Review of Batman Ninja (2018) by John M — 22 May 2018

Just because you can make a Batman movie... So there is a time machine that Batman (Roger Craig Smith) manages to thwart at the last second, and in doing so, a large number of friends and foes get sent back to feudal Japan.

Because time travel is not an exact science (or something), Batman arrives two years after everyone else. In his absence, his entire rogues' gallery has established their domination on the entire country through technology.

.. and by technology I mean mechanized castles that are 100% mobile, and I am not making this up. I think I have finally done it: I feel fairly confident in saying that this is the craziest scenario for Batman, and I am including movies, television series, video games and comics.

No, even though I do consider myself to be well versed, I haven't seen every single thing out there for Batman, but I quite honestly can't imagine a story that is more throwing-feces-at-the-wall crazy than this one is here.

Now I had already heard about how bonkers this is, but with the things I was hearing about it, I viewed this as a case where seeing is believing. I even had the ending to this spoiled for me, and it did not deter me when it probably should have.

I'm not going to spoil it for you because that is not this kind of blog, but I will say that it makes no sense in any universe. I do think there is a bit lost in translation, as this was originally made in Japanese.

None of the jokes hit when there are pauses for laughter, and there are moments where you are waiting for a punch line that just isn't coming. I don't really do anime simply because I do not have that kind of time (or interest, really), and after watching a crossover like this, I'm going to continue with my staunch stance.

If I was looking for something nice to say about this, I would say that the artwork looks decent, but this movie is such a myriad of other problems, it ends up being an afterthought. Much like The Room, this movie just keeps on outdoing itself as it goes from crazy plot point to crazy plot point, and I should have known I was on the train to crazy town as soon as the first castle started walking.

I wouldn't say that it makes the following look great, but for me, this is the movie that makes the dreadful Batman & Robin look less like a train wreck and more like a misstep.