Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part One Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Hi, welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, we are reviewing the latest DC animated film set in the Tomorrow Verse Justice League, Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1, the first part of a trilogy of films that will end out this universe.

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Yeah, part one came out about a week ago, the other two parts are going to come out later this year. I was really surprised by this film. There's a lot of films in the Tomorrowverse that I haven't liked. It's been pretty much hit or miss. But Crisis part one is really unique and I'm really looking forward to talking about it. Before that, we're going to break down the comic comic movie news from the past week, of which there was just one news item and that was the teaser trailer for Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths part-

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2. So this is a full on Crisis on Infinite Earths episode, apparently. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent dual simulator, AJ9K, has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. Why, hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic dual community on Patreon where you can choose from three tiers.

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them on social media. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamic duel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ and IK and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure to tune into the Max Destruction podcast, part of the Dynamike Podcast Network, which last week found out who would win between Batman from the 1989 Batman film and Captain America from the 1990 Captain America film. This week, I believe hosts Ken and Scotty are going to find out who would win between Steven Seagal's Casey Ryback from Under Siege.

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versus Chuck Norris' major Scott McCoy from Delta Force. Nice! On the Sinjoworld podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between your favorite anime characters. This week, we're gonna find out who would win between Black Clover's Luck Vultia versus Hunter Hunter's Killua. And on the Console Combat podcast, host John and Dean find out who would win in fights between your favorite video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they ventured into round two of their tournament, speculating on who would win.

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not only between Tomb Raider's Lara Croft and Assassin's Creed's Ezio Auditore, but also Super Mario RPG's Gino vs Sonic the Hedgehog's pal Tails. Visit dynamicpodcast.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all the shows in the Dynamike Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize!

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A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we asked, what other character from the Daredevil Netflix series do you most hope returns for the Disney Plus Daredevil born-again show and why? And this is coming off of the news that Deborah Anwalt and Elden Henson will be...

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reprising their roles as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson in the Daredevil Born Again series. We got literally two answers for this question of the week, which is not surprising because we only gave you guys about two days to do it. So let's run down our honorable mention as well as our no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Lizzie Dyer Arnie, who said, Hey, it's Lizzie. So I really want to see Marcy Stahl return to the new Daredevil series on Disney. If you don't remember who she is, she's Foggy's on again, off again girlfriend.

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who helped them take down Landman and Zack from the inside. She provides much needed comic relief to the show. And I think we are long overdue to see Marcy and Foggy's wedding. Have a great day. Now, I'm not going to lie. I barely remember this character, but I do agree that Daredevil needed comic relief and she was great in the role. Well, I thought Foggy himself provided comic relief for the show.

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but it was nice that they gave him a love interest because otherwise he was just kind of like the, you know, the tag along sidekick character to Matt Murdock. I liked actress Amy Ruppberg in the role as Marcy. I always thought she was like way too hot for Foggy Nelson, but that was kind of like the appeal of it, I think. It was nice to see this bumbling character get a girl who's way out of his league. Yeah, that's true. Plus I also don't hate the idea that Lizzie gave of Foggy finally getting married. Like the guy deserves it.

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Yeah, it literally rains shit on Foggy Nelson a lot, so it's nice to see that he has this one consistent good thing in his life. Great answer Lizzy! But the winner of this week's No Prize is Judson Baddie. And I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But he said, Hi guys, Judson Baddie here. Long time listener, first time responder. I think the character and actor I'd like to see return for Dead Ever Born again the most is Father Paul Langton played by Peter McRobbie. I feel like he had some interesting dynamics.

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with Charlie Cox as Daredevil and provided and understated the very important role in the spiritual side of the Daredevil character and the show wouldn't be the same without him. Well, you guys went with some pretty deep dives for your answers for this question of the week. Father Lantern, played by Peter McRobbie on the Daredevil Netflix show, was very much the soul of the show. He was essentially Matt Murdock's spiritual guide, given that...

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Matt Murdock is a very religious character in the comic books and in the show. He's a devout Catholic. And I thought the actor Peter McRobbie did a great job and was an interesting character in guiding Matt Murdock and discussing the ethics of his actions as both a Catholic and a vigilante. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. This is another character I barely remember, but I like this as the win for this week's question.

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because of how religious a character Daredevil is. And it's pretty unique in comics that a character is so heavily involved in his spirituality. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense for a character named Daredevil, right? It kind of adds to the intrigue given that, you know, he dresses up like the devil and beats the shit out of people. It's really interesting that dichotomy of Daredevil. Honestly, I thought we were going to get answers like Electra and Bullseye. Right. Yeah.

