Batman: Bad Blood

I liked Batman: Bad Blood, but it could have been tighter in the writing.

The many subplots dragged the potentially strong story down, because the summary of the movie sounded hell of a lot interesting. Instead we get a rather unfocused juggling of way too many characters in a way too short movie.

But I will say that I enjoyed a lot of what was presented in here, but after thinking about it one more time after finishing the movie it just felt like it lacked something.

Not a bad movie, but far from the best executed Batman movie I've seen.

Love animation and have really enjoyed to loved many superhero films, animated and live-action. Justice League has always interested me too. Of the DC animated films, there are some good ones out there as well as some disappointments.

'Batman: Bad Blood' is one of the bigger disappointments and towards the weaker half of the DC animated films. To me, it is not as bad as has been made out, there are some good qualities here, but agree with a lot of the criticisms made and feel it could have been much better. There was actually a good idea on paper here, this good idea just on the most part didn't make it on screen and this is a big shame.

Starting with the good things, the best thing about 'Batman: Bad Blood' is the animation. There are some very nice detailed backgrounds, the characters are designed well and the colours are dynamic and atmospheric. The music is both haunting and rousing, a good fit for the film's mood.

Alfred is awesome as one can hope, just wish there was more, and Dick and Nightwing are also handled well. The voice acting for the heroes is pretty decent, from especially Sean Maher, Stuart Allan and James Garrett. Jason O'Mara is credible as Batman, but has little to do. Morena Maccarin actually does a quite good job as Talia Al Ghul all things considered, that the character is disappointingly written does not rest at her door in terms of blame, it's the writers' fault entirely. Some of the action is well animated and has its thrills.

However, 'Batman: Bad Blood' does have a lot against it. Namely that it has too many characters (most of them handled in a way that underwhelms), trying to include too many subplots of very variable quality, crammed into a far too short running time, meaning that the film . As said, few of the characters are satisfactorily handled.

For a title that indicates that it's a Batman film, even when one is reading the film's summary, there is far too little of Batman and far too much of the significantly less interesting Batwoman, who is not an interesting or well explored character at all and is instead one-dimensional, clichéd and very difficult to like let alone engage with. Saw absolutely no point to the inclusion of Batwing, whose character suffers from all the problems with Batwoman except the screen time issue. A much better job could have been done with the villains, devoid of much menace or complexity on the whole with very vague motivations. The exception is the suitably mysterious Heretic, but needed more to do. Meanwhile Talia Al Ghul is particularly wronged here.

Writing on the most part takes simplicity to the extreme and becomes simplistic and feels stilted as well. So many cringe-worthy lines here. The main story was potentially interesting but wasn't gritty enough or focused on enough, even getting lost amidst the attempts at developing the new characters that come off unsuccessfully. It is agreed that the male villains' voice acting is too similar, mainly because at least three of them are in multiple roles that they all sound too samey in, John Di Maggio a particular example and usually Di Maggio is very good at voicing villains. While Steve Blum is a very talented voice actor and has often excelled in voicing villains, he's over-parted. The action on the most part lacks tension, and the far too easy, abrupt and insulting dispatching of some of the villains does them no justice.

In conclusion, disappointing but not unwatchable. 4/10 Bethany Cox

REVIEW FOR THE FILM: I have been a huge DC Comics fan for about 15 years. Read a ton of comics, read all the acclaim graphic novels, seen all the live and animated shows and movies, and have played all the video games. So I obviously have seen all the Original Animated movies from Doomsday to this. After the launch of the new 52 the original movies have taken elements from that. This has resulted in some okay to meh movies. So what about this movie? It's decent. Nothing too special but enough to keep me entertain and left me somewhat satisfied. This movie isn't anything new or groundbreaking like Under The Red Hood or Mask of the Phantasm but it is an improvement from Throne of Atlantis or Son of Batman. What are the pros? Good artwork, great fights, and was good to see characters from the comics make it here. Cons are somewhat poor story and villains, new characters could have been establish better, and the lack of Batman is disappointing. Over all it's was good. Again nothing to impressive but with this and Gods and Monsters it's an improvement from DC recent movies.

RESPONDS TO THOSE SAYING THIS MOVIE IS BEING POLITICAL CORRECT: For those complaining this movie being Political Correct READ SOME COMICS. Batwing has always been black since the new 52 and he was completely original character (like Batman Beyond Terry McGinnis) added to the Bat family. They didn't turn Dick Grayson or Red Hood black. Same thing can be apply to Kate Kane Batwoman except she was an already establish character who now just happens to like Woman. Seriously what a crime (Sarcasm). Some people have different traits and the creators decided to experiment around with that. Their traits does not push some diverse or LGT agenda. Batwing being black and Kate Kane being lesbian does not make affects this movie or story what so ever. They didn't have some transgender main character or some gay sex scene. An example of Political Correctness was turning the Human Torch from the most recent Fantastic Four movie black. He was an establish white characters and they turn him black for no good reason but for the sake of diversity. But Batwing being black and Batwoman being lesbian has nothing to do with political correctness. Hardly anyone is complaining about Cyborg or John Stewart being black because they were establish as black characters before Political Correctness was a thing so this should apply to Batwing or Batwoman. Complaining sounds idiotic and stupid. So stop complaining and being salty.

While on a routine patrol of Gotham City, Batman (Jason O'Mara) encounters a mysterious new villain known as Heretic (Travis Willingham). However during his investigation of this new evil, Batman goes missing and Batwoman (Yvonne Strahovski), a new addition to the Bat tree, was the last one to see him alive. Due to the absence of Batman, Gotham plunges into chaos and Alfred is forced recall both Damian (Stuart Allan) and Nightwing (Sean Maher). In order to fill the void of the Bat and restore order to Gotham, Nightwing must wear Bruce's mantel. In addition to temporarily being Batman, Dick must not only solve the mystery of his former mentor's disappearance, but keep his crime fighting family cohorts together.

Though Batman was fairly absent throughout this movie, I thoroughly enjoyed the new roster of crime fighters added to the roster. As many of us know, Batman's vast universe is constantly evolving as well as expanding and Jay Oliva masterfully presents us with a daunting dangerous universe that requires more then just the presence of Batman. That being said, it would be nice to see a future Batman movie that primarily centralizes on just Batman. A great area to focus on for such a project would be the Arkham atmosphere portrayed in the video games. In the end, the story, animation and music of Batman: Bad Blood made this animated Bat film an excellent addition to the DC animated film series.

7 stars.

I wasn't very impressed by this one. I like the look of the characters, for the most part. They don't sport the enormous jaws that a lot of the animated superheroes have. That's perhaps the best thing I can say.

The movie was OK, but not great.

The fighting and action didn't really look that good. Especially the fighting, was just too quick, lacked any real impact. The story is, well, it's OK. The voice acting was decent, but nothing special.

Some of the animation was a little sloppy, I caught a few mistakes here and there, but nothing too serious though.

Too many of the heroes are just normal people, with all kinds of gadgets. Now, that can be cool, but it was just a little too much for my taste. When characters can fly because of some kind of technology, I just don't like that. Also holograms are stupid.

A lot of these animated superhero features have a lot of cool stuff in them, awesome scenes, cool characters, but Batman: Bad Blood just lacked stuff that make you go: awesome!

With that being said, lots of cred and respect to the animators! I know how much work it is.