The first half of the cartoon was very disappointing, it is boring, sluggish, the characters just chat against the background of gloomy surroundings, the detective element is poorly implemented. The attempt to dilute this uninteresting action was wretched to ridiculous - the magician called Dermodemon... Just like in the movie "Dogma," which has been sawed into memes for years. Oh, my God, I saw Batman fighting Devils... I thought I wouldn’t give more than 2 points after that.
Zatanna here is too sexualized, her huge chest (each the size of her head) is too overshadowed by the frame - why? That's not what this cartoon sits down to watch. She is emphatically grown-up and strong, and looks like the second Wonder Woman, and this is not her image, she should be younger and gentler. This contradiction is especially striking, since the feature films seem to be coordinated with the series “Young Justice”, where Zatanna is shown to be more fragile and young.
Batman was not needed in this movie. DC was afraid to make a cartoon entirely about little-known characters, so screwed Batman for PR, although the script almost does not give him a role, in the end he mostly stands and nods, and sometimes even helps as a sidekick, which makes it superfluous and pathetic.
Nevertheless, the second half managed to correct the impression in the most incredible way, starting with the scene on the swamp in the cartoon, its potential is revealed. The Swamp Thing was just gorgeous, every movement, every sound, every gesture. Very beautiful magic is how it should look, powerful, scary, infernal, and not as in one fairy tale about a spectacle boy. Two really beautiful action scenes, an unpredictable twist, beautiful denouements of a number of characters – everything is done perfectly. Honestly, I do not remember any examples of such a vivid rehabilitation of the film. A trick at the beginning, a great thing at the end.
It may seem that I mentioned the minuses more than the pros, but the fact is that these pros are more weighty. The most important thing is that the cartoon really works, it gives an impression, it has powerful scenes, it has a normal plot, it is beautiful and original. It's amazing how DC can consistently produce well-suited cartoons while still making such squalid movies.