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Bullseye was in fact the correct answer played by Wilson Bethel. He was incredible in season three and the dude needs to come back as Bullseye. He was fantastic. Yeah, 100 percent. But great answer Jetson, you win this week's No Prize. If you're the listener, want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on in this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, on to the news.

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Okay, so we recently got the official teaser trailer for Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2, the sequel to the film we're about to review later in this episode, Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1. Now, in Part 1, there's quite a bit of time jumping, and it looks like that may be the case for Part 2 as well. We learned in Part 1 that Monitor's assistant of sorts, Harbinger,

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is actually Supergirl from the Legion of Superheroes film, and it looks like in part two we're going to find out exactly how she became Harbinger. It kind of looks like she's going to be the main character of part two, honestly, in the same way that Flash was the main character of part one. Which is not a big surprise of the two major sacrifices that happened in the comic book. Flash and Supergirl were probably the most impactful.

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My guess is Supergirl does not make it to the end of the film. That's just a guess. Sorry if that's a spoiler. Well, I mean, if you look at the cover to the crisis on Infinite Earth's trade paperback, you'll see Superman holding a dead Supergirl. So I don't know how much of a spoiler that actually is. True. That's fair. Yeah. I thought it was really cool to see the Bat family at the beginning of this trailer, which seems to include Batman Beyond and Batwing. Yeah, honestly, that was pretty shocking seeing Batman Beyond, who's from the future.

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considering the end of part one. Not gonna give away any spoilers, but if you know, you know. It really looks like this film picks up right after the events of part one, as we still see the frequency tuning fork tower in the background in the opening shots. It looks like the main thread of this movie though are these like shadow creatures. Shadow demons, yes, they're from the comics. They're like the soldiers of the anti-monitor. Interesting. We also get a shot of Psycho Pirate. It's not too clear what he's doing.

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but the character is pretty interesting from the comics so I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on there. All in all there's really not too much more to talk about. It's a really short teaser, it's less than 45 seconds. I thought we were going to get a release date with it, but at the very end it just says coming soon. So when we do get that release date, we'll make sure to let you guys know. Because I'm looking forward to it for sure. Yeah, I think in total this trilogy is going to be quite an epic series of films. But speaking of epic animated trilogies, that brings us to our question of the week.

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BOOM

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What comics storyline for Marvel or DC would you want to see adapted as an animated film trilogy and why? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before January 27th.

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That does it for all the news for this episode, now let's move on to the main event, where we review the latest DC animated film, Justice League, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 1.

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Alright, Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1 is the latest in Warner Bros. Animation's Tomorrowverse world of direct-to-video DC animated films, which is the follow-up universe to the DC animated movie universe that ended with the phenomenal film Justice League Dark Apocalypse War. Comparisons between the animated universes have been inevitable.

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Most fans, I would say, have been pining for a return to the DC AMU, which had its critics, but has been widely accepted as being superior to the Tomorrowverse. I personally have praised the Tomorrowverse's character designs and premises, but with the exception of the two-part Batman the Long Halloween films, the overall execution of the Tomorrowverse has ranged from fairly decent to borderline unwatchable.

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So how does Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first part of a trilogy that's being released throughout this year, compare to the other Tomorrowverse films? I'm relieved to say it's one of the best. If you haven't seen it yet, maybe because you've given up on the Tomorrowverse?

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I definitely recommend watching it and it makes me want to recommend watching the entirety of the Tomorrowverse beforehand because it really makes you appreciate little hints and Easter eggs they've sprinkled throughout the other films to show that they've been building up to this concluding trilogy in order to successfully capture the emotional impact that long time DC fans had while first reading the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic that this film is based on. I don't know that's a lot to ask audiences, especially our listeners.

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Like putting them through the likes of Justice Society World War II or Legion of Superheroes or Justice League War World. Like, there's a lot of duds that I just would not recommend watching just to better enjoy this film. It's surprising to me that you said that Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1 is one of the better entries in the tomorrowverse because you're right. But also, this movie was mostly okay. So just...

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thinking that it was actually still one of the best makes me kind of sad about the whole Tomorrowverse in general. Well, I mean, the number one film in the Tomorrowverse was absolutely the two part long Halloween, probably followed by Green Lantern Beware My Power. And I'm not sure if I like this as much as Beware My Power. It might be just underneath that, but I still liked this film. Crisis on Infinite Earths is an adaptation of the comic of the same name.

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Now if you're not familiar with Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was the first major universe-spanning blockbuster event in comics that drastically changed DC's continuity and delivered explosive stakes for long-time comic readers, going all the way back to 1956 when the introduction of Barry Allen, the Flash, kicked off the Silver Age of comics. The stories in the comics released prior to that, during the Golden Age,

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were eventually revealed to have taken place in a parallel universe that Barry Allen learned he could travel to. This set up the first-ever multiverse, which became threatened in 1985 by the Crisis on Infinite Earth storyline, where we saw characters like Barry Allen die or sacrifice themselves during the event.

