Justice League Dark: Apokolips War / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: There's a lot of ambiguity on what exactly Lex Luthor is up to. He claims to have been feeding info to Lois since the beginning but his line after the brainwashed Batman figures it out implies he might have been just hedging his bets by playing both sides. Not that it saves him.
Angst Aversion: Many reviews give a very clear warning that this film is very violent and people should steer clear if they can't stomach it.
Audience-Alienating Ending: The entire Animated Universe ends with a Pyrrhic Victory as most of the heroes are dead, insane, or crippled and the Earth left near-inhospitable. This leads to Constantine convincing Flash to go back in time and prevent the tragedy from happening, which will change the entire timeline. Many fans feel that this makes the entire DCAMU not worth watching or getting invested in.
Badass Decay: The whole Justice League, being unable to defeat the Paradooms, who individually are weaker than Batgirl, and can be killed by standard weaponry. Especially notable with Wonder Woman, who was one of the few heroes (alongside Superman) who managed to put up a fight with Doomsday, but is easily beaten by some second-rate clones.
Broken Base: The film is almost overwhelmingly bleak and dark, making it a big Contested Sequel. For some this darkness just makes it overly edgy for no reason other than to kill off fan favourite characters, but others feel that the darkness is justified since this is a Justice League story where Darkseid won and this is logically what would happen based on the depiction of Apokolips in the comics.
Catharsis Factor: After seeing all the horrific things Darkseid has done to the heroes and the Earth, it's very satisfying to watch the Invincible Villain get beaten and overpowered by Trigon, of all people.
Contested Sequel: Either the film is an Even Better Sequel and an awesome conclusion to the DCAMU for the various risks it takes such as most of the cast being non-Leaguers/non-Titans, allowing them to take the spotlight instead or is an edgefest that disservices beloved characters by giving them overly violent and unceremonious deaths/fates, sealed with a Audience-Alienating Ending.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Etrigan as a bored and drunken Deadpan Snarker Blood Knight is a lot of fun.
- King Shark quickly garnered a large fandom due to the Signature Scene revealing he and Constantine used to date, and that their relationship ended on good terms.
- Captain Boomerang for delivering some of the funniest moments in the movie. His role as the Plucky Comic Relief who for once doesn’t turn his back on his teammates was well-received in such a dark film. Bonus points for kicking ass against Paradooms.
Fanfic Fuel: Two years have passed since the failed invasion plan and one wonders what events occurred and what was everyone doing during those two years.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Constantine spent the entire movie obsessing over Zatanna - made heartbreaking with her death, but a lot of fans were surprisingly rather cool towards the pairing (feeling it made him too unlikable) and instead hoped that he and King Shark would get back together.
Friendly Fandoms: With fans of the early Darker and Edgier DC Extended Universe movies, particularly those directed by Zack Snyder. A number of these fans have praised the movie as the closest thing they'll likely get to Snyder's original five-film arc (which was Cut Short due to the financial underperformance of Snyder's films relative to their massive budgets).
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Superman donning Lex Luthor's war suit due to being depowered becomes this when, in the same week this movie was released, his cousin in the Arrowverse does the same thing in the latest episode of her show.
- While there were naturally many differences, Apokolips War turned out to be pretty similar to what Zack Snyder had planned for Justice League 2, the plans of which were released a few years after the film came out, especially in regards to Darkseid defeating the heroes and taking over the earth, brainwashing a hero into being his servant, and using time travel to undo his victory.
Just Here for Godzilla:
- Some fans are only interested in the film to see how the Signature Scene of Constantine and King Shark plays out in context.
- Practically every comic book fan wanted to see Trigon take on Darkseid to see who is stronger, a debate that has been going on for decades.
Like You Would Really Do It: Plenty of main characters are Killed Off for Real, on-screen and in the most gruesome ways. But as the film's body count climbs to insane heights, Earth is reduced to ruin and even the entire Green Lantern Corps is annihilated, it becomes increasingly obvious that the story can only end with a Cosmic Retcon. This goes double for anyone familiar with DC Rebirth replacing the New 52.
Narm:
- The constant axing of characters at random can come off as this due to how unceremonious and gory they are, such as Lady Shiva getting killed by a random sniper.
