Animated Movie Review: Freedom Fighters - The Ray

Freedom Fighters - The Ray [2017/2018]

In 2017, after the Crisis on Earth-X crossover between the CW DC superhero shows, we are briefly introduced to the Ray, gay superhero from Earth-1 fighting Nazis on the dystopian alternate Earth of Earth-X. Shortly afterwards, we got an animated tie-in series of shorts that ended up on a cliffhanger. It's not until recently that a proper 'second season' was released, but in the form of an entire movie that also compiles the previous 'episodes' together. 

And it's... it's an okay work, I guess. Running for slightly more than an hour, it's a prequel to how Raymond Terill ended up becoming the superhero called the Ray. It does have some continuity problems with the actual live-action continuity that we're just going to have to handwave with Oliver, Barry, Cisco and everyone else involved just having some really shoddy memory during the crossover. And that the many other colourful characters showcased here are just elsewhere when the crossover happened. 

I'm not going too in-depth as far as synopses go, since I reviewed the first half of this movie already, but it definitely flows a lot better as a single one-hour movie as opposed to a series of abruptly-ending shorts. Earth-X Ray ends up getting transported to Earth-1, dying, and giving his powers to his Earth-1 doppelganger. Becoming the Ray, he ends up going through basically the same sort of character development that most young heroes go through, which is the right way to use his powers, and whether to showboat and threaten 'evil people' with his powers. It's... it's all right, even if the script is pretty predictable. 

There's also a not-insignificant amount of screentime devoted to exploring how the Ray is a gay person who is keeping his gayness (and later on his superheroing) secret from his parents. There's... there's some attempts at trying to make parallels with hiding his gayness and hiding his superhero identity, but it's a case of not doing enough and doing too much at the same time. They don't really do enough in the romantic department to really justify focusing on it too much, while at the same time, they do have a lot of scenes of Ray flirting with his boyfriend that ends up not going anywhere. 

We also take advantage of the animated media to do a bunch of things that the live-action budget can't really manage to do, which includes Ray teaming up with Earth-1 heroes to fight a literal giant robot in the middle of the city, the re-appearance of modern-day Vixen complete with more animal powers being used instead of just gorillas, and Oliver Queen using a bunch of crazy laser-net arrows. It's neat, even if the usage of Green Arrow is puzzling since they can't get Stephen Amell back to reprise his role. Matthew Mercer does his best, but it's clear that it's a different voice actor... and compared to practically everyone else, who is voiced by returning CW actors, it's definitely off. 

Of course, Earth-X's Overgirl ends up tracking the plot device (Red Tornado's brain) to Earth-1, and beats the shit out of Ray, making him realize how much he's screwed up by glorifying in his power and not using it responsibly. Ray ends up enlisting our Vibe to zip over to Earth-X, and we get a superhero cartoon showdown as Ray teams up with the remaining Freedom Fighters on Earth-X -- Black Condor, Vibe and Phantom Lady -- to fight off Overgirl, Black Arrow and Blitzkrieg. We get your typical sappy speech, and Ray decides to stay there where he's needed more, which is... it's neat, I guess. Also, it's bizarre that Nazi Arrow ends up being arrested considering he's pretty much Fuhrer when Crisis on Earth-X happens, so... yeah, I'm just going to handwave this as "some time will have passed between Ray and Crisis."

Ultimately, it's... it's an all right feature. Probably not worth watching unless you're already caught up with the CW stuff, though -- so much of the content in this series ends up tying in to the CW universe that it's probably going to be a bizarre walk through the park if you're not at least somewhat familiar with the casts of Arrow and Flash. It's not my favourite superhero material out there since the Ray is ultimately just another cut out of the same cloth of "using my powers responsibly", with just shades of gay added on. I really wished that there was something that was somewhat unique about Ray other than his sexuality and his Earth-jumping backstory, but... eh. It's all right, for what it is.