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Now to successfully adapt a story like Crisis on Infinite Earths in animation, you have to try and match what comic book writers had decades to accomplish, creating long-standing relationships between fictional characters and invested audiences through serialized adventure stories. It's a lot easier to create a comic book than it is to create an animated film though. Literally, one or two guys can create a comic.

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compared to sizable budgets and teams of animators needed to create a future film. The Tomorrow vs Producers, Jim Krieg and Kimberly Moreau, who wanted to do a Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation, were allowed to create a 10-film universe, which they used to lead up to this major trilogy event that begins with Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1.

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This was only recently revealed, but going back to early films in the Tomorrowverse, it's now apparent that not only have the filmmakers been planning their way to a crisis story, but also that they've planned on involving prior animated universes such as the DC AMU and several DC Showcase animated shorts, including Constantine, House of Mystery, Adam Strange, and Commandie. The connect-

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The connectivity blows my mind and makes me unbelievably excited for the releases of part 2 and 3 later this year. Well, I remember that the Adam Strange short was a direct prequel to Green Lantern Beware My Power. But I'm having trouble remembering exactly how the House of Mystery and Command D were referenced in this Crisis on Infinite Earths part 1 movie. Well, Constantine House of Mystery is a pretty obvious one.

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It's the connective tissue between the DC AMU and the tomorrow verse. At the end, I believe he was punished by the specter, but I forgot what the punishment was. I guess we see the results of that in this movie when we see Constantine as an old guy. Yeah, he's forced to live through the ends of universes. Interesting. And Comedie has been confirmed to be a part of this universe as well by the producers.

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Now, I wasn't always excited for the Crisis films this year. In fact, I'd say they were the DC projects I was looking forward to the least, hands down. Just like as of last week, basically. But after seeing the bold risk they took with Part 1 in terms of its unconventional narrative structure and having it pay off so spectacularly well, I feel like I've glimpsed a genius adaptation of the source material.

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Like, I've never seen a superhero film be so hyper-focused on a single character's perspective of a story. You could say Crisis Part 1 is like the Groundhog Day or memento of superhero films in that regard, but the story borrows most heavily from The Time Traveler's Wife, a book that's been adapted to both a film and television series if you're not familiar with it.

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Yeah, as a narrative device, the time jumping thing got a little bit grating after a while because it was kind of hard to tell the overall structure of the film. Like it didn't have like a clear three act breakdown. And that can sometimes be a frustrating experience as a viewer. It did actually have three acts. Well, that was not easy for me to tell. Well, apparently you're stupid then. I don't know what else to say.

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I'll be honest, when I first got done watching this film, I couldn't tell you if it was good or not. I knew that it was interesting, and I do think that it sets up tremendous potential for the overall trilogy of films. I get the impression that when all is said and done, the story is going to be massive and epic in a way that puts even Apocalypse War to shame. But I just think we haven't gotten there yet. There was a lot of like missing context to a lot of what we were watching, and it sometimes felt confusing in that regard. But I will admit.

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that your comparisons to stories like Memento and The Time Traveler's Wife have me a little bit more intrigued. Yeah, honestly, Crisis Part 1 is going to be a film that you either love or you hate, kind of like films like Groundhog Day. I think everyone loves The Time Traveler's Wife. It's a love story, so it may be outside the interest of our podcast's audience demographics.

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But if you're not familiar with it, the time traveler's wife follows a man cursed with a time traveling condition that causes him to live his life out of linear time. Like he experiences events in his life in a nonlinear random order, while the woman he loves struggles to live life with someone with this condition. In Crisis Part 1, about three quarters of the way through the film,

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The Flash absorbs the entire speed force of a universe that was just destroyed by an antimatter wave traveling through the multiverse, which causes him to experience time non-linearly, and we as an audience are along for the ride. The film constantly jumps, or time trips, throughout its story, and it's not until a decent ways into the film that we begin to grasp what's going on.

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Story-wise, the film jumps back in time to tell the story of how the Justice League first formed. A story we didn't get the chance to see in earlier Tomorrowverse films, which is something fans had complained about, including myself. Oh yeah, I remember we brought that up as a criticism of the Tomorrowverse during the Beware My Power review. Yes. Because the League was already formed by that movie, but the only reference we got to the League prior to that was in Justice Society World War II.

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where they're like, oh, maybe we should form a team or something like that. And then all of a sudden we see it fully formed without any kind of glimpse into how or why these characters got together. I was surprised when I saw that this was, in fact, a Justice League origin story. Yeah, that was a huge surprise to me as well. The formation of the Justice League has never been particularly profound, in my opinion. Basically, a group of heroes get together to battle a major threat like Starro or Darkseid.

