Review: Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two

What is this world coming to? There were a couple pretty decent movies from DC, with, and I thought the culmination was going to be Justice League: Crisis on Middle Earths Part One. This felt like the epitome of what the entire DC Animated movie collective built to. This was the upswing to god awful entries recently like Green Lantern: Beware My Power. I’m pleasantly surprised that DC is allowing the writers time to let the story cook.

I knew out the gate that this was going to be kind of a slower pace. There was a lot going on with the first movie, developing a lot of time to building the first act. Fortunately, the pacing of the first part allowed the second part to put more exposition in place, and build up the growing threat of the Anti-Matter Waves, as well as the existence behind it, the Anti-Monitor. Part One had a great boots on the ground feel, and Part Two complements it with a more god’s eye view of everything going on.

With Crisis on Middle Earth Part Two, the story starts on an Earth that lost their Batman, so Earth 2 gets a new one. After this short story where the adopted Batman on Earth 2 gets saved by his adopted…adopted family. And of course, Batman is salty that he had someone help him. The really cool thing here is that we get a look at Terry McGinnis and Batman Beyond on this Earth. I am a man who is happy with very simple things.

This leads to the main narrative of Part Two. I’m a little confused here, but I think that the beginning of Supergirl’s story here is either a retconned introduction from when she was introduced originally in the Tomorrowverse, or it’s an introduction to an alternate version of her. Ther isn’t a lot to go on here, so I just roll with it. You can tell that Supergirl is the main point of this movie, because all throughout, she is front and center of everything. Even though she was still the focus of Legion of Super-Heroes, it still feels like something fresh because it isn’t Batman or Superman.

The ancillary plot dealt with Charles Halsted using his powers as Psycho Pirate to manipulate an old man who I assumed was Doctor Fate into…something. You know, I will never not think Psycho Pirate is a great name. The scene ends with Psycho Pirate getting Doctor Fate’s ability to jump between realities. Be prepared for this, there’s going to be quite a bit of power gifting and borrowing throughout.

Ultimately, Psycho Pirate’s story gets really boring throughout the middle of the story, until he gets brought into the plot of the Monitor trying to keep the multiverse alive. If you’ve read Crisis on Infinite Earths, you know where Psycho Pirate’s story goes. Ultimately being vain enough to be enticed to have an entire universe for his machinations. The being known as the Anti-Monitor persuades Psycho Pirate to completely screw up Monitor’s plan, sending Supergirl into a rage. Not to mention he also projects rage down to the Earths still under the protection of the collective multiversal Justice League.

The pacing was a lot slower, because you had a lot of story to get through. From Harbinger continuing to recruit people, to the story of Monitor finally gaining empathy and motive, it felt like a great juxtaposition to the action filled first movie. The dialing down of the action until the final act of part two give us time to digest the more cosmic side of this. Yeah, the boots on the ground will work for the first and probably third parts, but we needed more.

While this isn’t the best movie DC has put out, this is a great companion to Justice League: Crisis on Middle Earths Part One. I feel like that once all three parts are released, this will be a great series to take in at once. I know some people will take this slower, more plodding movie and get turned off because there was little to no fighting or action until the last 15 minutes of the 90+ minute movie.

Ultimately, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2 was a great watch. It was 93 minutes of movie that felt about 40. We got enough story to remedy the decent lack of story and background that was missing from Part One. Just keep in mind that Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2 is a part of a greater whole.