Justice League: The Flaspoint Paradox

This must be the best animated JL movie to date, though really is more a Flash movie than a JL film. 

It all begins with a flashback (no pun intended) which allows to see how happy Barry Allen was when his mother was alive and how in the little time they spent together she made a difference in the kind of person he was destined to be. But then on her birthday she is murdered by a mysterious figure that, at least in the movie is unrevealed. Next we are taken to the present when a team of criminals known as The Rogues, invades a museum dedicated to The Flash who appears and nullifies them with ease but then it turns out the mastermind behind this attack was Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash, a scientist from the 25th century that managed to replicate the experiment that gave Barry Allen his powers. Professor Zoom who originally admired The Flash now hates him at unimaginable levels and has set bombs all over Central City and the detonators are attached to the Rogues' bodies who are unable to take them off. Flash can do nothing to help because Zoom has him stalled by a substance from the future. Then the Justice League appears to save the day and each one takes a Rogue to withdraw the trigger mechanisms and also capture Zoom in the process. Zoom tantalizes Barry telling him that he will never be able to save everyone especially those he loves the most. Later, Barry awakens in a different world where he has no powers, Superman's ship descended in Metropolis so the government kidnapped the baby and made experiments with him nullifying his options to become Superman, Hal Jordan never got the Green Lantern ring, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are at war and their conflict is about to destroy the world and most importantly Barry does not have powers. The only good thing is that his mother is alive but Barry never got married to the woman he loves. Only Batman exists but Barry notices something unusual in him because the Dark Knight now uses guns and feels no remorse in killing. When Barry goes to the Batcave to find answers he is savagely confronted by the Batman. It is only then that Barry discovers things are even worse than he thought because that Batman is not Bruce Wayne. The night the Waynes were attacked it was Bruce Wayne who died. The Batman of this very different world is none other than his father,Thomas Wayne.

This is a great story and some of the best translations I have seen fro comic pages to animation. The Justice League acts the way they are supposed to act, but then when the world is twisted seeing Wonder Woman acting as a heartless warrior and Aquaman posing as a ruthless ruler and doing things they would not normally do is frankly amazing. The realism sure makes this movie not a product for the little ones because we see people getting murdered (WW beheads one of her enemies and kills Billy Batson, a.k.a. Shazam, to prevent him from transforming). This is something you can only see in a DC film and never in Marvel, not at least now that they belong to the Mouse. Is this good or bad? Well, that is how the story was written and as I said before it is a good story with an ending that is far from predictable since it is Barry Allen's task to recover his powers and restore all reality but for that he needs to find the being that is as powerful as he is and can travel through time and alter History and that is Professor Zoom. But then again the big surprise is that Zoom was not really responsible for the changes, but someone else. Who then?

Great art, great story, great voices are the perfect combination for a great film.

Five stars out of five for this one.