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But in this film, the team's formation is a ruse to draw out a life-stealing android named Amazo, whose own story is more existential and emotional than it needed to be. Like, it did not need to go that hard. As we learn that story, we also visit the Earth-3 universe ruled by an evil version of the Justice League, known as the Crime Syndicate, and witness that universe's destruction.

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which sets up the stakes for the film's central and final threat. That the multiverse is being destroyed, universe by universe, and it being outside of space and time, the monitor has brought heroes from across the multiverse to save it. The true heart of the film, though, comes from the story between Barry and his wife, Iris, as we see them meet for the first time shortly after Barry received his powers, and eventually get married,

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despite Barry's inability to experience his life linearly. In one moment, he's at his wedding, the next he's on Earth 3, the next he and Iris are old. The dedication and love that Barry and Iris have to each other despite their crazy lives makes Crisis Part 1 arguably one of the most romantic superhero projects that I've ever seen. Yeah, at first part of me was like, out of all the people the Flash could have gotten to help him build these towers,

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Why did he go with someone that's not super powered or like a super genius or something like that? So the decision was entirely made out of the desire to spend the rest of his life with this woman He loves and uh, you know, I could appreciate that too. Definitely made for a touching twist on the narrative at the end Absolutely, like it just made me want to go like hug my wife You know, hey cool it with the romance man This podcast has a limit on the number of lovey-dovey things that can be said

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Alright, there's just so much that I love about this film, but I can also see where a lot of people would maybe be turned off by its haphazard time-jumping, like you mentioned. It's not exactly the best plot structure to explain an event as complicated in itself as the destruction of the multiverse, so there are multiple barriers to entry for audiences on top of the barrier that exists naturally in a cinematic universe.

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Basically, if you don't watch everything that came before, there's a chance you'll be missing important information needed to truly understand or appreciate the current story that you're watching. Marvel runs into that sometimes. Yeah, more often than not, the longer your cinematic universe goes, the more of a chilling effect audiences are going to have going into it. Exactly. And the only other gripe that I have about the film is the animation. Again, the character designs are great for the most part.

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Although actually there were a few I was really unhappy with in this film. But the animation leaves a lot to be desired. Like there are some scenes that felt like old school super friends cartoons, where the entire frame is still except for characters' mouths moving. Yeah, the tomorrowverse is largely computer animated and sometimes it can be done to great effect like in the Batman the Long Halloween films. This was nothing like that. Like, sometimes these characters would not blink and they were just staring.

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like not even making direct eye contact with who they were talking to, and they look like soulless abominations. But I just think it's probably an issue of timing with the animators. They probably didn't have enough time to actually add all the subtle quirks and eye movements and things like that when producing this film. Maybe, yeah, maybe for certain characters over others, that's probably true. Now the film is nowhere near as dynamic as it needs to be. But at least for me personally, the story made up for a lot of the film's drawbacks.

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Though the film features a large cast of DC characters, it focuses solely on the experiences of one. So there's not many characters to really dive into for our character breakdown, but let's start with The Flash. Now The Flash, aka Barry Allen, was voiced by Matt Bomer. Now Matt isn't just a fantastic voice actor, but a great actor in his own right. And as such, he is fantastic at capturing emotion.

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I have to give major credit to the filmmakers for making the decision to get an actor as talented as Matt Bomer to successfully kick off this three film conclusion to a cinematic universe. The end of a story should be bittersweet, and Matt Bomer definitely helped make The Flash's ending bittersweet and heartfelt. Yeah, I mean, we saw him portray the character of the Negative Man largely in voice alone for the Doom Patrol television series.

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It does amaze me how different his voice acting is here for the character of Barry Allen. The guy is super talented. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, his negative man was so like melancholic, whereas his Barry is much more bright. Now for a film in which so many things happen, the character of Barry Allen is relatively static. And that's in part because everything he experiences, whether it be the first time he met his wife or his wedding,

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He's experiencing as someone who already knows what's going to happen because he's been to the future. What makes him interesting in this film is when he is put in situations that we don't yet know how he's going to get out of it. Whether it's going up against a mezzo or escaping Earth 3 or preventing the destruction of his universe. In the comics, the Flash sacrificed his life to help save the multiverse.

