Neil Welch As a comic fan, you cannot do anything other than completely dismiss the 1997 pilot for a Justice League series which, surprise surprise, never materialised (how could it, after drivel like this?). What went wrong? "Everything", although true, is a bit glib, so let's look in more detail.Characterisation - although clearly based on the Giffen-era humorous Justice League, the producers seem to have lost their nerve and have gone for limp, half-hearted characterisations which comprehensively miss the point of every character.Casting - see characterisation. David Ogden Stiers as J'onn J'onzz? Um, no, I don't think so.Costumes - simply awful. Utterly, irredeemably awful. You can't believe how awful unless you actually see them, and I honestly can't suggest that you do.Special effects - these must have cost at least ninepence. Green Lantern's droopy string of mildly glowing toothpaste is the least convincing special effect ever.Dialogue - grimly unimpressive.Plot - might have been barely adequate if everything else had been OK.Direction - well, someone has to be held responsible.If you are not a comics fan, take note - this film is not very good. If you are a comics fan, avoid this film - it will make you weep.

gohmifune I'm a comic book fan, mainly DC, so I'm no stranger to the league. I was also a fan of the original Flash TV series, so them using Barry under a completely different interpretation is a bit of an adjustment. However, this wasn't bad, this wasn't bad at all.For those who don't know, this is JLA based on a very popular run of JLA and JLI that was known for it's humor and interpersonal dynamics. It was a good run, the kind you enjoy because it has you laughing and caring about the characters. This pilot is very much inspired by it. It is dialog and interaction heavy, which helps compensate for a low budget, and a lack of direction. As far as failed pilots go, Global Frequency this is not.The story has the main characters go up against "The Weatherman," who is actually a very interesting villain in the context of the show. He's not easily defeated, but he's not one of these world crushing supervillians that Superman or Batman could take down in an instant, but provides enough challenge for the heroes to take him down. It's a story just big enough to open with, and for a pilot film, that's what it should be.THe acting is solid, realistically you can't expect too much, it's just a pilot that is done in what seems to be, and unorganized manner, so that effects the actors. The actors are solid, most you've probably seen somewhere, a few even have had their own shows and been successful, so the acting isn't bad. At worst it lacks energy, at best I'm smiling and laughing.Script could've been better, it does it's job, but could have been better.The single worst part of the whole movie, sadly, is the costumes. The costumes, while decent, look cheap and impractical, Fire not wearing a mask, Atom wearing what looks like body armor, and Green Lanterns costume looking somewhat...blue. The costumes are distracting, but most likely would have been improved in time.You know, this is really good, there's a lot of potential for drama and humor, the characters are solid, and interact well, Atom and Ice especially, and really, the idea of having a superhero show that is more about the heroes than the heroics is a good idea. It is a shame that it didn't get a chance to grow into something special.

sarastro7 Well. I thought Kim Oja was good. The rest of the movie was barely watchable.I am a comics collector. This movie did not have much to do with the comics that inspired it. If it had been based on Keith Giffen's run, where was the Blue Beetle? Where was the wacky humor? Why did they use a personality-amputated Guy Gardner as Green Lantern (whose costume, idiotically, was blue)? Why was the Flash (who wasn't in Giffen's run) such a bonehead?The characters in this pilot acted like they virtually didn't like each other. Their costumes were pretty damn silly, esp. Atom's. The villain didn't seem to have any motivation. The story was semi-coherent, unengaging and holey (what was Arliss' project, that he kept trying to draw attention to?). Maybe I missed some details, I dunno. But that's because they were eminently missable.Still, since there is such a lack of superhero movies around, I'll be generous and award this a 5 out of 10 rating.

JasonLeeSmith This never-aired pilot for a potential JLA TV show was almost universally derided. Mark Waid (a noted comics writer) called it a waste of an hour and a half. From all the stills from the movie which I had seen, I fully expected it to be horrible.Therefore I was pleasently surprised to find it to be a light, airy movie with plenty of nice character development. The characters only bear a passing resemblance to their comic book counterparts, but they are written with such warmth, that it didn't really matter. I found myself liking them, despite my preconceived notions about the movie.I found the characters to be well-rounded and believable (though very different from the comics), and I thoroughly enjoyed the way that they worked together.The plot could have been better, it wasn't all that exciting. Unknown villain manipulates the city's weather, the JLA have to discover who he is. The JLA did most of their work out of costume, making it more reminiscent of spy shows like "Mission Impossible" or "Charlie's Angels" than the JLA comic book.The budget for the movie was clearly non-existant. Some of the weather effects weren't too bad, but most of the other special effects were very lame. This isn't all that surprising for a pilot. What I think hurt the movie the most, and probably is what prevented it from ever being aired, were the Justice League's super-hero costumes. They were embarassingly bad. The man who played the Flash was young and in good shape, however, in the costume he looked fat and middle-aged. Atom's costume was a disaster of foam rubber that looked as if it were about to fall off at any moment. Fire and Ice had good costumes, and Green Lantern's was almost OK. They could probably have played it to better effect, if they'd had the actors perform wearing ordinary T-shirts with the logos silk-screened on them. The costumes from the movie looked comical, and I think prevented a lot of people from even trying to take the movie seriously.From the standpoint of a comics reader, its clear they weren't trying to capture the grandeur of the current Justice League as depicted in the comics and the excellent series on Cartoon Network. They were trying to depict a TV version of the Justice League from the early 90's as depicted by Keith Giffen and JM DeMathiess (and later by Gerard Jones and others). I think they managed to succeed in depicting a close-knit team of people, decidely less super than the heroes we currently see in the comics, but much more human. I liked it.