Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts

The first of three DTV movies made to promote Mattel's action figure line of the same name. Batman, Nightwing, Flash, Green Arrow, and Red Robin team up to take on Penguin and his 'Animalitia' (Killer Croc, Cheetah, Man-Bat, and Silverback) and their plan to divert an asteroid known as the Midas Heart due to pass by Earth in order to get the gold at its centre.

Much of the voice cast has a solid history with DC; Roger Craig Smith (Batman), John DiMaggio (Killer Croc), Will Friedle (Nightwing), Phil LaMarr (Man-Bat), Charlie Schlatter (Flash), Laura Bailey (Cheetah), Keith Szarabajka (Silverback), Yuri Lowenthal (Red Robin), and Alastair Duncan (Alfred). Animation is pretty good (there are a couple of places where the action seems to 'jump' a little), as are the costume designs (a prototype Batsuit featured at the beginning is an obvious nod to Batman Beyond!). Gotham itself has a Blade Runner/sci-fi look, rather than the more familiar BTAS/Burton type of design. Dialogue, although corny at times, is pretty snappy.

This doesn't approach the depth of the DCAU, and it never claims to. It's just fun, with a feel of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, or the movie JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time. 7/10.

The only reason I gave this entry to the DC animated universe a five is because it's Batman. That's it. What we have here is a futuristic Gotham with the ol' good guys against the ol' bad guys scenario. The basic plot has the Penguin recruiting many of the animal super-villains--Cheetah, Silverback, Killer Croc, among others--to help pull off a heist of, ahem, cosmic proportions. Naturally, the good guys have to stop them and you can guess the rest.

First, the good points. Decent music, fast moving, some good fight sequences.

And now, the bad. The animation looks like it's been scaled down significantly. I'm not expecting Pixar. I am expecting something decent. This wasn't. Batman's suit (light blue) hearkens back to the late 1960's take and it doesn't suit (no pun intended) this day and age. His gold get-through-the-force-field suit reminded me of some lousy Japanese anime...double ungood.

As for the script, again, while War and Peace ain't on the menu, this makes Jack and Jill Go Up the Hill read like a masterpiece. Cheesy, poor humor, poorer lines...the one good thing was the voice cast that did what they could with their parts. I miss Kevin Conroy doing the voice of Batman. He had the bearing. His replacement sounds like a slightly younger version of him, but with no depth.

The actress doing Cheetah sounds like a whiny child, and I got zero sense of menace behind any of the baddies. Not their fault, really; 'twas the script that done 'em in.

Finally, all the old stereotypes of animals being what they are were trotted out, and quite frankly, that kind of thinking should have gone out fifty years ago.

I heard this direct-to-DVD effort was to sell toys. My only question is: How many? Nothing wrong with selling goods to the kiddies, but this video is an insult to any comic book/cartoon fan.

In the last 25 year, we've seen I believe four Batman animated series, ranging in quality from the Great ("Batman the Animated Series" from 1991) to the truly awful ("Beware the Batman"- a series so dreadful that the Cartoon Network buried it like radioactive waste. Twice.)

This look like it is in the same vein, with Batman's team of Nighwing and Red Robin teaming up with the "Two Guys Who Have Popular Live Action Series Right Now But I'm Sure That's A Co-incidence". (That would be the Green Arrow and Flash, BTW, for the Sarcasm Imparied.) So there is a series of crimes being carried out by out of town villains and robotic animals, all being co-ordinated by The Penguin who really doesn't even bother to hide his complicity. His grand scheme makes even less sense than Batman Returns.

Worth a watch? Sure. The animation looks nice. The voice work is good.

This is just a rotten cartoon. I honestly don't think it would entertain anyone over the age of six.

If you don't know what Batman Unlimited is, it's essentially a line Batman universe toys which, until now, didn't have any cartoon or comicbook to back them up. This movie attempts to do that for kids... but yeah, it's not even worth the $3.99 digital view price.