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And while he does the same in this film, it's incredibly touching that they still found a way for him to live out an entire lifetime with his wife Iris happily and with no regrets. And the fact that his last moments existing in time in his universe was at his wedding reception celebrating with the rest of Earth's heroes is like the greatest of honors. It literally brought tears to my eyes and I can think of no ending

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greater for a hero as important to the comics as The Flash. Yeah, the narrative approach they took with The Flash does make me question some things, particularly when we've seen the character in previous movies such as Justice Society World War Two, where we know that he still experienced time linearly throughout the course of that entire adventure. The time traveling notwithstanding. Yeah, that's a good question. Like, at what point in his life did he start time tripping? And

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seems like it really kicks in around the time of the formation of the Justice League. Though honestly, parts of it go back to even before that to, you know, when he first gets his powers. Exactly. So that's a little bit strange. I do think that they could have effectively told the same story with about 25% less time jumping because at some point I got really sick and tired of seeing that graphic of the Speed Force tunnel thing. I'm like, oh my God, just stop.

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Just little touches, like what you mentioned about him spending some of his last moments dancing with his wife at his wedding. That's just poetry. So there's a lot of kind of like back and forth, the things that I really like and things that I don't really care for. But overall, as a concept, I really appreciate where they were trying to go with it. Yeah, it's ambitious for sure. Now the only other character I have anything to dive into with is Amazo. He was voiced by Nolan North, who also did the voice.

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for John Constantine and Hal Jordan in this movie. He's a voice actor and a damn good one. No, Amazo was created by Dr. Anthony Ivo for the sole purpose of extending human life. Ivo was a scientist for LexCorp and when Lex purposefully gave Ivo Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, causing him to age rapidly.

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Ivo created Imezo with the ability to absorb, store, and redirect energy in order to restore vitality to the dying and the sick. Lex, however, corrupted Imezo's programming so that he was capable of absorbing and using metahuman energy, granting him the powers of Superman and the Flash, among others. Imezo's always been a considerable threat for the Justice League, so I thought having him be the catalyst for the formation of the League was a good choice.

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But the heroes initially formed the Justice League during a public address as a way to draw out a mezzo to them, though it also brought Lex Luthor in an awfully designed mech suit. Yeah, that was horrible looking. It was cool to see Lex continue his journey from the Man of Tomorrow movie, but it was also a little bit convoluted considering he had this scientist who he gave this really rare disease to and he probably could have just given him cancer or something like that.

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and he had him build a benevolent android who really struggled with Lex's commands. You would think that Lex could almost just build this thing himself. I don't know. It was a little bit strange there, but it was cool to see Zachary Quinto in the role again. Yeah, he's great as Lex. I think it was implied that Ivo was a prodigy and that the creation of an AI as evolved as Amazo was, was outside of Lex's abilities. But that's just a guess. Yeah, this was a much different-

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version of a Mazer than the one that we saw in Batman under the Red Hood, right? Yes. Yeah, very much so. Because in that movie, Batman was able to defeat the Mazer with some explosives, if I recall correctly. Which is bullcrap. But yeah, I loved how they used parasite alien technology to give a Mazer his like absorbing powers. I thought that was smart. That makes sense. Yeah, that tighted well. I do have to wonder, though, as well, like Lex's mech suit almost looks like a metallo.

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Like, if they were selling that as a prototype for maybe a later version of Botelo, I could totally buy that. That's really the only reasoning I'll accept for why his suit looked so damn bad. Now when The Flash realizes that Amazo's been corrupted by Lex and he brings Dr. Ivo to him, Amazo attempts to heal Ivo using the metahuman energy that he had absorbed. When that ended up killing the frail Ivo instead, the subtle

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acting quote-unquote by Amazo was incredible. Like the android was so profoundly shocked by betraying the very reason for his existence and accidentally killing his creator, he could barely complete a sentence. It just broke him. The fact that Amazo was brought back online by the Flash to help him and Iris complete the frequency tower and save the multiverse at the end, allowing Amazo to fulfill his programming before being destroyed,

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also cut me super deep to my core. Like for a character to go from the deepest valley of regret to the utmost peak of fulfillment in his last moment was surprisingly more cathartic than I thought it'd be. And this is just part one.

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Yeah, as the story was going on, I wasn't quite sure why they felt the need to include Amazo in this particular story, because I wasn't sure it made sense thematically with the idea of the multiverse ending. By the end it was clear that they included Amazo because they wanted to tell the story of him fulfilling his programming. I'm not entirely sure it was necessary though. Why did they need Amazo?

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who I wasn't even aware was filled in on the frequency tower schematics or anything like that or what he had to do with that. Like, Iris and Flash could have built that tower themselves. Probably, it probably would have taken them a lot longer to do it without Amazo, considering they're not engineers and Amazo is a super intelligent AI. You could argue that he wasn't necessary to the story, but I actually really like that they were able to introduce him again as the threat that resulted in the formation of the League.

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but also coming full circle to have him be the one that helps save humanity at the end of the movie. It's just good writing. And with that said, let's move on to our story highlights.

