YMMV / Injustice (2021)

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The participants of the Joker-themed rave. Uncaring morons venerating an unrepentant mass-murdering Straw Nihilist? Or freedom-loving citizens opposed to Superman's Regime and latching on to the most visible symbol of anti-Superman anti-authority?
• Americans Hate Tingle: Due to Misplaced Nationalism, many people in India and Pakistan were livid over the scene where Superman destroys each country's military and declares Kashmir a no-combat zone. There was even a movement on social media to get the movie banned, and for some people, to get Superman as a character banned as well.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Barry Allen gets quite the Death by Adaptation treatment, dying before even Lois Lane... and absolutely no one seems to care. His death never comes up, with everyone acting as if he never existed at all. Not even Hal Jordan, who is supposed to be Heterosexual Life-Partners with the Scarlet Speedster, makes a comment on his close friend's death in his own brief appearance. This is particularly noteworthy since the Injustice games are actually some of the few DC adaptations to portray Hal and Barry's friendship.
  • Most of the other characters don’t get it much better; Atom, Green Arrow, Hawkman, and Cyborg are all unceremoniously killed off, and are forgotten about shortly after they meet their demises.
  • Although Dick comes back as Deadwing to console with Damien after he accidentally killed him, he oddly does not come back to comfort Bruce, his surrogate father, even though he has taken his sudden death the hardest.
• Broken Base: This proved to be a divisive movie for many;
  • Due to the Compressed Adaptation nature of the movie many changes were made to the original games and comics that angered some fans. Notable complaints being shortened or completely excised story arcs, some further Death by Adaptation, and many characters being Adapted Out at worst or Demoted to Extra at best. On the other hand there's also a contingent of fans, who didn't hold the Injustice franchise in high-regard, who liked what they saw as multiple Author's Saving Throw being given to characters who were felt given the raw deal in the original Injustice material (Wonder Woman, Damian Wayne, Nightwing) and felt compressing the prequel material to one movie cut a lot of filler material from the comics.
  • The decision to not use to original voice actors from the games. Some felt it was fine and liked to hear new voices for the characters while others thought the new voices were poor substitutes in comparison to the DCAU alumni.
  • The story atmosphere seemed more 'hopeful' with some characters that were problematic getting fixed for better (like Wonder Woman and to some extent Damian Wayne), and Superman himself came to his senses on how far he has fallen and willingly put himself to custody out of remorse. For the supporters, it's a much welcome change since they felt that the original fell onto Too Bleak, Stopped Caring and perhaps there could be hope for this particular verse after all. For the detractors, this was said to be removing what's interesting about Injustice in the first place and the ending is considered to be Esoteric Happy Ending for several other factors not addressed. Nevertheless, fans are sharply divided over the movie's quality, to the point it's often the deciding factor in what one thinks of the Injustice franchise as a whole.
• Catharsis Factor: Just like in the games and comic, Superman's murder of the Joker is immensely satisfying.
• Complete Monster: The Joker here lacks the sole redeeming quality of his original counterpart. After getting bored from losing to Batman, he decides to go after Superman, murdering the latter's best friend Jimmy Olsen and kidnapping his Love Interest Lois Lane. The Joker then brainwashes Superman with a combination of kryptonite and Scarecrow's fear toxin, which he had previously killed Scarecrow for, and left a trap that kills the Flash. The toxin makes Superman kill Lois and her unborn child. Just for pleasure, Joker had linked the nuke's trigger to Lois's heartbeat, destroying Metropolis and killing over 11 million people.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Joker shooting Jimmy Olsen in the face? Not funny. Joker accidentally stepping in the pool of blood and complaining that he has 'Jimmy on his shoe'? Hilarious.
• Designated Hero:
  • Batman is supposed to be the more moral of the world's finest due to his no-kill policy but just comes across as a stubborn self-righteous hypocrite who cares more about getting Superman to follow his personal code rather than helping save lives. Batman doesn't try to reason with Superman other than moralistic scolding about not being the world's police and breaking the law despite Batman being a vigilante (which is illegal). Batman's organized assault on the Fortress of Solitude only escalates things between them and results in the death of the Atom, Green Arrow, and Jonathan Kent, and pushes Superman to ally with Ra's al Ghul, who came to his rescue. And for all of Batman's complaints about Superman killing Joker, he has no issue allying with Catwoman who is seen snapping the neck of a League of Assassin goon, to say nothing about him standing alongside Harley Quinn who helped murder millions.