The first thing you'll notice on viewing it is that, unlike previous Direct-to-DVD DC Comics cartoons, this one doesn't fly under the "Warner Premier" banner. Meaning it has none the writing pedigree or production values of movies like "Under the Red Hood" or "Batman: Gotham Knight." And that shows in how full of plot holes and contrivances this toon is; such as the bat-dog-robot-motorcycle and the clumsy attempt to tie in the Batman Beyond suit, which is instantly forgotten to move on to the next in a line of "neon street luge batman" bat costumes you get throughout the viewing. Villains are given no more reason to work together and no more plot than the fact that they share an animal theme, and one of the heroes just happens to be hanging around Gotham City despite not even having a connection to Batman ever mentioned.

In other words, the movie is a 90 minute toy commercial, and it makes the original Thundercats and Silverhawks seem like Shakespeare by comparison.

Review batman unlimited

Remember those 1970s and 80s cartoons that were created just to con kids into buying toys? Well the trend is back, and Batman is jumping on the bandwagon. Sporting a brighter coloured new suit, a colourful supporting cast and equally multi coloured villains, BATMAN UNLIMITED: ANIMAL INSTINCT is based on the recent colourful toy line by Mattel. So colourful.

You all know the drill: hero team vs villain team. In this case, heroic Batman and pals vs the evil "Animalitia" in a citywide caper that sets the "kindness to animals" campaign back by a decade or so. The Penguin, Silverback, Cheetah, Manbat and KillerCroc are evil and want to.......no cheating now, that would be a spoiler. They want to do crime, so enter Batman N Pals Nightwing, Robin, Green Arrow and the Flash. Each one sporting a sharp pointy new look with "cool" spiked hair and diamond sharp chins. Not exactly a kid friendly toy design but.........kids seem to like this sort of thing.

A lighter tone and story for Batman can work if done well (see BRAVE AND THE BOLD). Unfortunately this is not done well. Whether intentional or not, the script sounds like it fits right in with the worst episodes of the 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sans the pizza. They might as well have left the pizza in though because the script is cheesy as heck. Jokes aren't funny, humour feels out of place, but the excellent cast do a fantastic job with the sub par material at hand.

Roger Craig Smith reprises his role of Batman after having played the character in some of the "Arkham" series of video games. I like his batman voice. Almost like a young Kevin Conroy. What I did not like was the horrible character design of Batman (or most of the characters for that matter).

Looking like some bad Gatchaman cosplay made with Power Ranger pyjamas, this new batman design is hilarious! The supporting cast ain't any better either; Everyone looks "stretched" and I already mentioned the silly hair. Everyone gets a cool weapon or gadget and the "money shot moment" where they get to show it off, while daddy gets another toy to add to junior's "Christmas wish list". Maybe it's not the production team's fault for the silly designs. Blame Mattel.

It is the production team's fault for the sub standard art and animation. Characters barely have any shadowing or shading on them except in the extreme close-ups, just lazy flat colouring otherwise. The backgrounds have this techy futuristic vibe that reminds me of BATMAN BEYOND but they are equally flat and look worse off than Batman Beyond's lower quality episodes. The animation is barely better with its inconsistent nature. You have scenes that are smooth moving, an easy feat thanks to the simplistic artwork. But you have a good number of scenes that look like a flash animated internet browser game. Robot animals don't transform much less "melt" from animal to motorbike. And i absolutely hate that cheapskate tactic of blurring key frames to create the illusion of movement! Some parts seem to be drawing from the worst excesses of Japanese anime with the speed lines and freeze frames, just more lazy animation at work.

Just because kids don't mind doesn't mean you give them animation on the cheap. If JLA TRAPPED IN TIME was the new millennium's "Superfriends", then BATMAN UNLIMITED is this decade's rehash of the 1970s "adventures of Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder". With production values of a TV series episode, perhaps this movie would be more suited as a pilot for a Saturday morning cartoon. Compared to other direct-to-video animation, this is ignorant fun for kids and a Cheesy, sub-par curiosity for adults who yearn for the nostalgic days of cartoons that sell toys.