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The film begins with Barry Allen, the Flash, running through the time stream, observing himself on the night he got his powers in a lab accident and met his future wife, Iris West. Barry time trips farther along the time stream to when he and Superman first encountered the energy-stealing android villain, Amazo, created by Dr. Anthony Ivo for LexCorp. When Flash and Superman become too weak to face Amazo, Green Arrow comes to their rescue.

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and he and Flash take Superman to the home of Bruce Wayne on Halloween night to recover. Now remember when we were talking about the post credits scene of Batman the Long Halloween Part 2 and we were like, what? Flash and Green Arrow? What does that mean? That was a horrible ending. Well now we see how that scene came about. Barry time trips to when he and Iris meet a destitute John Constantine who is responsible for some of Flash's time trips. Barry then travels

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to when he first meets Dick Grayson and encourages Bruce Wayne to foster him. We then jump back in time to when Superman is recovering in the Batcave before Flash, Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow decide to form a team to face a mezzo that includes Vixen and Martian Manhunter. When they try to recruit the Green Lantern Hale Jordan, Hale rejects the team and Constantine appears again telling the Flash that he must bear witness before sending him to the parallel universe of Earth 3.

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Hal Jordan was kind of a dick throughout the entire tomorrow verse, right? Even in the Green Lantern Beware My Power movie, he became Parallax and was evil and shit, you know? And here he was just like, I'm already part of a team, screw you guys. It was nice to see Jon Stewart get his due as a character though, within this universe. I like that the focus was on him as the resident Green Lantern. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of fans also liked at the very end of the film.

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during Barry and Iris' wedding when Jon Stewart and Hawke Girl ended up dancing together. Because that of course goes back to the Bruce Tim verse, or whatever that's called. That's called the DCAU, which incorporates Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, and Justice League. And Justice League Unlimited. Now after encountering Johnny Quick and the Crime Syndicate, Flash realizes that he's in a new universe before getting pummeled by its evil doppelganger version of the Justice League, the Crime Syndicate.

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Flash trips back to his universe when he and his allies announce the Justice League team to the world, just before they're attacked by Amazo and Lex Luthor, the latter of whom is wearing a mech suit. During the battle, Amazo uses the speed he's absorbed from the Flash to have a conversation with the speedster with time at a near standstill, explaining that he was programmed to extend human life, but that Lex Luthor had corrupted his programming.

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but accidentally time trips back to Earth 3 instead. While on Earth 3, Flash discovers that it's ruled by evil counterparts to the heroes of his world, and the Crime Syndicate learns of the potential for other Earths and parallel universes that they can conquer. Flash also learns that sharing the Speed Force with the evil Speedster Johnny Quick prevents him from gaining enough speed to return to his universe. However, the decrepit Constantine appears and warns the Syndicate,

36:21
that their universe is about to be destroyed. Flash time trips back to his universe on the day of his wedding when he warns Iris that something major is going to happen but also promises that no matter what they will grow old together. Time tripping back to the past, the Flash finds Dr. Ivo at LexCorp learning that Ivo created a mezzo using alien technology with the intention of curing Kiss Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome which caused Ivo to age rapidly.

36:49
As the Flash races Ivo back to the Justice League's battle with the Meizou, Flash time trips back to his time on Earth 3. At this point in the story, I'm wondering what the point of everything is, because it's just the nature of the narrative device of time skipping. It's really hard to make heads or tails of not just what's going on, but why things are happening.

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You know, it's easy to assume in films like these that it's all going to come together at the end, like the movie Memento. But it definitely feels like the movie starts to drag at some points because you don't quite know where it's going. Actually, when I was watching this film for the first time, the whole movie felt very quick to me. Like everything was happening at such a rapid pace that by the time the movie was over, I was like, really? That was 90 minutes? But yeah, it was. I had the opposite experience. Really?

37:38
Yeah, but halfway through the movie, I was like, shouldn't this thing be over by now? And then I checked the time code and realized it was only halfway done. Geez. It's strange that we experience time differently while watching this movie. Honestly, I don't think you could think this movie was slow. Like, I can get like being confused by what's going on, because there certainly was a time towards the beginning of the film where I didn't realize what was going on either. But I caught on pretty quick and it was, you know, just enjoying the ride. Maybe that's the difference.

38:08
I enjoy rides. You don't apparently. Yeah, you get motion sick. There you go. Now on Earth 3, Flash watches as the crime syndicate proves to be incapable of managing the turmoil caused by violent storms across the planet. When Flash asks how Constantine is appearing in different universes, Constantine explains that he and Flash are guilty of a heinous act. We time trip back in time to the Justice League's battle with the Mezzo.

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and the League members fall one by one. With Amazo and Lex nearly victorious, Flash arrives with Ivo, who asks Amazo to use the metahuman energy he absorbed to cure him. Amazo's attempt to do so fails, and Ivo dies. With his primary objective made obsolete, the shocked Amazo deduces that Lex is the one who inflicted Ivo with the disease. Amazo destroys Lex's mech suit.

