Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Justice League: Warworld 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Randy Miller III July 24, 2023

Jeff Wamester's Justice League: Warwold is DCAU's newest offering, a Tomorrowverse film that finds familiar faces in unfamiliar territory with no real knowledge of how they got there. Four stories are very loosely tied together and flow in a mostly staccato anthology format, which might make casual fans think they're watching the first several episodes of an abandoned TV series. Some are better than others but none are perfect, leaving what's essentially half of a solid end product that will likely only appeal to die-hard fans of the studio's ongoing animated productions.

The first segment finds Wonder Woman (wonderfully voiced by Stana Katic) riding solo in the Old West, defending the mostly innocent townspeople against lawless Jonah Hex (Troy Baker) and his band of ruffians. It's unsurprisingly lean on dialogue and relies mostly on Western tropes and, while the setting and general plotline are fine enough, any real tension is deflated by the simple fact that Wonder Woman's essentially blowing through the game on Goddess mode: no one -- and I mean no one -- poses a real threat, so it's ultimately hard to care about what happens.

Our next segment smash-cuts to the desolate world of Skartaris, mostly inhabited by barbarian types including the appropriately gruff and grumpy mercenary Bruce Wayne (Jensen Ackles), who's stuck in the middle of a war between his captor Warlord (Teddy Sears) and the dastardly wizard Deimos (Damian O’Hare) along with Machiste (Roger Cross) and a few chessecake-y female warriors... including Wonder Woman, again. Theirs is a more journey-driven narrative and thus more compelling than the previous short; it's got better stand-alone moments too, though it takes a few too many swipes from Conan the Barbarian and even the climax of Aladdin if you squint hard enough.

The third segment eventually kinda-sorta blends into the last one, and its beginning scenes are perhaps the best that Warworld gets: we're dropped into the black-and-white Cold War-torn town of Grover's Mill where FBI Agent Faraday (Frank Grillo) and his new partner Clark Kent (Darren Criss) are on the trail of possible alien visitor. Their search has lead them to a roadside diner where several persons of interest are staying warm, including... yep, you guessed it, Diana Prince AKA Wonder Woman, and paranoia grows as their investigation takes shape. As the story progresses, this segment eventually shifts to full color and, from there, our primary (and eventually, fully costumed) heroes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a very special friend all face off against the evil Mongul (Robin Atkin Downes), who seems to be behind everything. We also get to see Lobo (John DiMaggio), which is always a good time.

Though not without its bright spots, Warwold is so oddly put together that it's almost not worth picking apart; this is the kind of movie you'll have to take a face value to enjoy, as the spine of its narrative is so weak that I'll assume it was written by multiple writers and no one got exactly what they wanted. The beefed-up blood and violence -- which earned it a rare "R" rating among DCAU releases -- is more distracting than effective, and the same goes for its stiff animation that makes much of the action feel uninspired. For these reasons Warwold isn't exactly the most essential film in DCAU's ever-growing library, which also means this judgment applies to Warner Bros.' 4K/Blu-ray home video package as well: it's got a decent enough A/V presentation, but the bonus features are sorely lacking.

Justice League: Warworld 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the included Blu-ray disc and are not indicative of the 4K's 2160p/HDR picture. For my thoughts on the 1080p transfer, please see my separate review of WB's stand-alone Blu-ray.

If you're at all familiar with most of Warner Bros.' recent DCAU 4K discs, you should know more or less what to expect here: a 2160p presentation that's overall better than its Blu-ray counterpart, but not by leaps and bounds. Most of the improvements are a result of the format's better storage and encoding, where Warworld's clean art style can be better appreciated by the lack of trace artifacts, macro blocking, and banding. Color levels get a decent but not extremely noticeable boost, with bright primaries being a general exception and the stronger variance in subtle hue differences allowing for slightly greater depth overall. Dark and light values aren't greatly affected at either end but large pockets of shadow (like the scene above) appear slightly bolder and better resolved due to tighter shadow detail and a lack of crush. So all things considered, it's certainly not a night-and-day improvement but those with medium to large-sized displays will be able to tell them apart due to the 4K's generally thicker and more substantial appearance.

Justice League: Warworld 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warner Bros.' DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is a mostly appealing effort, one that occasionally reaches heights slightly above what we've come to expect from DCAU straight-to-video movies: decent immersion and potent discrete activity, which mostly applies to action scenes (superpowered or otherwise), echo, and the original score. Conversations likewise come through clean and clear without incident, highlighting most of the solid voicework on display during the film. My only reservations apply to a handful of less polished moments where some action-related effects -- specific gunshots, punches, and other normally hard-hitting elements -- sound almost alarmingly weak in comparison, rarely carrying the weight that they need and deserve. (One sound effect might even be missing entirely: a surprising twist near the end of the first "chapter" involves a gunshot from afar that hits a character close to the camera, but there's absolutely no sound of a bullet impact in the foreground.) Yet while small parts of this lossless surround mix definitely feel a bit rushed and unpolished, the wide majority is quite good and adds to the overall viewing experience.

Justice League: Warworld 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with illustrative cover art and a matching slipcover; a Digital Copy code is tucked inside. The bonus features are much slimmer than usual for DCAU releases and don't even include the usual sneak peeks or "From the Vault" animated episodes... which is especially odd, since the loosely-related two-part Justice League Season One episode "Warworld" is mentioned and briefly shown during a featurette.

• Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes - This pair of short promotional pieces includes a few details about Justice League: Warworld's origins, story changes, development, and voice casting, with some concept art and related vintage comic panels but mostly brief interview clips with key crew members including producer Jim Krieg, executive producer Butch Lukic, DC Comics writer Tim Sheridan, and director Jeff Wamester.

• Illusions on Warworld (7:45)
• The Heroic, the Horrible, and the Hideous (7:52)

Justice League: Warworld 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jeff Wamester's Justice League: Warwold differs from its original source material, which was translated more faithfully in a two-part episode of the animated series' first season. That's not a bad thing since the guts of a good film are here, one that's more interesting than "characters facing off in an area while the crowd cheers". Yet this well-intentioned end product still fails to come together, as the separate stories feel extremely disjointed and there's almost zero attempt to create a solid narrative through-line on the way to its lackluster climax. Even so, it has its moments and the voice work is stronger than most DCAU efforts, offering a successful blend of established voice actors and one celebrity stand-in. Warner Bros' home video presentation offers decent but not overwhelmingly great A/V specs, though, and the bonus features are disappointingly lackluster. Unless you're a die-hard fan or collector, try before you buy.