PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological* I've not been able to find any online references to the genesis of this project, though unlike most Warners Animation DTV films, it had an early release to Target stores. TRAPPED has, in addition to a different header than all other JUSTICE LEAGUE films, a more "all ages" feel than the rest of the films, and it's been speculated that the characters were re-designed to fit the costumes seen in the then-current "New 52" comics-line. TRAPPED is basically watchable superhero fare, and though its time-travel plotline has its share of plot-holes, it's not nearly as morally noxious as JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX. The plot commences with Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom setting up a world-conquest scheme in the snowy arctic, and the League shows up to stop them. After a pretty good opening fight-scene, Luthor is inundated by an avalance and supposedly killed, after which the Legion members scatter. Immediately two plot-holes manifest: why aren't the super-competent heroes able to capture even one of the escaping villains, and why can't the hyper-powered Superman find a body covered in snow?
Of course, the reason is that mere consistency would interfere with the contrived plot. The viewer is then transported to the 30th century, where, as comics mavens know, the Legion of Super-Heroes resides. The script does a poor job of explaining what the Legion is, trusting only to a short conversation between two Legion candidates, Dawnstar and Karate Kid. That same conversation provides exposition as to the fate of Luthor: at some point in time, he was found encased in solid ice. So the advanced inhabitants of the 3oth century take the presumably dead body of a 21st century human-- and put it on display, rather than giving the corpse a decent burial? But the body has to be on display, because Luthor's just in suspended animation a la Captain America (albeit for centuries), and Karate Kid has to have the chance to screw up and release the villain. Luthor uses a conveniently placed weapon to knock out the aspirant heroes, and then, in the process of figuring out where and when he is, the bald evildoer reads up on the history of Superman-- including the story of his advent to Earth and his secret ID as Clark Kent.
Luthor also manages to release from captivity a Legion villain, The Time-Trapper, who makes it possible for both baddies to seek out the 21st century. Luthor re-assembles most of the Legion and sends them back in time to rewrite Superman's history by making sure he's not raised by the Kents. Meanwhile, Dawnstar and Karate Kid also travel back to 2014. They both get into a fight with Robin-- though I was never sure which Robin-- but other League members show up, and Wonder Woman interrogates the would-be Legionnaires with her magic lasso. Once the Leaguers are apprised of the situation, they too travel back in time to the period when the Kents found Baby Kal-El. All of these attempts to change or restore history are silly, but they lead to the film's most amusing scenes: when Solomon Grundy and Cheetah masquerade as Kal-El's parents to keep him out of the hand of the Kents. (In some of the darker comics of this era, the two villains probably would have just killed the prospective parents of Superman rather than bothering with a hoax.)
After that moderately entertaining sequence, the rest of the film falls into a predictable series of aimless fights and paradoxes, none of which I found interesting. Naturally, things get reset to the original default so that Luthor no longer knows Superman's big secret and the two 30th-century heroes go back home. Most of the dialogue is forgettable too, though I liked some of the lines written for Michael Donovan's Bizarro. TRAPPED's worst aspect is that after the status quo has been restored, the script throws in a last-minute cliffhanger. Possibly the architects of this production were finagling to guarantee a sequel, but all they succeeded in doing was to leave the younger audiences in a state of perpetual puzzlement.
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