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though Flash stops Amazo before he can kill his former ally. Once Lex is apprehended by the authorities, it's revealed that the formation of the Justice League was a ruse to draw out Amazo, but the heroes decide to make the League a reality after all. Am I the only one that thought that Batman maybe had a point in his approach? You know, clear all the innocent civilians out, but then just bomb the hell out of Lex Luthor.

39:29
Everybody was like, no, you can't do it. You can't bomb the city. But it's like this guy's super powerful. You clearly can't let a mezzo steal Superman's powers because that's worse than a bomb. So I don't know why they were getting all up. Batman's asked for. Well, I mean, Flash ultimately proved that he had a better solution. Yeah. But like, I don't know, the other heroes were just annoying me. You're on the wrong side of history there. Literally. Yeah. Time tripping ahead in the timeline.

39:58
We see an older Barry and Iris wake up to celebrate the anniversary of the first day they met, before we trip back to the day of their wedding, which is interrupted by Harbinger, who is recruiting heroes for the Monitor to save the multiverse. On the Monitor's ship outside of space-time, heroes from across the multiverse and time begin appearing, including Wonder Woman, Robin, Huntress, Dr. Light, and Psycho Pirates, among others. Harbinger reveals,

40:27
that she is actually Supergirl to the future hero Dawnstar of the Legion of Superheroes. The Monitor arrives and reveals to the heroes that a wave of antimatter is ripping through the multiverse, destroying entire universes, and that they have been brought together to stop it. Barry time trips to the future when an elderly version of himself and Iris continue to work on a mysterious project. Before Barry trips again to Earth 3,

40:55
where he witnesses the antimatter wave begin to erase that universe. Tripping back to the monitor ship, the flash reveals that the monitor is telling the truth and that the threat of the antimatter wave is real. Did you get the feeling when Harbinger showed up in the movie that finally they're getting to the story of Crisis on Infinite Earths? Like, it seemed a little bit late within the runtime to start introducing those elements, right? Honestly, I wasn't sure how-

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the formation of the League was going to tie into the crisis. So I actually wasn't thinking that. As I mentioned earlier, there are like three distinct sort of conflicts going on throughout the course of this movie. One is a mezzo, one is the crime syndicate, and one is the antimatter wave. It's true that the antimatter wave storyline doesn't really begin until halfway through the film.

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But again, everything was just moving so fast that it didn't feel like the halfway point to me. This is the first part of a trilogy. It's not like they were going to go through the entire crisis storyline just in this movie. I figured it was going to be delayed. I figured there was going to be some setup. Well, fine. As Earth 3 is entirely destroyed by the wave, the death of Johnny Quick allows Flash to gain enough speed force to return to his universe. In the future,

42:14
It's revealed that Amazo is helping the elderly Barry and Iris on their project. On the monitor ship, the heroes decide to split into two teams. One to determine a solution and one to build it. During their brainstorm session, Flash reveals that absorbing the entirety of the speed force of the Earth 3 universe upon its demise knocked him out of his linear time experience. When the heroes learn that the Flash is able to traverse the multiverse,

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by vibrating into different planes of existence, they determine that colossal tuning fork towers built on their earths could vibrate their universes to a state of intangibility when the wave strikes. As the heroes begin building the towers, it's revealed that the elderly Barry, Iris, and Amazo are working on building one of those towers. Now the reason they have to do that is because the flash needs to slow down time due to the wave moving quicker.

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which was not foreseen by the heroes when they were building the towers. But the story never reveals why the wave moved quicker all of a sudden. I'm assuming that they're going to touch on that in later films. Yes, I got the implication that this whole thing is a product of the monitor based on his conversation with the specter that we'll talk about later on. But I could be wrong. There still could be an anti-monitor. Who was the villain of the crisis story in the comics?

43:39
Yes, exactly. As the heroes build, they're shocked to discover the wave has arrived ahead of schedule. The Flash encounters Constantine, who tells him to run to Iris. With Iris in his arms, the Flash imbues her with enough speed force energy that the two are able to move with time essentially at a standstill, allowing them to complete the construction of the tower over the span of relative decades. As the anti-manager wave slowly approaches,

44:08
The elderly Iris dies from old age, just as they finish work on the tower. As the elderly Barry charges up the tower by running on a power generating turbine, the heroes experiencing time normally watch as the tower is constructed at rapid speed before them just as the wave hits. Though the tower is destroyed as the wave passes over, the tower's frequency was successfully transmitted throughout the multiverse.