- While the characters themselves are quite fearsome and manage to kill a good chunk of the cast, Darkseid's elite warriors being called "Paradooms" still makes it kind of hard to take them seriously.
Narm Charm: Is Clark's costume spontaneously forming on him when he purges Trigon's possession (with The Power of Love no less) and regains his powers mildly goofy? Yes. Does that diminish the awesomeness of seeing Superman reborn as well as the heartbreaking / awesome moment of Lois Heroic Sacrifice? Not a chance.
Nausea Fuel: The movie turns the Squick up to eleven with very graphic sequences, like dismemberment, characters being ripped apart, and a lot of blood.
Older Than They Think: Constantine's former relationship with King Shark isn't all that new, considering his comic version's been an Extreme Omnisexual since the '90s.
Popular with Furries: The movie's depiction of King Shark is up there in being one of the more beloved versions, also helped that the movie confirmed that he and Constantine was in a relationship. Up there with his appearances in Harley Quinn (2019) and The Suicide Squad
Salvaged Story: One point of contention in the earlier movies was how Damian Wayne was able to defeat guys who should realistically be stronger and more skilled than him, up to and including Batman himself. In this movie, a brainwashed Batman beats down Damian, admits he was holding back and that he let Damian win in the past, and establishes himself without a shadow of a doubt as Damian's superior in combat.
Signature Scene:
- The scene where it turns out Constantine used to date King Shark quickly made rounds on social media, particularly when King Shark gives him a wink.
- The shot of Starfire's disemboweled corpse also circulated around as the biggest show of proof of the movie's gruesome nature, especially since Starfire is widely known for her cheery and upbeat personality.
- The Justice League being brutally torn apart by Darkseid and his Paradooms, due to the graphic deaths of some of DC's most beloved heroes.
- The final battle between Trigon and Darkseid, two of DC's biggest villains, which is a duel fans have wanted to see for ages.
Special Effect Failure: The CGI used for the Paradooms against the Suicide Squad are quite... dodgy, to say the least.
Spiritual Successor:
- Many people, on seeing screenshots alone, began asking when DC decided to make a Futures End movie. The comparisons are based on the heavy violence, After the End setting, heroes turned into cyborg zombies, and a time-travel-based ending that renders the whole story pointless.
- Along the same lines, the bleak tone, apocalyptic setting, and truly massive amount of character deaths have caused some fans to call the film DC's version of Ultimatum.
- The film appears to also borrow heavily from Earth 2,^note about Apokolips invading and the remaining heroes fighting a losing war after the defeat of the DC Trinity, planet Earth eventually becoming "consumed" by Darkseid and Apokolips, and in the finale the heroes utilize a mystical rebooting of reality to resurrect "their" Earth.
- It could be virtually seen as an extremely darker and nearly M-rated almost-remake of the Justice League animated series finale episode "Destroyer".
Strangled by the Red String: Many DC fans who had no opinion one way or another on any Raven ship found the Raven/Damian pairing to be uncomfortable and forced and consider the development between them in previous installments to have been lackluster at best if they were attempting to justify making an entire movie focusing heavily on their relationship.
They Copied It, So It Sucks!: While still acknowledging how it takes two years to put these movies together, some reviews have accused the film of trying to follow on the coattails of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, in that the surviving heroes sought to recoup from the loss of their friends and allies to an unstoppable villain and band together to stop said villain. Also, like with Endgame, the heroes (or at least one of them in this case) wants to try to fix everything via time travel.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While the premise of the entire DC Universe uniting for an epic Crisis Crossover is an intriguing one, only a select handful of characters actually get significant screentime or even dialogue. Most of the returning characters (perhaps most egregiously the Teen Titans who aren't Raven and the Batman Family except Damian) are either Demoted to Extras or killed off without much fanfare.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The movie earns its R rating with some truly gory deaths and even an f-bomb, almost like a horror movie, despite starring Superman, Batman and other heroes.
The Woobie: He hides it well, but just imagine John Constantine living with the memory of how he left the love of his life to be torn apart by monsters while she screamed his name. He was magically compelled to flee, but didn't discover that until years later, so he's been forced to live with his actions all that time. It's bad enough that simply the mention of Zatanna's name is what makes Constantine rejoin the fight.

YMMV / Justice League Dark: Apokolips War

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