The modern DC Animated Universe has taken multiple recent acclaimed graphic novels of the past decade and turned them into animated movies, adding them to the storyline of the Bat-Family. The Court of Owls saga, for example, was slightly modified to include Damien Wayne, and became Batman Vs. Robin. I really thought that was a great adaptation, and if you read that book, the movie is one of the better uses of those characters. However, this movie falls flat on its face as an adaptation, since it spends most of its time and momentum trying to squish this novel's plot into its Bat-Family mold.
To start with what I liked about the movie and thought it did well, I thought that the voice acting choices were, for the most part, well thought out. There were a few exceptions, but we'll talk about them afterwards. The animation style is pleasant if you don't focus on it too much, and the fights were all pretty nice. It was enjoyable to see similar/same lines from the comic in the movie as well, especially when those same lines made me laugh out loud while reading the book. Over the course of the movie, the relationship between Batman and Catwoman had a lot of highlighting, which was very favorable since the book had that as well. The ending of their relationship, however, was one of the worst parts of the movie, but more on that in a bit. Lastly, whenever Alfred talked, all I could hear was Avatar Roku from Avatar: The Last Airbender, which warrants no complaints from me. Great job there.
Now, the stuff that made me retract in confusion or disdain:
Catwoman's voice actress, Jennifer Morrison, did a really good job as Selina Kyle, but a piss-poor one as Catwoman. It sounds like nobody told her that her character would be fighting in some of these scenes. She's always very calm and flat, which works for the refinement of Selina, but it's very jarring with Catwoman.
Every once in a while, the film would try to act like it was Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, with crazy deep dialogue and philosophy that made you think a lot. It is not that. The only real philosophy in the movie is in the last scene, where Catwoman decides to not pursue her relationship with Batman, which was some more nonsense that spawned from the DCAU not wanting to change the Bat-Family too permanently. She spits a few lines about how Bruce will never change, but her change was supposed to be toward the good that Batman represents by not killing people. Further, this entire conflict between them was an unnecessary push from the plot set forth by the killing of the Riddler. Just unnecessary and confusing through and through.
At numerous points in the movie, Batman is made to look like a complete dunce, or at least the way the movie plays out in relation to the book. For example:
In the book, Killer Croc (not Bane, like in the movie) is captured after Batman stops his kidnapping plot, and brought to Arkham. From there, Batman purposely angers Croc to get him to escape, and tails Croc out of Arkham to find who is behind the master plan, where he learns about Ivy's involvement. As Croc escapes, Batman ensures that no guards are seriously injured, and he makes a quick deal with Amanda Waller for her to wait a while before hunting down Croc so that Batman can get his information.
In the movie, Bane gets free, kills all the guards, and Waller captures Bane before Batman can learn anything from him. Like I said, not really that bad of a sequence, but if it were just a little bit different, it could have been awesome.
A couple more things:
The film is quite random in its adult content. Characters would just spout lines of lewd nonsense that threw a wrench into the tonal buildup during the movie. Damien rambling about condoms and the like. There was one exception to this, that being Joker, when being handcuffed, refers to the situation as "kinky." This is not contrary to the tone, you see, because he's the Joker, and that's how the Joker is.
Lastly, the scene where Batman is running around the bathroom smashing all the mirrors made no physical sense and took the movie from a 7 to a 6.
Overall, a movie worth a watch, but not a buy. Get it at a RedBox or something. Rent it on YouTube, but don't expect too much, especially if you read the book.
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