Injustice: Disappointing film adaptation of a superhero epic

A few days ago Warner Bros. released the cartoon adaptation of the hit game “Injustice” in this country on Blu-ray and digitally. We watched the film and tell you whether it’s worth a look.

With the fighting game “Injustice: Gods Among Us” NetherRealm Studios landed a real surprise hit in 2013, which was expanded to include its own comic series. The authors of the film asked themselves a question that has sparked the imagination of numerous fans for decades: What if Superman should get angry? While a huge epic emerges in the source material, the film adaptation wastes its potential.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely

But what is it about? It all starts so nicely: Superman and Lois Lane find out that they will soon be parents, which makes the man of steel more nervous than many a fight. His joy shouldn’t last too long, however, because Batman tells him that the Joker is currently in Metropolis. As it turns out, the Clown Prince of Crime is pursuing a diabolical plot and his target is the last son of Krypton.

In fact, the Joker’s plan works and he succeeds in luring Superman into a trap. The steely man realizes the extent of his deed too late, however, because he has killed his own wife and their unborn child. Consumed by grief and hatred, the man of steel crosses a line and obliterates a life. He swears that something like this should never happen again and forces the world to peace. But at what price?

“Injustice” starts off strong and can draw on its exciting premise, because Superman’s moral decline has seldom been better sketched than in this Elseworld story. Since the story takes place in an alternative universe, those responsible have greater creative freedom in the representation of the characters and their relationships to one another, which has already produced many classic comics, such as “Superman: Red Son”.

After the strong start of the animated film, however, its greatest weakness becomes more and more obvious: the extremely limited running time. The video game template already had its problems in credibly portraying the transformation of the most radiant superhero ever into an unscrupulous tyrant, but the comic series, which tells the story of the game, jumps into the breach in this regard. Over the years, their authors and draftsmen successfully expanded this dark DC universe and its partly broken characters.

Just an empty shell

A luxury that the cartoon adaptation of the “Injustice” franchise is not granted. The content of hundreds of pages and several hours is compressed into a running time of just 78 minutes. To do this, the movie’s makers cut down numerous characters and storylines, which makes the end result feel rushed. Neither the story nor the characters, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Harley Quinn, therefore get enough time to develop properly.

Ultimately, this also leads to the fact that many emotional moments in themselves fizzle out ineffectively. In addition, “Injustice” deliberately removes some characters in order to keep the running time as short as possible, while other characters simply disappear. Ultimately, the cartoon feels less like an adaptation of NetherRealm’s flogging game, but more like an alternate version of its story. However, one without a comparable impact – like an empty shell.

Disappointing superhero epic

Although all of this sounded very negative so far, the animation film also has its strengths, for example a few moments that did not fall victim to the scissors and were taken directly from the original. Furthermore, the action can also convince. Especially the sometimes extremely bloody confrontations between the various superheroes are wonderfully dynamic choreographed and well staged and animated. In addition, the soundtrack is always nice and atmospheric and the German voice actors do a decent job.

All in all, our conclusion on “Injustice” is sobering. From the outset, it was an ambitious undertaking to want to convert the template into just one single film. Because DC Entertainment had released numerous high-profile animated films in the past few years, there was at least some hope in this regard that those responsible would at least do a decent job.

The result was one of the weakest cartoons the company has produced in a number of years and at least we asked ourselves why the video game and comic book template wasn’t implemented in the form of a series in which both the plot and the characters far more Had room to develop. The result is the disappointing adaptation of a huge superhero epic.

More messages too Injustice.