DC Comics might not be good at making live action movies but there animated movies are really good and on the flip side of that both there live action and animated shows are also really good heck one of those shows was good that it spawned an entire universe of shows some of much are online shows and here is my review of one such such Freedom Fighters: The Ray.
The set up for this show is Ray Terrill gains light based powers after Ray from Earth-X gets transported to his earth and dies and now it's up to Earth 1 Ray to become The Ray. Yeah there's no real plot to this series at all outside of that set up there's really nothing there in terms of plot which is a shame because this series could have been really good if it had a good story behind it.
Returning from other Arrowverse shows are Megalyn Echikunwoke as Mari McCabe , Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt , Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow , Melissa Benoist as Overgirl , Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon and Russell Tovey as Ray Terrill. Together they are joined by Jason Mitchell as John Trujillo Dilshad Vadsaria as Jenny Knight , Matthew Mercer as Black Arrow and Scott Whyte as Blitzkrieg (that's the Earth-X version of The Flash FYI).
Honestly the acting in the show was pretty good for the most part all of the arrowverse actors do deliver good performances but for some reason they chose to replace Stephen Amell and Grant Gustin not that the replacements are bad but if your doing a show set in an established universe it would make alot of sense to bring in the actors that viewers are used to seeing.
Honestly it's hard to say who did the animation it's either Warner Bros Animation or Blue Ribbon Content it is most likely Warner Bros tho and I do have to say that the animation for what is basically a web series is pretty good I didn't notice any animation errors and none of the characters limbs got any longer but you can tell that this was done on a budget and i'm guessing that the budget wasn't that high since the DC animated movies have better animation then this show does.
Now I did watch this show when the first season came out in December but the reason why I didn't do the review then is because there wasn't a story in those first six episodes which was a shame because I did like the show but watching it now that both seasons have been released I can say that it's not that good it's a prequel to the Crisis on Earth-X crossover but outside of The Ray and a few characters none of the characters that appeared in those episodes make an appearance.
To add to the confusion Cisco in those crossover episodes makes to reference to the fact that he knows The Ray nor knows of the existence of Earth-X (which for those who don't know is a world where the nazis won) so as a prequel it doesn't make any sense since the only thing it really explains is why and how Earth 1 Ray is there and how he got his powers and that's it.
The series does start of strong with the first two episodes mainly being set on Earth-X and basically setting up that it's a bad place to live (insert New Jersey joke here) and I do like that we get to spend some time with Earth 1 Ray before he suits up as The Ray since it does make us care for him alot more when he does get into a fight but tho Ray kinda feels like a side character in his own show often taking the backseat to either the villains on Earth-X or the other arrowverse characters it's something that could have been fixed if they wrote this series after the crossover episodes came out and not before.
I've seen alot of people complain about the fact that each episode is around five to eight minuets each and for me that's not really a problem since most cartoons these days are around eleven minuets per episode so having a show or in this case a series of shows be a bit shorter then that isn't an issue but at the same time I do see where they are coming from since if it's a good show like Vixen then of course you'd want the episodes to be longer but this is first and foremost a web series so chances of us getting twenty two minuet episodes aren't as likely.
Like I said before the first twp episodes of this show are set on Earth-X and there also one of the few action filled episodes and I have to say that the action in this show is pretty well done we get to see alot of The Ray's powers as well as other members from the Freedom Fighters and it's when those action scenes are on that I wish the episodes were longer because there one of the few good things about this show.
Overall this is not the best show that is based in the arrowverse heck it's not even the best animated show set in that world that honor to me goes to Vixen and what I found out is that like Vixen this show is getting both of it's two seasons edited together for a home video release this show does have a lot of flaws and I mean alot so it gets a 6 out of 10 from me.