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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis is a 2015 direct-to-video animated superhero film featuring the DC Comics superhero team the Justice League, which is part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies and of DC Animated Movie Universe. The film is loosely based on the Throne of Atlantis story arc from The New 52 written by Geoff Johns and serves as a standalone sequel to 2014's Justice League: War. In the film, Arthur Curry, a half-Atlantean prince, discovers his heritage and aids the Justice League in preventing his half-brother Ocean Master from taking over Metropolis. The film was released for downloading on January 13, 2015 and was released on Blu-ray and DVD formats on January 27, 2015.
Jason O'Mara, Christopher Gorham, Sean Astin, Shemar Moore, Steven Blum, George Newbern, and Melique Berger reprise their respective roles from Justice League: War, while Nathan Fillion reprises his role as Green Lantern / Hal Jordan from Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Justice League: Doom and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.
While on patrol in the Atlantic, the entire crew of the nuclear submarine USS California is killed by an unknown attacker. At S.T.A.R. Labs' Justice League headquarters, Cyborg is given the news by Colonel Steve Trevor. He teleports to the sub via a Boom tube, finds hand prints on the hull and discovers that nuclear missiles are missing. Cyborg, Flash, Shazam, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Batman inspect the recovered California. Diana identifies the enemy as warriors from Atlantis, beings turned into underwater creatures by their king's mystical trident. Superman and Batman decide to meet Atlantis-expert Stephen Shin.
In Atlantis, Prince Orm and Black Manta meet with Orm's mother, Queen Atlanna, where they argue over declaring war on the humans. Orm blames the Justice League for his father's death, while Queen Atlanna blames Darkseid. Orm wishes to attack first, but Atlanna silences him and asks Mera to bring Arthur Curry (her other son) to Atlantis. Black Manta uses a craft disguised as a US Navy submarine to attack Atlantis using the stolen missiles to frame the humans. Batman and Superman locate Shin's home and his destroyed research. Superman finds a photograph of Curry and a letter revealing Arthur is half-Atlantean. Shin meets Arthur but he is killed by Atlantean soldiers sent by Black Manta. Arthur is blasted out of his collapsing house; Mera saves him and dispatches the soldiers using her hydrokinetic powers.
Reviews were mixed. Scott Mendelson of Forbes felt that the film retrod old ground with Aquaman's origin story and that it paled in comparison to the Justice League two-part episode titled "The Enemy Below", which featured a similar plot. However, Mendelson did praise "the choice to center on Aquaman as opposed to yet-another Batman-centric story," but overall felt "that Aquaman [was] the least interesting character in his own movie." IGN gave the film a 6.5/10 rating and stated that the film "falters in its second half, delivering an only somewhat enjoyable Aquaman movie."
For ToonZone.net, reviewer Ed Liu segregated his review into two sections: one for the "good news" and one for the opposite. For the positive, Liu said, "[t]he quality of the animation is a nice cut above nearly all TV animation and falls just short of feature film levels", and praised the voice cast, however, for the bad, Liu said "it’s mostly downhill from there", referring to the flimsy motivations of the villain, the inconsistencies with the characters and the plot and the unnecessary inclusion of the Justice League. Brian Lowry of Variety gave the film a relatively positive review, stating that DC Universe Animated Original Movies "remain an area where DC consistently outclasses Marvel," and that "entries like Throne of Atlantis reinforce a sense that in the game of animation, anyway, they’re leading the wave, not behind it."
As of June 2018, the film has earned $4,315,933 in domestic home video sales.