  • Harley Quinn is this as well. She takes part in the Joker's atrocious crimes, bombs a city full of millions of innocents, and caused many of the films horrors, yet she gets to join up with the heroes and is Easily Forgiven despite not showing any regret for her decisions in this movie like she did in the games. It also doesn't help that her Character Development was adapted out so we don't get more of an understanding of her position.
• Designated Villain: For the first half of the film Superman is still treated like a pariah by half the Justice League and especially Batman for "abusing his power". Said abuses were stopping a genocide, ousting tyrannical dictators, preventing the U.S. military from committing war crimes, and sending the most dangerous Arkham patients to a more secure location, and he did it without killing anyone. While he does eventually go off the deep end, seeing Batman reprimand him before he jumps off the slippery slope comes across as nonsensical.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Plastic Man wasn't a playable character in the games and didn't have much of a presence until the sequel to the original comic, but him being a noble, comic-relief badass hero endeared him to a lot of folks who wished he was.
  • Pa Kent for being a Cool Old Guy who tries to be a Morality Chain for his son even after his tragic death.
  • The alternate-Earth pregnant Lois Lane who steps in to help stop Superman is this for having the most heartwarming moment in the movie.
• Foe Yay Shipping: During Mirror Master's encounter with Wonder Woman his first reaction is to flirt with her and compliment her body. Shortly after, Wonder Woman ties her lasso around his neck and demands he take off his clothes.
• Fridge Logic: In his brief appearance, the Reverse Flash is shown to be devastated by Barry’s death, because now he has no reason to live anymore due to Barry being gone. But if that’s the case, then why doesn’t he just use his powers to back in time to prevent Barry’s death? Keep in mind that, unlike Barry, Eobard has ZERO qualms, morals or restrains when it comes to using his powers or altering the timeline, and the heroes are too busy fighting amongst themselves because of Superman, so there is literally nothing or no one stopping Thawne from just using time travel to prevent Barry’s death. If Thawne is so sad about his arch-enemy’s death, then what the hell is stopping him from just traveling to the past to undo it?
• Inferred Holocaust: With Superman arrested, there is nothing to stop the nations from declaring war again, and the conflict escalating even further.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The largest criticism against the film is it being a Compressed Adaptation since it speeds through a lot of interesting material, overlooks many popular characters, and sadly shortens an overarching story into a smaller-scale action thriller.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Some fans feel that a lot of the movie's weakest points are derivative of the film attempting to be a faithful adaptation of the games;
  • Wonder Woman still having a one-sided attraction to Superman and why she's suddenly on board for world conquest never being explained.
  • Harley Quinn maintaining her Karma Houdini status and avoiding any and all consequences for helping nuke Metropolis and kill Lois.
  • Nighwing's Narm death via one of his own batons.
• Jerkass Woobie: Clark Kent might have turned into a murderous dictator by the end of the film, but how he got there is heartbreaking. First his best friend, wife and entire city is killed off, his best friend keeps moralizing him over killing the monster responsible and eventually leaves his side, and his father is kidnapped by the U.S. military and eventually killed by one of his former allies.
• Memetic Loser:
  • This film's incarnation of Barry Allen, due to dying very early on to a trap he easily could have avoided, and none of his friends seeming to mourn him.
  • Reverse-Flash only makes a brief appearance in the movie, drinking in a bar alongside some other villains. It's joked he's become a depressed alcoholic due to Joker killstealing Barry Allen (and tying into Barry’s status as this, there’s jokes about how Thawne is evidently the only person to have noticed the Flash’s death).
• Memetic Mutation: In reaction those complaining about Barry's death, this lead to many (particularly those don't like Injustice) responding with instances in the Injustice games and comics where other characters also didn't use their powers when appropriate or were nerfed for story contrivance. Pointing out the franchise has always worked Powers As The Plot Demands.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Both Joker and Harley cross this when they blow up Metropolis, killing 11 million people. Joker gets a well-earned death by Superman, Harley only tries to stop Superman to avenge him, and unlike her counterpart in the games, she shows absolutely no remorse for murdering millions.
  • Superman crosses it when he massacres a party of teenagers dressed up like the Joker as a way to rebel against him. Even Wonder Woman, who had been encouraging his ruthlessness is disturbed and turns against him for this, and Superman eventually thinks he crossed the line and claims he deserves death.
  • If Ra's Al Ghul didn't cross this when he attempted to destroy Gotham twice, then he crossed it when he set Amazo loose on a town, tried to kill Superman with it, and then tried to kill his own Grandson, dismissing him as nothing but a pawn in his plans.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Superman getting rid of the world's nukes. Sound familiar?
