Though this is not the first animated movie based on the DC comics Justice League characters, it sure is the better one. Compared to the previous "Justice League: The New Frontier", Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths benefits from a more action driven storyline and mature writing that hearkens back to the style of the award winning Justice League animated TV series.

Where New Frontier felt a bit squeezed and underdeveloped, Crisis on two earths gets the story pacing just right allowing for a fair mix of subtle character drama and high flying superhero smash-ups. The film starts on a pretty "typical" note as we see Lex Luthor and a Joker look-alike called the "Jester" break into a top secret facility and steal some device called the "Quantum trigger", prompting the DC superheroes to stop them. However things are not as it seems as apparently this is all taking place in an alternate reality where Luthor and the Jester are the good guys and the "heroes" are actually the "Crime syndicate", a corrupted bunch of super powered beings vying for world domination. The Jester is brutally dispatched as Luthor escapes to another alternate reality to enlist the help of our favorite super hero team, the Justice League.

By now, this show is sure to remind long time fans of the Justice League episodes "a better world" in which the Justice League encounters evil alternate versions of themselves. Crisis on Two Earths carries that theme but that's where the similarities end. Dwayne McDuffie manages to craft a story that stands out on its own while carrying all the elements of what made the DCAU. Most DC animation fans would have heard the rumor that this movie was supposed to be set in the same time-line as the DCAU Justice League and justice league unlimited series. Aside from the great looking new character designs (Superman looks way handsome and Wonder woman has never been hotter) and the new voice cast, these are the same characters we know and love. It might take a while to warm up to the new voices for Superman, Batman and the rest but once past that, you'll realize that the cast does a wonderful job of fleshing out their characters to be both familiar yet fresh. The Crime Syndicate is a bunch of extremely interesting villains, the perfect foil for the heroic justice league, with James Wood's Owlman stealing the show with a perfect performance.