After a wobbly first part and a disaster second part, this non-fan-favorite DC animation reset actually surprised me by being pretty good. Easily best of the three… mainly for managing to cohere the big crazy plot into something that made sense… and for feeling somber in its final act.

Part 3 of this franchise continues the toss-all-the-eggs-in-one-basket multiverse chaos from before, . It mainly focuses on all the core heroes that most people would recognize, with a smattering of the randos from part 2 just to remind us that film wasn’t a waste of time (which it was).

The structure of the film still feels like a lot of junk tossed at the wall… time travelling dinosaurs anyone? And, for awhile, I thought we were just going to be mired in these random asides… that is until one such aside – one with The Flash and John Constantine – turned out not to be a random aside after all. More of a key to the crisis… and, more importantly, something that mattered to the plot.

It’s my understanding the comic book version of this story was a reboot without of the heroes without all the baggage. And I can see how that would have worked now in this film. And I liked the big sci-fi ideas that rounded out the story and made it make sense (mostly). It was actually a pretty somber, sober finale which I didn’t see coming. Probably could have moved at a faster clip though… but I guess they had a lot of elements to resolve.

It’s that final act pacing and the random assortment of stuff, especially in the first act, that means I can’t give this entry a higher score. But it gets a good score and is the best in the sequence of films. Probably it doesn’t live up to the comics, but I’m not a comic fan and ignorance is bliss. It worked for me and makes me wonder if all these DC animated films really will reboot?

Score: 84