  • Many problems of the film that were pointed out; Wonder Woman being more hardline than Superman despite having less of a justification, Batman taking a strong stance against killing while working with unrepentant mass murderers like Harley Quinn, characters not using their powers because of plot contrivance can all be found in the original Injustice comics and games.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Crossing over with Author's Saving Throw but Wonder Woman in the original Injustice material was considered one of the worst aspects of the story for her drastic Adaptational Villainy in comparison to the rest of her Regime counterparts. Here while still siding with Superman and having a one-sided attraction to him, Wonder Woman realizing the error of her ways and turning against Superman when she feels he's gone too far is considered a marked improvement.
• Rooting for the Empire: Due to Batman acting like a self-righteous Jerkass hypocrite in this movie, and due to Superman doing some genuinely good things (like stopping a war and preventing war crimes, for example) and making some good points while going full dictator, a lot of people actually choose to root for Superman instead of Batman. It also helps that Batman chooses to ally himself with Catwoman and Harley Quinn (keep in mind that unlike in the games, this version of Harley never shows remorse for her crimes), who are both shown in this movie to have killed people, despite him going on and on about how killing people is bad.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Detractors of Damian Wayne will be thrilled at how the boy wonder is treated in this movie as he takes a lesson in humility. Fan favorite Dick Grayson is constantly praised as the superior sidekick over him, Batman disowns him once he joins up with Superman's Regime, and even Ra's al Ghul brands the kid as a failure over his weakness. Needless to say, it's a bit satisfying.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The Death by Adaptation treatment of several characters, most egregiously Barry Allen, who gets killed before even Lois Lane... and his death never comes up, with everyone acting as if he never existed at all.
  • Nightwing's death was one of the most scorned and mocked elements of the original comic, where Nightwing gets hit in the head by Damien and breaks his neck on a rock when he hits the ground. Here Dick only takes the blow to the head (with the sound design making it more cartoonish than anything else) with the same sticks he clobbers people around the head with on a nightly basis to no ill effect, and dies just from that.
  • Superman eventually being talked down by an alternate version of Lois Lane rather than beaten in combat by his heroic alternate self has been seen by some as an unsatisfying conclusion to the final confrontation.
  • The absence of a Superman vs Alfred Pennyworth fight, which was cited as one of the most iconic scenes in Year One and perhaps the entire Injustice prequel comic series.
  • Unlike her game counterpart, this version of Harley Quinn never shows remorse for her crimes, nor does she show any Character Development. This makes it very hard for viewers to sympathize with or root for her.
    • Related to this is the absence of Black Canary, as even those not sympathetic to Harley regarded her interactions with Dinah as one of the more enjoyable and well-written aspects of her Character Development.
  • The change of the major casts has already turned off some fans, especially since Kevin Conroy and George Newbern don't reprise their roles as Batman and Superman respectively. This is more egregious since the games manage to bring the original casts back not just once, but twice.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Barry Allen gets a confusing Death by Adaptation being killed by the Joker early on, whereas he was one of the most important characters in the original comics and game, surviving the whole series.
  • Hal Jordan, Aquaman, and Shazam are all written out of the story fairly quickly and quite unceremoniously, despite all three them having been playable characters in the game that helped contribute to its ultimate resolution.
  • Huntress is a member of Batman's resistance, but disappears from the story following the deaths of Pa Kent and Green Arrow, and isn't shown getting killed like her comic counterpart. She doesn't even get any lines of dialogue.
  • The heroic alternate Superman is reduced to a cameo appearance at the end of the movie and doesn’t even get to win the fight against Injustice Superman.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Superman in this adaptation gets a lot of his absolute worst actions from the games and comics removed that made all except the people that gave him Draco in Leather Pants treatment unable to sympathize with him despite finding Batman and co Unintentionally Unsympathetic. However, in this adaptation, Superman unintentionally comes across as a lot more justified in his actions to some viewers than what was intended as he mostly only went after dictators and super evil people and makes a lot of good points and wants to do the right thing. The movie being a Compressed Adaptation likely contributes, as he gets much less time in-universe to devolve into the ruthless murderer we see in the games.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Gen Z teenagers who idolize the Joker, which means they get incinerated by Superman. While the narrative treats this as a Moral Event Horizon, that fact remains that they were celebrating the Joker and unironically revere him as an icon of liberty. Even besides the countless bodies he left in Gotham, the Joker is the one who nuked Metropolis and set Superman on this path in the first place. They were probably supposed to just be edgy, stupid, rebellious teenagers, but out-of-universe, wholeheartedly celebrating the Card-Carrying Straw Nihilist Serial Killer goes far beyond the bounds of what's edgy, stupid, and rebellious.