Review of Batman Ninja (2018) by Fares I — 16 Jun 2018

Man this was not good. After a super hyped trailer coming in full speed I thought this was a definite win. Well sometimes style is just that style with no real substance. Batman Ninja is not a traditional DC Animated Universe film it was created by some well known Anime directors and given a Japanese twist.

Well.. that was the thought behind it because apparently the movie was changed drastically when it reached US shores with the dialogue being completely rewritten. What we get here is an anime like Batman inspired story that's pretty damn boring and overly long (and it's only an hour 25 minutes by the way).

The movie follows Batman (Roger Craig Smith) who is battling the Joker (Tony Hale) in Gotham City when they are transported suddenly to Feudal Japan. There Batman must find out what happened to the rest of his allies with the help of Catwoman (Grey Griffin) while avoiding the liked of the Joker, Harley Quinn (Tara Strong) and Gorilla Grodd (Fred Tatasciore).

So first off the animation here....is ok. I don't think it's mind blowing it mixes some anime elements in with cel shading which works sometimes and sometimes it just kinda looks boring since the movie itself doesn't have many locations.

The plot is really simple and it just doesn't move along well. I found myself dozing off 20 minutes into this movie and I knew it was going to be a rough one. Batman just doesn't feel like Batman here (as much as they keep trying to make it have that feel) and truthfully, the Japanese flair here just doesn't work.

It's hard to pinpoint since the action here is decent, but I just couldn't connect to anyone. I didn't enjoy this one and I think most fans should just avoid this one and check out another DC Animated Film instead.