Review: Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Cosmic Clash (2016)

Director: Rick Morales | 75 minutes | animation, action, adventure | Original Voice Cast: Troy Baker, Nolan North, Gray Griffin, Kari Wahlgren, Phil LaMarr, Yuri Lowenthal, James Arnold Taylor, Khary Payton, Phil Morris, Josh Keaton, Jessica DiCicco, Andy Milder, Jason Spisak

A group of aliens are playing a harmless ball game when they are attacked. Their planet Earatavixlu is reduced in size with a shrinkage radius and put in a bottle. An avid collector of planets believes he is doing creatures a favor; after all, their planet is now forever preserved. But due to his own clumsiness, the planet is no longer in great shape and now he has to find another planet that can be placed on the shelf between planet Dzizz and planet Eberth. Would “earth” qualify?

In ‘Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Cosmic Clash’, the Justice League (consisting of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Cyborg) after Batman catches them playing hide and seek an old acquaintance of Superman, Brainiac, the aforementioned collector. It’s up to the Justice League to thwart its plan to add Earth to its collection. The Justice League seems to succeed for a while, thanks to the powers of Superman, until Brainiac unexpectedly has another trick up his sleeve: he sends Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman to different periods in time. The Batmobile is converted into a time machine and with the help of the lightning-fast The Flash, Batman tries his colleagues – or are they secretly his friends too? – to get back.

If you are a fan of the earlier “Lego DC Comics” movies, you can add “Cosmic Clash” to your collection without risk. It’s more of the same, not better, not worse. The references to, for example, “Back to the Future” are nice (and a good reason to introduce your children to those films). It’s also funny that Supergirl makes her appearance in this movie, although as a superhero you can’t really take her seriously. But given the exaggerated caricatured characters (the characteristics of the superheroes are greatly enlarged) that characterize these Lego films, it fits, um, the way Lego bricks fit together. The bickering between the superheroes (especially Batman is on fire) is often comical and the cartoon-like action is easy to follow for the youngest viewers. Nice film, which you can safely watch several times.