44:36
saving countless Earths. Infinite Earths? Maybe not infinite, but a whole hell of a lot. I'm calling bullshit on the marketing. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. The Spectre meets with the Monitor, who has determined that his experiment was a success, though he was doubtful it would be. The Spectre then visits the elderly Barry and reveals that a mezzo now destroyed knew he had succeeded in his mission to extend human life in his last moment.

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The specter also reveals that though he is an agent of God's wrath, Barry has atoned for his responsibility in helping cause the events that had transpired. As the Speed Force absorbs Barry into it, in his final moments he's able to warn his younger self the day of his accident and Bruce Wayne and Warlord that they must go back to before the beginning. We see that on the day of Barry's and Iris's wedding,

45:31
Harbinger brought all of the heroes of this world to celebrate together with them before embarking on the monitor's mission to save the multiverse. In the final scene, as the heroes celebrate on the monitor's ship, we see that their actions have affected the timeline and characters from the future such as Don Star and Brainiac 5 begin to disappear. And that's why it's interesting that Batman Beyond is in the trailer for the next film.

45:57
I didn't make the connection that it was just characters from the future that were blipping, and it looked like they were being blipped. I thought it was just like random characters. Oh really? You probably were like, what an Infinity War ripoff. Right. But I guess it was made clear by what Brainiac 5 told Supergirl at the very end.

46:15
I thought it was a very strange ending though. Considering that the main character for the whole film was the Flash, we didn't end with the Flash. The story seemed to kick over to Supergirl at that point, which makes me feel like this scene is also going to be the beginning to part 2. We did end with the Flash though. He died. He merged with the Speed Force. No, the very last shot of this movie was Brainiac 5 disappearing. Right, I know, but that's just set up for the next film. You were saying that you were surprised it didn't end with the Flash.

46:42
And I'm saying, what the fuck, of course they would set up the next movie, it's a fucking trilogy. But they didn't need to. These final moments seem to stem more out of their need to set up a cliffhanger than anything else. It just didn't feel as satisfying an ending as if they had just chose to end with The Flash. It's part one of a fucking trilogy, it doesn't need to be satisfying. It should set up the next film, it should make you eager for the continued storyline. I don't think they needed to end it with just The Flash. I'm actually pretty intrigued.

47:11
by how they ended it because it continues the conflict, right? There's more story to be told. What threw me at the end of this, actually, was the whole Bruce Wayne on Skartaris scene, because I was under the impression that that was just a hallucination induced by War World. And I'm wondering if they're implying that, actually, that was a real universe. That wouldn't make sense, because War World doesn't have time travel.

47:41
portal capabilities. No, it did. Actually, they said in the Warworld film that Mongol had been scouring the multiverse on Warworld. So, you're saying that Wonder Woman actually went to the Wild West and Superman actually went to the 1950s. I mean, I think that's what this implies. No, I don't think so. Okay, I mean, why not? Why not? I guess we'll find out in future films. Again, we have no idea when they're coming, but I'm looking forward to them.

48:09
because this film was really good in my opinion. Its unconventional narrative structure ultimately pays off as its emotional ending sets up the promise of a fascinating conclusion to this animated universe. The film wasn't perfect and I know it's going to put off a lot of people, so I'm giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars. A fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And actually to your credit Joseph, you had to talk me down from giving it 4 stars.

48:39
It's definitely not a four star film. It's going to be divisive. I think it raises a lot of questions while you're watching it and can be frustrating, which is not a great movie going experience. I think what it tried to do is better in concept than what it did in practice. As can be said for the rest of the Tomorrowverse. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I think at least each concept that each movie set up in the Tomorrowverse had potential. And honestly, the best thing that you can say about Crisis Part One is that

49:06
the potential stories that it has set up for parts two and part three look to be epic as hell. And I really hope that the tomorrow verse is able to stick this landing and end in a great way. Yeah, I hope they will. You know, honestly, if they take more bold swings like what they did here, I'm all for it, honestly. And I just have to appreciate the ambition it took to do something like crisis part one, because not only did it tell a really good story.

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unconventional as it was. They also showed a little bit of genius when it came to how they're adapting this crisis story. But that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram, which you can find a link to in our show notes or by visiting our website dynamicduel.com. And on our site, you could also find a link to our Patreon page where you can join our dynamic two O tier and chat with us and fellow listeners.

50:02
our Fantastic Four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive producer of this podcast, or our newest tier that lets you join our Dynamike Podcast Network. Please don't forget to rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. Our next episode is going to be another review. We're going to discuss season one of the Disney Plus Marvel television series Echo. Also a divisive series, but you'll get our thoughts on it next week.

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But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom, Miggy Mathengian, Brandon Estregard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Abonto, Austin Wiselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, and Dean Mielewski for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers. More like Crisis of Infinite Girth, Amorite.