--Superman, Injustice
The story of the Injustice game has been ripe for cinematic translation for some time. A tale of Superman finally succumbing to some of the same ideas and behaviors that he once would have totally rejected has great potential to explore justice, moral epistemology, the paradoxical nature of conflicting desires, and hypocrisy as it reveals classic characters in a new light. With the animated film adaptation of Injustice, there are plenty of stellar and subpar choices made. This movie deviates heavily from the story of the game. Ultimately, this is not negative on its own! Other than things like Wonder Woman making romantic advances on her ally Kal-El after he begins forcibly demanding all humans to stop hurting each other and the multiverse getting involved in the ultimate resolution, Injustice as a film has little to do with the specific plot of the game after Superman kills Joker and becomes a self-imposed ruler of Earth. The cast of characters and the plot are actually not problematic at all, and yet the fairly short length of the film hinders some of the worldbuilding and themes.
Production Values
All at once, Injustice both jumps into a very full universe with everything from an active League of Assassins to established affection between Catwoman and Batman and spends very little time showing many characters. This latter fact does not necessarily make characters inaccurate by general comic standards (as if that has anything to do with quality characterization in the first place), and the animation is smooth all the way across this not even 90 minute tale. There are even some brief moments that reveal much about the characters and their relationships. Catwoman mimicking something Batman just said moments after he grapples away or Plastic Man making his middle finger a key to unlock a door before showing it to Cyborg help develop certain characters even in very small parts of the movie. Then there is Superman: Superman is by far the most nuanced and philosophically complicated cast member, and at least his motivations, actions, and contradictory beliefs are obvious no matter what many people have said about there being no character development or nothing good about the film.
If one looks at reviews and comments from the seeming majority of viewers, people tend to mistakenly believe that making the movie different from the game in terms of story and resolution somehow proves that the movie is abysmal. Others act as if there is no character development at all despite some characters having clear arcs and others having moments that emphasize their psychologies, worldviews, and powers rather well. Unpredictably killing fan favorite characters also does not mean a movie has low quality (ironically, 2021's The Suicide Squad was praised for this very thing--critics can be very inconsistent with their criticisms of different DC projects, which inevitably means that not all of their beliefs could be accurate at once). Much of the popular criticism for Injustice is exaggerated or outright erroneous and would be easily avoided by not emotionalistically examine this animated project.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Joker and Harley Quinn achieve their largest victory against the Justice League when they kidnap Lois Lane, use hallucinogenic gas to make Superman perceive her as Doomsday, and let him unknowingly kill her (though he could have known, like everyone can, that the sense of sight proves nothing about the external world and thus is not probably accurate). Superman begins enforcing an intended peace through force until he outright murders more people, with Wonder Woman taking his side against the world until he drives her to reconsider her ideological allegiances. Batman, meanwhile, assembles a plan to stop his rogue friend, but he needs the help of other heroes and even current or former villains/anti-heroes to reach the final step.
Intellectual Content
From the moment that he kills Joker onward, the Kryptonian who has protected the world now tries to impose a dictatorial will. While a dictatorship is only negative if a dictator is evil (if morality does not exist, then no dictator can have moral flaws, and if morality does exist, his or her autocratic regime is not evil unless it does specifically immoral things), Superman initially refuses to acknowledge that he now has more in common with some established villains than he would like, denying that he and Rhaas Al Ghul share the utilitarian idea that murdering people is good because they cannot do evil even as the similarities are right before his own mind. Mr. Terrific tells Superman in a great scene that if he wants to save lives, he should jail or kill everyone who smokes cigarettes, who speeds while driving, who leaves a dangerous dog unchained, and so on--which Superman does not endorse. The randomness of his willingness to live out some of his own moral preferences is seemingly noted by some like Mr. Terrific. However, Superman has a firm ally in Wonder Woman, who says the one law they will enforce is to do what is right, but unless there is literally just one moral obligation, this is an absolutely idiotic belief. She could not possibly prove even if it was true! Moreover, how could she know what is morally right from her subjective perceptions, and why would she be too inept to see or care that her preferences are not more epistemologically important than the insignificant whims of other people?
Then Aquaman and others object to her claims, asking if Superman and Wonder Woman would decide how to punish criminals, with the implication being that they cannot be morally correct by default--but every single member of the Justice League only acts out of conformity to conscience or social norms, so none of them are ever philosophically valid or even consistent in the first place. A United States general even later says that it is fine when Superman opposes governments when it is in the interests of American leaders but not when it does not suit their whims. In short, none of the characters do anything but make moral assumptions and pretend that any assumption they have is actually any less of an asinine, blind shot in the dark than the assumptions of other people. None of them look to reason to realize that morality does not even exist unless it is tied to a theistic being. Conscience proves only that conscience exists and that some people feel a certain way about certain things that does not necessarily match up with how others feel.
Conclusion
No, it is in some ways not as good as the game, but the beginning and ending of the Injustice film in particular are still excellent at setting up and culminating the deep philosophical issues associated with the general Injustice story in other media. Although there are many DC characters packed into this movie that does not even have a 90 minute runtime, this crowding of the story could have been far worse. It has moments of greatness that just did not have the advantage of a 120+ minute story to explore some characters and themes more than turned out to be the case. In spite of this limitation, for what it is, Injustice still changes the base story into something more unique for a new medium and has at least several scenes of philosophical and personal weight--a live action Injustice movie or series that took more time to build up inner and outer conflict could be spectacular, but even at its worst, the animated Injustice movie still has embers of quality.
Content:
1. Violence: Sprays of blood are repeatedly shown, with the more brutal killing blows landing outside of the camera's perspective.
2. Profanity: Words like "shit" are used.
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