman: Under The Red Hood and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Batman Vs. Dracula, The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm and also Green Latern: First Flight, this one here falls into the just-about-watchable (or bearable) category.

Out of all the above: Batman Under The Red Hood is still the best one I have seen. Then comes the Green Lantern: First Flight. The next in line is Batman/Superman: Public Enemies. That's it.

If you haven't seen the above movies that I mentioned, watch them first before you accept my criticism of this film.

A boring opening picks up slowly, gathers some momentum and keeps up the pace till the end. But this film is still not good enough.

And also talk about running out of ideas. The creature called "The Center" is just ripped of the movie Independence Day. I mean you don't need a brain cell to figure that one out do you? I think even the cartoon industry is on the decline in Hollywood!!! Also I think the film does not do justice to the animated TV series as well.

Bottom line: if you show this one to your kids and they demand a refund, or switch of the TV set and for once start doing their homework, you know you've made a wrong choice.

Score 5/10= passing mark.

Have a nice day. :)

Did I read the original? Yes. Am I going to judge it as a movie and not just compare it to the movie? Yes. So did I like what I just saw? No. The whole point of this story is to give you a sense of awe and inspiration that certain men and situations gave America decades ago. I believe they could have hit those points if they had more time to develop them. You had John just joining a police force out of nowhere, the whole "Center" story is rushed and just feels like random ubervillain # 14, and why dinosaurs? Why? Try explaining it for those who didn't read the novel - I had a tough enough time with my wife when we watched it. Why was Hal's friend suddenly wearing a purple outfit like some other guys standing in the end? Who's the guy with the jet pack? Why was the government out to get the heroes? Why mention in passing a black hero who was killed? On and on, there were to many questions that I knew the answers to, but not a person who had no idea what the story was really about. The 2 uses of "Son of a bitch" didn't really feel natural either, like they were tacked on for "PG's" sake. You have the original source material, build on it, and not just make it an all-star voice cast of a Cliff's Notes version of an otherwise beautifully told story.