ANI-MOVIES, *Justice League: Throne Of Atlantis

Meant to be a follow up to Justice League: War, this was based on the crossover event between the New 52 incarnations of Justice League and Aquaman comics. Where as in War, Aquaman was replaced by Shazam, this animated movie acts as an intro of Aquaman into the League, and his origin story, making it the first time outside of a few failed TV pilots that the character's backstory has even been fully fleshed out. Directed by Ethan Spaulding, who worked on the fantastic Thundercats reboot, this production features most of the cast from War, but Nathan Fillion makes a grand comeback as Green Lantern.

Set some months after Darkseid's invasion of Earth, the Justice League is called in to investigate an attack on a navy submarine in one of the deepest areas in the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time, a young lighthouse keeper named Arthur Curry is grieving over the loss of his recently departed father, when he's suddenly attacked by assassins from Atlantis, the mythical underwater city from where Arthur's mother, Queen Atlanna, who sent her agent Mera to watch over him. Mera rescues Arthur from the assassins, and brings him to an underwater safehouse. The Atlantean assassins were sent by Prince Orm, Arthur's younger half-brother who feels more entitled to the "throne of Atlantis" since he's fully Atlantean. Orm teams up with the scavenger known as Black Manta who acts as Atlantis' rep to the surface world, and the two of them plot to assassinate Atlanna and make it look like humanity attacked Atlantis. After Arthur learns about his mother, he meets up with the Justice League and heads to Atlantis, only to find Atlanna is dead, to which Orm proudly confesses to. He uses a magical royal trident to take down Arthur, Mera, and half of the League(including Superman and Wonder Woman who can somehow breathe underwater), then leaves them to be eaten by a giant Cthulu-type sea monster. The League gets free and Superman uppercuts Cthulu, while Orm leads an Atlantean army to Metrolpolis. While he easily could've just flooded the city(like he did in the comics)Orm has his laser-toting troops invade with the Justice League surprisingly all getting floored by him. Arthur quickly subdues Black Manta via a scene strait out of Deep Blue Sea, he however also succumbs to Orm's power. But Cyborg uses his recording of Orm's confession of killing his own mother, which makes the Atlantean forces switch sides to accepting Arthur as their true king. After assuming the throne, Arthur joins the League and is given the name "Aquaman" since it was such a hit online. The movie ends with a teaser for the next film of Lex Luthor meeting up with Orm in prison, possibly to start his own Legion of Doom.

Throne Of Atlantis works as a pretty good Justice League movie as you see the team come together more, although more emphasis was shown on Aquaman's origin, as well as Cyborg's adjustment to life as being half-machine. There's some slightly thrown in subplots involving Superman and Wonder Woman beginning a romance, plus a deleted scene with Nightwing and Robin(Damian Wayne)which leads into Batman Vs. Robin. The quality in production is slightly better since War, plus the fight choreography got a serious boosting. It's a little hard to see one on its own without having check out War before this, but not totally necessary to enjoy it.